KVR Audio

EdSevered · Post by **EdSevered** » Sun Feb 12, 2017 9:12 pm

Just wanted to share. Rock & Roll Inventions, a new series on The Smithsonian Channel, is really very interesting and educational. There's alot of cool behind-the-scenes history with commentary from quite a few producers and artists. The first episode is about the evolution of recording studios, production and technology.

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Sun Feb 12, 2017 11:34 pm

I started a thread about this and nobody cared so I had a tissy and locked it

It's really quite excellent.

EdSevered · Post by **EdSevered** » Sun Feb 12, 2017 11:58 pm

I've found it to be fascinating, so far. I just started watching this weekend, had it on the DVR.

EdSevered · Post by **EdSevered** » Mon Feb 13, 2017 4:27 pm

Where else are you going to see the genesis of the electric guitar, or Rick Wakeman noodling around on his synths while professing his love for his miniMoog? Or see a Mellotron synth in action? Or hear MIDI talked about on television?

Well, possibly youtube, I suppose. That's beside the point.

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Mon Feb 13, 2017 9:21 pm

Or our favorite rick-roller "never gonna" being sampled and repeated.

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Wed Feb 15, 2017 10:41 pm

Just finished the "synth" one. I agree with Gary Newman

Edit: I wondered when they were going to do it.

The episode is the "efx" one. At first it was great. Talking about fx, echo chambers, but then it went wonky. Then it was as if they were basically re-using stuff from other shows. Then, they started talking about samplers. I wondered why I was getting hives, then w/o any kinda buildup it went completely crip hop. Basically playing the race card (talking about Kraftwork) and dismissing anything else done with a sampler to make sure it was all about crip hop.

Why not just have a separate one about how that is the only good thing that happened to music?

You know that is what everyone thinks.

EdSevered · Post by **EdSevered** » Thu Feb 16, 2017 2:24 pm

I haven't seen the EFX episode, yet. I'm not a big hip-hop fan. From your critique, it sounds like they were "sampling" the previous shows.

But hoping that the last episode, described as about live productions, helps to answer for me a question that has been bugging me: With all the sound processing and manipulation that takes place during the recording/production process, how does any artist manage to play their music live without some level of pre-recorded sound mixed in with the live, or real-time application of effects, or even "lip-syncing"?

In fact, I am going to open another thread, and ask that question to the team.

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Thu Feb 16, 2017 2:48 pm

Seems interesting. Do you have a link to get us going? Thanks ...

EdSevered · Post by **EdSevered** » Thu Feb 16, 2017 2:52 pm

Aloysius wrote:Seems interesting. Do you have a link to get us going? Thanks ...

http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows ... ns/1004509

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Thu Feb 16, 2017 3:14 pm

Looks like an app (etc) is needed to view the videos.

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Tue Feb 21, 2017 1:39 am

I've decided after seeing a few of these to re-name this show the "you really got me show"

annode · Post by **annode** » Wed Mar 01, 2017 12:31 am

PBS aired one of those music series earlier;
"Soundbreaking: Stories From the Cutting Edge of Recorded Music"
http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.js ... age=search
This series was also disappointing 'for me'.
They also did the hip-hop 'movement' (How to use new technology to steal when you've got nothing else going on creatively)
The old series episodes from VH1 'Classic Albums' were some of the best i've seen.

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Wed Mar 01, 2017 2:59 am

That WAS really good. ^^

Frankly, I don't care that "hip hop" was mentioned, but the way they just shoved it in there and played the race card. I'd would much rather have heard more about the sampler and all of it's genesis. They did do that earlier with our best buddy, mr "rick roll" and I had no idea that "never gonna" is all sampled from one take with the "bring you down" and such being the "real" part.

Ultimately I'm complaining about how they swept apart the "rock and roll" and "inventions" and tried slight of hand.

planetearth · Post by **planetearth** » Wed Mar 01, 2017 3:07 am

annode wrote:PBS aired one of those music series earlier;
"Soundbreaking: Stories From the Cutting Edge of Recorded Music"
http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.js ... age=search
This series was also disappointing 'for me'.
They also did the hip-hop 'movement' (How to use new technology to steal when you've got nothing else going on creatively)
The old series episodes from VH1 'Classic Albums' were some of the best i've seen.

The PBS series was basically a re-packaged version of what Sir George Martin did a few years earlier in Britain. That's why you see him in several of the episodes, even though he died in March, 2016. Judging by how Martin looked (and some of the other artist references) in the videos, I'd say they were done in 2012 or so.

These shows on the Smithsonian Channel are better IMO, too. They're interviewing top-notch artists, but also people who know their products (like the VP at Fender who can play and talk about the guitar). Haven't seen the others yet, though the preview for the synth episode didn't light my fire. "Oh, look...it's a bunch of knobs on a Moog."

Steve

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Wed Mar 01, 2017 3:12 am

Well, the keyboard one was excellent. And who better than Rick Wakeman to have

Rock & Roll Inventions - Smithsonian Channel