joy

[dobro]

Third track from Wonderful:

http://www.nowhereradio.com/cgi-bin/interface.pl?action=upload

Here's some of the background to the cluster of three songs up at Nowhere. A month or two ago, CyanJaguar and I were talking about how audible various resolutions were to various people. I offered to post three songs which were NOT recorded at the same resolution, to see if he could hear the difference. Pretty tough, right - all three songs got dithered down to 16/44, and then converted to mp3. The two resolutions were 16/44 and 24/48. However, like a complete asshole, I managed to dump the lower resolution takes one day while I was sorting through various takes and getting rid of the ones I didn't like the sound of. So what you hear here are all 24-bit takes, recorded at either 44.1 or 48 KHz.

So I have to offer my apologies to Cyan for screwing up. I didn't realize it until tonight when I checked the resolutions in Cool Edit. What a drag. This was going to be *fun*. Now it's just embarrassing.

 

[Slackmaster2K]

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/rockpop/dobro/#

Another nice one. And this time I can hear the vocals!!!

I really dig the guitar riff when you say "joy". Again I like the vocal instrumentation as well. Another catchy yet mature song!

I don't think that the 24/16 bit thing would have been that interesting in this case. I could post a hundred clips of various sounds recorded at various bit depths and nobody would know the difference. Consider this analogy: 24bit color is certainly more natural than 16bit color, but can you tell the difference in an graphic that only contains 256 colors? Of course not. In a simple mix from sources recorded with a prosumer soundcard, I'm not sure that 24 bits is going to make a massive difference. So you've got a relatively cheap microphone positioned perhaps not perfectly in some room in your house, and the signal is going into a relatively cheap preamp going into inaccurate converters. No, I'm not at all convinced that 16 vs 24 bits at the source (in an amature setup) is always going to make much of a difference. Now as the mixes get more complex, yes the difference at that point is noticable, and getting 24 at the source, whilst it might not be an accurate 24, is still going to be better when you start mixing than 16 with some zeros tagged on. That's my take this year anyhow. See me again in 12 months

Slackmaster 2000

 

[dobro]

I feel lousy about this. I suppose I should offer to do it again, and do it right this time. Not that I've got any credibility left.

 

[CyanJaguar]

no worries dobro.

Good thing I had that disclaimer in there no?

Ok, what mic are you using. If thats the ntk, it sounds fair.

Which one was 44.1 vs 48. Low clearly sounds better than tip. I am guessing that low was 48.

 

[pglewis]

This has a great feel (very solid guitar work, too). If I gave a shit about the production I'd say the vocal sounds too "tinny" and midrange-y or somethin'... for my taste. But I don't give a shit 'cause the song is cool. Loved the demented little "scat" break at around 1:20.

 

[dobro]

Cyan - sorry about the delay - I've had a hard drive crash and I'm in the middle of internet connection problems that defy logic and deduction.

Tip was recorded at 24/44. Low and Joy were recorded at 24/48. Well done, you.

Vocals were recorded with an NTK through a Joemeek VC6Q (they sound clearly better with an AKG through a Mindprint Envoice). If the vocals sound at all good, it's because of the mic, and not because of the pre or mic placement.

pglewis - I think it's too thin, too, but you're the only one that mentioned it aside from Cyan, perhaps. I'm not sure how to spend the next $600 - on monitors to help me get the EQ right, or on getting the software/hardware to get some reverb and useful compression on vocals.

 

[kristian]

FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!

i like everything you 've posted in the past couple days.

I gotta say this about music lately. Everybody is looking for "the sound" and its killing me. I've always thought albums or songs that have a unique feel to the SOUND of the music adss a whole lot. Eventually if a band releases a unique "sound" then that becomes "the sound" to achieve, and soon becomes boring for all but that classic album or song that was original. Your recordings of acoustic guitar sound nice, and i don't know if thats how your voice really sounds, but i like it. Its unique and there is something that doesn't sound like you sat down in somene elses oom with their mic positition etc. I'm sick of it.

Did you notice that people have only heard acoustic guitars in rock (american mainstream) music lately via unplugged etc. via those piezo pickups. and all of a sudden thats what the masses recognise as acoustic guitar and now thats what people try to get miced proper acoustics to sound like that CRAP. it pisses me off. its all attack, tinny sounds like shit.

I like the body of the acoustic you were playing, it was decisively like a guitar you would hear while sitting next to someone playing.

 

[dobro]

Well, okay then. The way I got the sound I got was by recording/listening and adjusting appropriately and recording/listening again. So, if that approach produced a listenable sound, then presumably it's an approach worth trying again with some compression on the vocals so the lyrics are more evident (I agree with Slack) and some reverb on everything (I agree with Ed). I want the words to get heard, and I want the sound to be as beautiful as I can make it.

See, I'm not looking for 'the sound' or any particular sound - I'm looking for a sound that works well and that I like and which other people like. Balance.

The real leap of faith is in taking on the feedback from people like Emeric and my wife, for whom lip trumpet doesn't quite make it. The only way round that is to get somebody else to do solos and take breaks. And even if I take that particular leap, the practical problem is how to carry it out. Imagine you played good violin or trumpet or oboe or guitar and I said to you something like: "Okay, we're not going to play live, and there's no money to be made from the CDs we burn of our stuff, but I want you to get deeply involved in these songs I've written and copyrighted in my name, and you get your name on the CD and the performance copyright." What would you say? Yeah, right...

I appreciate your comments though, and I'm glad you liked the music.

And then, there's the question of whether my throat will ever heal and whether I'll ever do another album.