KVR Audio

RichieBee · Post by **RichieBee** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 9:27 pm

I've been working with a wonderful singer, and a wonderful arranger, and some decent musicians last couple of days, and have a couple of short (30 second) demos to get some opinions on mix. I know its impossible to really be objective on a 30 second sample, but if anyone has any comments, good or bad, I'd like to hear them. Wouldn't put the whole tracks up without the singers express permission (even though she knows a condition of the demo is that we use it for training purposes.

First one is a traditional tune... sounds like it comes from Shrek (in fact that's what we've nicknamed it). Beautiful arrangement, and wonderful singing -

www.richiebee.ca/swallowdemo.mp3

Instrumentation is voice , piano, two violins, viola, cello and guitar

www.richiebee.ca/gloamingdemo.mp3

Instrumentation is voice (harmony is overdubbed) and piano.

This is an audio demo, not sequencing - all instruments are real with no added effects.

Rich

danielmm · Post by **danielmm** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 1:35 am

Rich,
some nice demos there...it's too bad we only get 30 secs....tough to get a real good feel for it with such a short sample.

it sound great to me though...what did you use to record and where did you do it?

dano

RichieBee · Post by **RichieBee** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 11:07 am

danielmm wrote:Rich,
some nice demos there...it's too bad we only get 30 secs....tough to get a real good feel for it with such a short sample.

it sound great to me though...what did you use to record and where did you do it?

dano

Unfortunately, the singer flew out for a trip this morning, so I won't be in contact with her until she gets back... I'm not even sure how long that will be. Once she's back, I'll ask if I can post her tracks for full review.

Its one of my first times with ProTools and Control24 recorded in my (I say my... I didn't buy it, but I do manage it) concert hall, pictured here - http://www.richiebee.ca/photos/misc/pchall.jpg . The wood panels are wonderful in a concert setting, but they're a b*#$% for getting separation. So... this is where I work.

The point of doing this as far as I was concerned was to find my way around ProTools. For her, it was to do a demo. I think it turned out well. The hall, for all its wonderful surfaces, is not as quiet as I'd like - can hear a truck going by at the end of one of the tracks, something I'm going to take up with our facilities people. You don't pay way over premium to get a well sound insulated room, and find that its not insulated at all.

I miked the violins and viola with Neumann KM184's, the piano (a 9' Kawai) with a pair of KM183's, the guitar with an AKG C414 and the vocals with several C414's (one for the main vocal, and a pair for the room ambience. We originally tried to record her in the control booth, and added plugin reverb, but then we tried a track with her singing with piano in the hall itself, and there was no contest. The room sound is way better than any plugin reverb we have (we have Waves Diamond) so we redid all the vocals with her in the hall.

I'm monitoring with a pair of Adam S2A's and a pair of Sennheiser HD580 headphones. Unfortunately, we've not completed acoustic treatment of our control room yet, so monitoring is a little sketchy.

Rich

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 12:18 pm

not really my thing to be honest,but nice nonetheless,too short to make a proper assessment.

there does seem to be a little vocal clipping?(distortion) on swallow?
could be my speakers tho

nice clean recordings otherwise.nice to hear this kind of stuff here for a change,even if it isnt stuff i would normally listen too.as musicians ourselves its good to feed off as much different stuff as is available

keep em comin

RichieBee · Post by **RichieBee** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 4:22 pm

vurt wrote:not really my thing to be honest,but nice nonetheless,too short to make a proper assessment.

there does seem to be a little vocal clipping?(distortion) on swallow?
could be my speakers tho

nice clean recordings otherwise.nice to hear this kind of stuff here for a change,even if it isnt stuff i would normally listen too.as musicians ourselves its good to feed off as much different stuff as is available

keep em comin

I don't hear distortion, and don't see it in PT either, however this is normalized very close to the mark. Last night when I was listening to it on my computer, the very loud part of swallow distorted until I turned off the {very mild) EQ that I had set in Windows Media Player.

This isn't something I'd listen too either... most of my job consists of listening to stuff I wouldn't choose to listen to, mostly classical. Gotta say though, I've absolutely fallen in love with this girl's singing (she's quite hot too), and the pianist who did the arrangements is a bloody genius if you ask me. I've known him for a while and worked with him on several projects, usually as a musician. I'm always impressed with his arrangements and choice of songs. The way he knows exactly what to play without rehearsal floors me every time, and his ability to play musical quotes no matter how obscure the subject, is unbelievable.

R.

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 4:57 pm

could be mp3 artefacts if your wav is normalised that high,and yeah very talented musicians no doubting that,just a taste thing

think to be honest this kind of vocal work is impressive in situ,ie on stage and as a performance rather than recordings.for me personally anyway
as i said tho nice to hear different influences in here anyway as it pushes n pulls us all in one way or another

danielmm · Post by **danielmm** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 9:10 pm

Rich,
Is that hall in St.John's?....but most importantly, do you have a picture of the singer!

dano

RichieBee · Post by **RichieBee** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 10:48 pm

danielmm wrote:Rich,
Is that hall in St.John's?....but most importantly, do you have a picture of the singer!

dano

The hall is part of the School of Music at Memorial University in St. John's. It was opened in March. It has some issues with isolation from the outside noise which I'm hoping will be rectified soon, but sounds nice. Very rich for a 130 seat theatre.

Found a piccy of the singer on the internet...

RichieBee · Post by **RichieBee** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 11:50 pm

vurt wrote:could be mp3 artefacts if your wav is normalised that high,

Yeah... know what? I did a CD copy today from a mix I did this morning from this stuff, and the wav's are fine, but the CD is distorted to all hell. Interesting... seems I really need to keep well away from unity.

and yeah very talented musicians no doubting that,just a taste thing

Yeah.. sorry if I sounded pissed off at your comments. I really wasn't, but reading them back, I can see how you might think I was!

think to be honest this kind of vocal work is impressive in situ,ie on stage and as a performance rather than recordings.for me personally anyway

That may be why I'm so attached to it, because I was there when it was conceived. I certainly wouldn't normally choose to listen to this kind of stuff at all, though I do like the music from Shrek!

as i said tho nice to hear different influences in here anyway as it pushes n pulls us all in one way or another

Yup, absolutely.

Rich

gordon_freeman · Post by **gordon_freeman** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 1:26 am

WoW!!

This music is really great! I'm speaking about just music, not this recording and sound quality (of course it's excellent tho). This really impresses me, and I decided to go to nearest CD's shop and buy something like that. But got a problem. I never listen to such music, usually I listen to rock and club music, and I just dont know what to ask in the shop when I came to there... Can you advice me something?

I really like how's this voice sounding, and piano, too... People like me use to name such music "classical", but I'm afraid if I come to a shop and say "gimme classical" I'll be dissapointed, because there is alot of sh**t in classical... Like Bach. hehe... IMHO. So who sings such songs in this "vintage gothic" style (sorry I've created the name of the style myself

just dont know how to name it).

RichieBee · Post by **RichieBee** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:22 am

gordon_freeman wrote:WoW!! This music is really great! I'm speaking about just music, not this recording and sound quality (of course it's excellent tho). This really impresses me, and I decided to go to nearest CD's shop and buy something like that. But got a problem. I never listen to such music, usually I listen to rock and club music, and I just dont know what to ask in the shop when I came to there... Can you advice me something? I really like how's this voice sounding, and piano, too... People like me use to name such music "classical", but I'm afraid if I come to a shop and say "gimme classical" I'll be dissapointed, because there is alot of sh**t in classical... Like Bach. hehe... IMHO. So who sings such songs in this "vintage gothic" style (sorry I've created the name of the style myself just dont know how to name it).

The genre of song is traditional Celtic. These are folk songs. There is a huge link between Newfoundland and Ireland. We share folk songs, and styles, and I'm not sure of the exact origin of these particular songs but I'd say its origins are in one or other of these places.

I'll ask my buddy Brian for some recommendations.

Rich

Rich

Seeking comments on two demo mixes