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Drink-Mix Man posted:On a track like this: https://soundcloud.com/colorcode-1/night-owl, which (except for the drums) was just recorded to one track, how would one remove the crazy ear-splitting frequencies while still keeping the effect of me fiddling with my keyboard's resonance knob throughout? With my usual EQ (or any other VSTs I have), I can't seem to figure out how to cut or even identify the harsh stuff without taking out something else I like. Am I asking for too much? In your eq plugin if you take one of the frequency points and amplify it as much as possible while making the q as small as possible you'll end up with a spike that you can sweep around that will intensify a very narrow range of frequencies, and once you find the noise that is causing you grief then just bring that same spike down below 0db until it stops being so sharp, and repeat as necessary as there might be more than one of these hot spots. Plugins like Ozone have a feature where you can isolate the frequency that you are clicking on so you can sweep around and do the same sort of thing but just a bit more directly. I think parametric eq plugins are better for surgical removal of frequencies so use one of those if you have one, linear phase EQs can affect the surrounding frequencies when notching like this.
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Jan 24, 2015 02:59
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Drink-Mix Man posted:On a track like this: https://soundcloud.com/colorcode-1/night-owl, which (except for the drums) was just recorded to one track, how would one remove the crazy ear-splitting frequencies while still keeping the effect of me fiddling with my keyboard's resonance knob throughout? With my usual EQ (or any other VSTs I have), I can't seem to figure out how to cut or even identify the harsh stuff without taking out something else I like. Am I asking for too much? You can tame those frequencies with a multiband compressor or a good de-esser (which is a special case multiband compressor). Ideally you'd want to set as narrow a band as you can get away with and automate the center frequency to match the frequency of the peaks (on most de-esser plugins that rather means automating both upper and lower freq simultaneously instead). On a multiband compressor, use only one band and deactivate the others. Lots of work, and if you can live with the overall mix being slightly different, you can well get away with widening the band and more or less compressing the whole region between 800Hz-2000Hz to hell. Use your ears, though. Anyway, that's the theory and from the testing I did on a couple of second long fragments, it should work really well.
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Jan 24, 2015 03:04
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I think the usual way is to set a band with a big boost and a super narrow Q, and pan it until the frequency you want to isolate is mega loud. A spectrum analyser might help you see where it's peaking, and then a really narrow notch might be enough to kill any harshness without affecting the rest of the sound too much Or another option is a multiband compressor, which works by compressing a frequency range instead of the whole shebang at once. That way you could have it turn down any screeching that goes over the threshold, but get out of the way for the rest of it. Like an EQ band that only notches when it needs to, if you like beaten comprehensively! I'll see myself out 
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Jan 24, 2015 03:05
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baka kaba posted:beaten comprehensively! I'll see myself out baka kaba posted:Like an EQ band that only notches when it needs to, if you like
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Jan 24, 2015 03:19
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I picked up a "Texas Audio DS-7000" off craigslist today for $40. Short of some scratchy faders, which I plan on cleaning with Deoxit, it seems to work just fine. My question is: has anyone ever heard of this brand? A google search turned up nothing which is rather disconcerting. I'm not experienced enough to assess whether or not this is a good mixer, but I figure if it were halfway-decent, somebody would be talking about it. The only reason I'm remaining optimistic about it is because the same guy sold me a Boss SP-505 for $30--which sells for around $200 on ebay. Hell, assuming that he applied the same discount, this thing should be worth around $250, right? Haha all jokes aside, does anyone know anything about this mixer? For reference: 
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Jan 28, 2015 04:28
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For some reason the domain of cheap dj mixers -even today- has always been one riddled with tiny brands you won't even find a website for. I bought the exact same mixer second hand in 2007 or so for 50€. This was in Belgium and though I don't remember what was printed on the front, I feel like I would have remembered Texas Audio. Possibly it was Realistic or another 80s Radio Shack or Tandy store brand. Because that's where you'd buy equipment for that in those days. Dj'ing was too low brow for musical instrument stores. If it all works, $40 isn't being ripped off exactly, but it's not a diamond in the rough or anything. Cheap mixers of that age have a relatively high level of self noise. Per se, there isn't anything wrong with it otherwise. It's just a budget prdouct. The main reason $40 is acceptable though, is that a new five channel mixer would cost you a multitude of that. Even in the current day budget range, think $150 or something. Take a look at this "Lux Sound mx 6550" for sale in Argentina that I found by googling for the wonderful phrase "effect sound machine".  It's the same thing apart from the metering that drops the vu meters for those newfangled LEDs. You will find not a single shred of information on Lux Sound either. Compare it with what happens today. A supermarket doesn't have its own division designing store brand washing machines. They just shop on AliBaba and have the chinese print their brand on something possibly halfway decent they can get for a good price. Now imagine small 80s mom-and-pop electronics chains with three stores doing the same thing because they want a mixer in their product line. If it's old enough, those would have been built in Japan instead of China, though. Perhaps they were visited by an enterprising intermediary who took care of importing the poo poo and printing the front plate and all that. Who knows what people did without the internet. It wouldn't have been big players though, like Aldi these days importing things around the world through their Medion/Lifetec/Topcraft brands. It's important to realize that we've only been storing records of such obscure poo poo since the nineties with the internet. Anything before that, unless it was popular or had special merit is lost in obscurity. I have a mediocre string synthesizer, designed and built in Italy in the seventies and googling the whole brand will net you around five pages on Google. One of those is mine, trying to aggregate any information I found about it. The others are about a vst plugin that sampled it because they had a working one lying around. That's a whole brand, making and selling probably a couple of hundreds or maybe thousands of synths across Europe and it would have disappeared completely if it weren't for three or four people stumbling upon one of them and becoming curious about it.
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Jan 28, 2015 14:38
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Wow! Thank you for the thorough response. After googling "sound effect machine mixer" I found what looks to be the exact same product on--you guessed it--the Radioshack website: http://www.radioshack.com/radioshack-4-channel-mixer-with-usb-and-sound-effects/3200026.html#.VMjp8f54rig So it looks like sells for $100 new....not quite the bargain I was hoping for. Ah well, that's what I get for buying something without doing my research first.
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Jan 28, 2015 14:57
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The new one has light up faders and usb in  Anyway, clean it up with a microfibre cloth and a dab of linseed oil soap, de-oxit the poo poo out of the faders and you'll find someone else you can offload it on for about the same $40. There's no shame in that.
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Jan 28, 2015 15:23
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I hope this is the right thread to ask general "theory" kind of questions. There's an accordion solo at about the 2:40 mark in the song Come with Me Now by The Kongos. The beat kind of transitions from what I would describe is "normal" to what I would describe as "really cool." My question is, toward the end of the solo, is that an example of syncopation? If not, what is it? if you can't tell, I really don't have any idea what I'm talking about.
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Feb 12, 2015 07:29
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Yeah, it's kind of hard to figure out what you're talking about, but I think you're talking about how in the rest of the song, the beats are pretty heavy and then they're not in the accordion solo? Basically the rest of the song the bass drum is playing the beat really heavy, like 1 2 3 4 etc. But during the accordion solo, the drummer stops using the bass drum entirely and just does rim taps (not the correct phrase, I have no idea what the correct word is) on the snare drum. Also, and I think this is the part you find cool, instead of emphasizing the beats like he was before, he emphasizes the notes between the beats. If the beat normally goes like this: 1+2+3+4+ then the accordion solo beat goes like this: 1+2+3+4+ The + is short for "and" by the way. So if you said the beat you like out loud, you would say "One AND two AND three AND four AND." Is that syncopation? Yes, mostly. It's sort of not since he's still playing on the beat, just not as accented. You could also call it "offbeats" because the emphasis is off the beat.
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Feb 12, 2015 07:52
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Drummer here. I think the main appeal to the phrase is that the drummer stops playing the bass drum. Up until this point in the song he's been playing upbeats on the hihat, and the only difference is the orchestration to playing on the snare rim (not "side stick" or "rimshots"). He does fuss it up with a couple extra notes, but they're not the main focus.
Jazz Marimba fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 16:02
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Interesting! It's frustrating not having the vocabulary to express what I am trying to say. I'm talking solely about the accordion playing. At about 2:37, the accordion guy plays one... beat? (I don't know what the right term is) I believe it repeats six times. Then from 2:48 to 2:53 he switches to some other, shorter beat? and plays that four times. It's that second beat that catches my attention. It seems like the third note is more drawn out than the others or something. Does that make any sense?
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Feb 12, 2015 22:59
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Kobayashi posted:Interesting! It's frustrating not having the vocabulary to express what I am trying to say. I'm talking solely about the accordion playing. At about 2:37, the accordion guy plays one... beat? (I don't know what the right term is) I believe it repeats six times. Then from 2:48 to 2:53 he switches to some other, shorter beat? and plays that four times. It's that second beat that catches my attention. It seems like the third note is more drawn out than the others or something. Does that make any sense? I'm not at home so I can't listen to it again, but you'd call the repeated thing a "lick." Or a repeated phrase or even a motif (that last one is a bit of a stretch though). But calling it a lick makes you sound cool. Licks are just cool bits of music, they are not necessarily repeated. Phrases are the same. Motifs ARE repeated, but they're usually present throughout a piece of music, not just in a solo. If I was to rewrite your question, I'd say something like "I'm trying to figure out what's going on in this accordion solo. The first lick he repeats is okay, but that second one is just awesome. What is going on there?" I'll check it out again later today unless someone beats me.
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Feb 13, 2015 00:03
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While we're on the subject of that song: any idea how they're getting that guitar tone? Ha. by using a pedal steel.
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Feb 13, 2015 01:16
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I think you mean how the beat is swung. The main beat is falling on the handclaps, but there's an off beat just before each one, so it's going buh-daaa buh-daaa buh-daaa buh-daaa where the daaas are the handclaps. The accordion starts off like buh-daaaaaa daaaa, basically dragging out that second note until the next daaa on the beat, but after a couple of bars it starts cutting short and adding in the buh. It's playing around with those for the whole riff, adding them in or letting the note drag out to add the skippiness and a bit of push and pull Look up swing and shuffle beats if you're not sure what I'm on about. Here's a dude playing a thing I found with a quick search https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9_SMhqbpnE
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Feb 13, 2015 01:20
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Is learning to play the mandolin any more difficult than learning to play the acoustic guitar?
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Feb 13, 2015 03:12
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Kobayashi posted:Interesting! It's frustrating not having the vocabulary to express what I am trying to say. I'm talking solely about the accordion playing. At about 2:37, the accordion guy plays one... beat? (I don't know what the right term is) I believe it repeats six times. Then from 2:48 to 2:53 he switches to some other, shorter beat? and plays that four times. It's that second beat that catches my attention. It seems like the third note is more drawn out than the others or something. Does that make any sense? Okay, hold on - can you link the video that you're referencing with these times? I used this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz2GVlQkn4Q and the accordion solo doesn't even start until 2:51. edit: baka kaba posted:I think you mean how the beat is swung. It's not that, because this song is in straight eighths. Unless I'm just listening to some weirdass version of this song.
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Feb 13, 2015 03:57
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Volcott posted:Is learning to play the mandolin any more difficult than learning to play the acoustic guitar? Do you have tiny hands? If yes, they are tuned EADG, super easy to transition between the two. Big hands? Good luck. vv Edit: ignore me, I've only ever tried to smash my giant sausage fingers into those tiny frets once before, and I had noted it was tuned like a bass. vv pointlessone fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Feb 13, 2015 |
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Feb 13, 2015 04:03
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pointlessone posted:Do you have tiny hands? If yes, they are tuned EADG, super easy to transition between the two. Big hands? Good luck. Mandolins are tuned in fifths
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Feb 13, 2015 04:08
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I have enormous hands and stubby fingers. Guess I won't be mandolining any time soon. Thanks for the quick replies.
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Feb 13, 2015 05:26
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Hawkgirl posted:It's not that, because this song is in straight eighths. Unless I'm just listening to some weirdass version of this song. I mean the accordion player's swinging a bit, and those almost ghost notes seem to be what the OP is talking about
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Feb 13, 2015 06:06
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pointlessone posted:Do you have tiny hands? If yes, they are tuned EADG, super easy to transition between the two. Big hands? Good luck. This is unhelpful advice. There are plenty of very accomplished mandolin players with large hands. It's certainly still worth trying the instrument out if you're interested in it. You may find that there are things you need to do to compensate for hand shape, or you may find that it never becomes an issue.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:18
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I have massive ham hands only good for playing Ramones tunes and I love loving around with mandolin.
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Feb 13, 2015 19:41
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My fiancee is wanting to learn how to play the fiddle. I've found what seems like a decent one on amazon, but I know gently caress-all about them. Anyone have any recommendations for a nice, not crazy expensive fiddle/violin for a beginner?
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Feb 13, 2015 21:02
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Soysaucebeast posted:My fiancee is wanting to learn how to play the fiddle. I've found what seems like a decent one on amazon, but I know gently caress-all about them. Anyone have any recommendations for a nice, not crazy expensive fiddle/violin for a beginner? Shar Music online has a decent reputation for starter violins. A $65 complete kit is not likely to carry your fiancee very far, but for about $200 you can probably get something playable. I briefly had the Shar Amadeus model, which is their lowest end violin, and a friend of mine who is a good violinist tried it out and said that it wasn't bad. It's not going to win any awards for sound or physical beauty, but it will let your fiancee learn without having to fight a warped or otherwise lovely instrument.
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Feb 13, 2015 23:01
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I've been playing in a sort of "memory-enhancing" manner up to now (and also with increasing emphasis on my non-musical hobbies, but that's mostly beside the point), that is, learning a song and adding it to a catalogue of sorts from which I take songs randomly to practice. But lately I've been trying to record myself, and basically it seems regardless of how diligent I am I can never do a perfect recording (unless I went a short passage by short passage which is an option but rather unsportsmanlike). This kind of drains enthusiasm. I have several suspicions: that recording music is not a hobby that can be secondary and you simply have to go 5 hours a day practicing (I do an hour a day at the most right now); that I should simply switch to practice only the song I want to record (although if that doesn't work out the grind might well finish me off); or perhaps I am just a freak of nature who has always been clumsy and with a bad attention span. Upon reflection I'm leaning towards the second option, but I'm open to alternatives. (Maybe short passage by short passage is the usual way?) Thoughts? Oh, I'm guessing if I do go route no. 2, after I'm finished focusing on one song I would go back to stumbling over notes and that's just how it goes? supermikhail fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Mar 4, 2015 |
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Mar 4, 2015 17:32
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Recording is a whole other skillset, it's like the most focused, critical practice you can do. Your mistakes aren't something that happen and then they're gone forever, you hear them over and over, and you hear them with your mind focused solely on listening. Unless you're fine with a sloppier take, you need to nail everything perfectly and that takes a high level of skill, even if the music itself is 'easy' Are you doing any practice? Like really regimented practice, playing to a metronome and just focusing on your picking consistency, your timing and so on. Like martial artists practicing a move over and over and over, so the muscle memory is developed and you're a machine. Your hands aren't necessarily as connected to your brain as you'd like, and it takes time and focus to get that laser precision that works every time Also it's worth pointing out that in the studio, there are all kinds of tools for looping to record multiple takes and choose the best bits of each, marking a section to dub over so you can erase a flub, and now you can do all kinds of signal manipulation to fix rhythm and pitch. These are all things that professionals use, because nobody's perfect, and trying over and over takes time and money! Not to mention that song parts are often recorded in fairly short sections anyway, and then put together as different layers of the whole e- I should say with the practice thing - get a metronome ticking, and play a single open string over and over on the beat for one minute. Listen very carefully to your timing, the pluck of the string should coincide exactly with the tick of the metronome, it'll sound very tight and precise. This is like the most basic picking hand action you can do. So a minute later - did you make any mistakes? Was every single pick perfect and on the beat? If you'd recorded that minute, would you have been happy with that performance? If not, you need to practice. You can do this kind of thing while you watch TV or something, listen to the metronome as you pick the guitar and get your hand and brain used to it. Oh yeah, depending on what you're recording with, you might want to listen to your playing through a monitor - something 'live' rather than something that's gone into a computer and out through its speakers, because you'll get some delay and it might be enough to throw off your rhythm and your playing entirely baka kaba fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Mar 4, 2015 |
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Mar 4, 2015 19:11
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Make some recordings anyway, even if there are some mistakes, and let other people hear it and get their opinions. In my case I always thought I was a lovely player, couldn't keep time well - in general I thought I was a mediocre musician. But after awhile I realized that was mostly a negative lens I was looking through. I guess I'm saying sometimes people are better than they think they are. Also sloppy playing can sometimes enhance a recording. You can use it to your advantage. I write a lot of rock songs and I refuse to use a click track. That means there are always slight variations in the tempo but I think it makes songs better. It gives them an organic, human quality.
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Mar 4, 2015 20:27
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I practice with a book of short exercises using a metronome, but this is in the queue with other songs, so it comes up every couple of days at best. Then when I try to record I usually have a click track. It barely needs mentioning that those things don't seem to help. Don't know how it's with other people, but I find myself capable of more consistency and precision when I'm distracted... probably because distracting things boost patience. Which must be related to the irritating phenomenon of gradually but inexorably degrading quality when recording (with distractions turned off, obviously). baka kaba posted:e- I should say with the practice thing - get a metronome ticking, and play a single open string over and over on the beat for one minute. Listen very carefully to your timing, the pluck of the string should coincide exactly with the tick of the metronome, it'll sound very tight and precise. This is like the most basic picking hand action you can do. Oh, I've recently realized that I'm coming on the tenth anniversary of my acquaintance with the guitar. I guess my posting in this thread testifies to some kind of crisis related to the fact. beatlegs posted:Make some recordings anyway, even if there are some mistakes, and let other people hear it and get their opinions.
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Mar 4, 2015 21:18
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Well I mean both - definitely do it as a warmup, but also as part of your practice. You can just do 10 mins a day if you like, but you need to develop that basic technical proficiency. At first you might need to dedicate a lot of time to it, once you get accurate it will just be something you maintain, and it can be part of other exercises. I mean picking IS part of other exercises, but I'm talking about the critical focus on your timing and consistency. (This goes for other aspects of playing too of course!) It's a bit like trying to develop good handwriting. At first you'll need to work on getting your hand used to it and refining the movements. After a while you'll have it down, and just writing regularly will be enough practice to keep your ability up
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Mar 4, 2015 22:58
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I found it was helpful for me to record entire playing sessions and skip around them later on, if you find you really nailed something cut it out and practice recording it again while you're listening to it. Or like others said if you're particularly frustrated set punch points and hit play from a bar or two before the screw up. If you really are wanting to get something tracked without doing worse and worse takes all night long, this is the way to go. Way easier to overdub a hosed up triplet or whatever than it is to get a good take.
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Mar 4, 2015 23:02
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A demo of about sum total of my musical abilities that I've just done. Well, when I say "just" I mean a couple hours of retakes, groaning, and swearing (and that's just today). I'm debating with myself if it's worth sharing in the home recording thread which I wouldn't mind to evaluate my general acoustics, the singers thread (for a reason that will become obvious in the course of listening to this thing; in fact, you might want to stop after 30 seconds)... the guitar thread? Although there's really not that much to talk about there on that front. However, I had to cheat and splice together several takes with guitar, too. And I've just realized that I asked my question badly last time. Well, yeah, that day I was struggling with the timing, for my own composition though, and somehow this seems to make it better. But in general my problems are with "random glitches", that is, when I don't press my fingers down tightly enough or pull a finger off such that it slips over a string that's ringing, both these instances creating buzzing. What about this issue? drat, the recording sounds more and more embarrassing the more I listen to it. Well... I've done worse, as one way of looking at it.
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Mar 7, 2015 16:35
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I saw in the first few posts of this thread that Roland electric drums are recommended but could I get more specifics, please. I am looking to tool around on the drums to see what I can learn. I have 3 kids who'll probably enjoy giving it a go as well. Electronic drums are better for space and being considerate to others in the house. I'm looking at: Roland TD-4KP folding V drum kit or Yamaha DTX 450K Same price, Yamaha seems more sturdy and they both seem to have similar sound and functions - would one be a clear winner? Which would you recommend?
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Mar 8, 2015 07:35
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So I'm analyzing the chord progressions in one of my middle school band's concert pieces. It's this slow pretty thing with lots of suspensions and I'm analyzing it so I can help the kids tune the chords better. One of the big emotional chords is C in the bass, then G Bb Db F. There's a suspension where it's just D first, then resolves to Db. The piece is in Eb major (at least this part is) and the chords leading up to this big one are Eb major, Ab major with a sus 2 that resolves, and Eb major in first inversion. What the gently caress is that big chord? I wrote C5 11 to C5 11 b9 but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Maybe it's really an inverted G chord? This is making me grumpy because I'm kind of out of practice. Edit: I guess I should note the next chord is Fm7, but it quickly goes on and ends up resolving at Eb major again. Hawkperson fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Mar 13, 2015 |
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Mar 13, 2015 03:28
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C7sus4(b9) ???
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Mar 13, 2015 05:11
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With the suspension being C7sus2sus4 going to C7sus4(b9) ?
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Mar 13, 2015 05:15
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I want to install a humbucker in my Strats bridge, but don't fancy carving a hole in my pickguard. With replacements pickguards, are the bridge position pick up cavities routed for standard sized buckers or 'f' sized humbuckers?
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Mar 21, 2015 10:00
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How can I follow a slow tempo? I feel like it takes way more effort to play slowly than quickly. Slower than about 80 bpm and I'm hitting notes earlier because it feels like my "inner tempo" or whatever is around 100.
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Mar 21, 2015 10:33
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bad posts ahead!!! posted:How can I follow a slow tempo? I feel like it takes way more effort to play slowly than quickly. Slower than about 80 bpm and I'm hitting notes earlier because it feels like my "inner tempo" or whatever is around 100. Set your metronome click to double your intended tempo and then play to it in halftime, the extra tics should help you follow the slower pace and after a while it will feel natural. Also practice playing as slow as your metronome will allow, usually 40bpm. After settling into this tempo for a bit jumping back up to 80 will feel pretty snappy. Playing slow but tight is a lot harder than faster speeds because as you've seen the slight timing discrepancies really come through when you have time to analyse the gaps between notes. A good exercise is to intentionally play just before the beat, and just after it as well, it takes a lot of practice to get the muscle memory locked in. If you don't do it already, try nodding your head or tapping your foot to the beat, just keep your body continually moving to the tempo and it will help you internalise it a lot more.
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Mar 21, 2015 12:13
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e:nm
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Mar 21, 2015 16:58
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