I continue to look at the actions I see in crowds or parties that I become part of. The opening verse is part of a number of themes I have pondered for a while. How much is enough for wealthiest people on the planet? How can you measure when you succeed? And it applies to all. You know something is wrong and you don’t say anything….. She simply wasted what she had….. They never knew how good they had it until.
Posts Tagged ‘#recordingstudio’
How do you Know? MSK 2007
Posted: December 5, 2023 in PoetryTags: #audio, #Cakewalk, #lyrics, #michaelskennedy, #Midi, #midicontroller, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #personal, #poem, #poet, #poetry, #poetrypod, #recording, #recordingstudio, #singersongwriter, #songwriter, #sound
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Heaven is Warm MSK 1983
Posted: November 21, 2023 in PoetryTags: #audio, #Cakewalk, #lyrics, #michaelskennedy, #Midi, #midicontroller, #mididrums, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #personal, #poem, #poet, #poetry, #poetrypod, #recording, #recordingstudio, #singersongwriter, #songwriter, #sound
Another oldie here. My lyrics and poetry often reference religions and their associated topics and phrases. Since my early adulthood, I began my rapid change in direction from an altar boy in the Catholic Church studying to become a priest or other station toward atheism. These are concepts most people around here recognize. My habit of stating the obvious does not reflect well on most religions as their flaws can be felt worldwide.
Hearts of Stone MSK 2016
Posted: November 14, 2023 in PoetryTags: #audio, #Cakewalk, #lyrics, #michaelskennedy, #Midi, #midicontroller, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #personal, #poem, #poet, #poetry, #poetrypod, #recording, #recordingstudio, #singersongwriter, #songwriter, #sound, #vocalist
Even islanders from eons past knew there are other lands. Birds would cross continents in yearly marathons in the air. Most of us in the US know so little about anyone or anywhere not contained by its political borders. Beyond the ocean is of little consequence to many here. That leads me to consider what I would be like in a place with no rivers or lakes. How could I survive a frozen tundra or tropical swamp? If evil were the ruler would I want to live in torment? Would I be in a prison for the rest of my life? We judge from so far away on many levels and the laws of man are easily corrupted.
Mixing in Dolby Atmos
Posted: October 27, 2023 in My TunesTags: #Atmos, #dolby, #DolbyAtmos, #michaelskennedy, #midimike, #midimike.com, #mixingboard, #music, #musician, #Presonus, #recordingstudio, #Soundengineer, #StudioOne+
Data for spatial panning for each track
Thank you for the response to my mix of “The Dream” using Dolby Atmos. Not to geek out on you again, but this is something cool that you have probably already experienced and can relate to. Many of you are familiar with the amazing sound system upgrades in theaters and home audio during the last few years. Dolby has always been a big name in noise reduction and surround sound for movies and the like, but they have upped their game to take advantage of new tech and to deliver needed changes for next-gen venues or virtual reality applications going forward.
To make the explanation simple, we are all used to stereo sound with two speakers on opposite walls or using ear buds and headphones. A few decades ago the industry tried a quad system for the first try at a surround sound playback. Novel, but it went nowhere for a long time.
Your home surround sound or home theater system has been using multiple speakers for a while and added a sub woofer for the very low sounds – (sounds might not be the right word here. You feel the sub frequencies more than you hear it. This gives you the earthquake-like vibrations for sound effects).
Movies and other applications are using Dolby’s Atmos to reach the next experience level. Dolby Atmos provides programming to create a realistic 360 Atmosphere – as in SPHERE. Instead of two or four speakers and a subwoofer, there are countless individual out-puts for a large number of floor speakers that surround the listener(s) in a precise configuration. Then you add the sub-woofer as before but now we bring in speakers mounted in the ceiling (if room allows) or on stands close to the celing. Now, if they want to make it sound like some one is talking behind you, they play that sound through specific speakers in the back of the ‘listening room’. If there is a helicopter flying over head you are sure to look up expecting to see it there.
I have been using Presonus Studio One+ as my DAW or software recording system for a while. In their most recent update they included a version of Dolby Atmos. I don’t make action movie soundtracks, but the ability to use this tecnology to mix songs and bands gives us a whole new level of mixing.
Instead of placing the performer somewhere between the left and the right speaker as our only option, we can now make the sound feel like you are sitting ON the stage. You will be able to hear the drummer sitting on a riser ABOVE you in front, the guitar player on one side, the brass section on the other. As the singer walks around the ‘room’ they can literally walk behind you.
Now, if you are like me and don’t have a bunch of powered speakers and unlimited out-put ability …… you can get a lot of the effect using good headphones. The serious number crunching of the Atmos program gives you the illusion of three dimensional space in the headphones and for virtual reality sets.
The above is a screen shot from a simple song I have written. It shows the different tracks below, and above panel shows the Spatial Panning data used on each track to give placement info to the speakers.
I will also post one of my songs below now, so you can hear a bit of what Atmos has to offer. Please keep in mind that using headphones is obviously a bit limited when it is compared to the massive speaker system in a theater, but, you will hear a difference. For music mixes, you may not hear a lot of movement. Try closing your eyes while listening through good headphones and with the speakers OFF. You will soon be able to point at where the performer or instrument is coming from – not just left or right – but literally point to it, up – down – left -right – in front and inside your head if desired lol.
….this screen gives you an idea of the ‘room interface’ you work in. Each dot represents a sound or instrument and can be sonicly ‘placed’ anywhere by moving the dot as needed.
Below is my Atmos mix of a new song I wrote and recorded, called “Still Your Choice”. I hope you get to hear the effects Atmos has to offer in this mix. While it may not be your type of music as I claim not to be commercial to begin with, the song shows how ‘open’ or deep a two track recording can be!
MIDIMike
Glass of Tears MSK 1981
Posted: October 24, 2023 in PoetryTags: #12string, #audio, #lyrics, #michaelskennedy, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #ovationguitars, #personal, #poem, #poet, #poetry, #poetrypod, #recording, #recordingstudio, #reeltoreel, #singersongwriter, #songwriter, #sound
Another set of lyrics that started out more of a poem. Stating the obvious again, it appeared to me many people search for the perfect one overlook the very person they are seeking. Even in 1981 I knew how easy it was to underestimate the importance of relationships and great friends. We will all find out eventually that we were just a bit too late. The commercials of the day are responsible for the rest of the lyrics and I am not sure if they mean anything at all, but I like the idea of a glass of tears.
“The Dream” Dolby Atmos Mix
Posted: October 22, 2023 in #poetry, music technology, My Tunes, technologyTags: #audio, #dolby, #DolbyAtmos, #lyrics, #Martinguitars, #michaelskennedy, #midicontroller, #mididrums, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #poetry, #Presonus, #recordingstudio, #singersongwriter, #songwriter, #spatialpanning, #Studio1+, #studioOne, #StudioOne+, #thedream, #vocalist
Again using Dolby Atmos for the spatial audio mix, I have another song for you to listen to. Using headphones will give you the best dimensional effect, though the speakers will also reflect some clarity and each instrument or vocalist will be heard a bit easier and clearer – more distinct.
I imagine this to be similar to being in a small crowded room with lots of people talking. It is hard to make out any of the conversations going on around you. Now, Imagine the room much bigger and everyone spaced further away from each other and you. Now you can hear conversations and know who is laughing or singing. Something like that. Instead of mixing so all the instruments are ‘sitting on top of each other’ in the stereo field, the listener can be part of – or completely removed from the sound scape. We can now give the listener the illusion of sound coming from anywhere in the ‘room’ we create.
Here is another song I wrote and recorded recently called “The Dream”. The spatial effects in Atmos do indeed, give a new dreamy sound to the mix.
MIDIMike
Get Up MSK 2014
Posted: October 17, 2023 in PoetryTags: #audio, #lyrics, #michaelskennedy, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #personal, #poem, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #songwriter, #sound
A combination of being tired of people close to me complaining all the time. Like they have to work so hard to do what everyone else clearly does (without complaining, I might add). The verses are about the mechanics of it: you have to get up. No one will do it for you. It does not come easy. I get teased about everything going in my favor or how lucky I am or how amazing it is that things go my way all the time. I prepare. I plan. I gather tools and energy IN CASE an opportunity opens up. When it does I will be ready and start planning for the next opportunity, not knowing what it is. I save. Maintain my tools and equipment. Label files and folders. Back up my drives. To them this is wasting time. OCD. Nerdy. Geek stuff. To all I say again, “the geek shall inherit the Earth”.
Like an Eye Exam
Posted: October 14, 2023 in live Sound Reinforcement, music technology, Opinions and ObservationsTags: #audio, #eyeexam, #michaelskennedy, #midimike, #midimike.com, #mixingboard, #music, #musician, #recordingstudio, #studioengineer
For those of us that wear reading or corrective glasses, this will sound familiar. The other day I was thinking about the song mixing process. There is as much magic as there is science in the combination of so many different sounds and textures into a coherent musical landscape.
Audio engineers also discuss or rather joke about the Mastering Dilema: how the mix is never really done. There is always something you can do to improve it. (in reality, at some point all we are doing is changing it, not improving.)
If you ask 100 different studio masters to mix the same tracks, you will get 100 different mixes! The ingredients will be the same but the flavor can literally be worlds apart!
Which brought me rambling to the eye exam process. For those not too familiar, you will sit in a dark office looking at a small poster of random upper case letters on the other side of the room. The optician will ask you to read as many letters as you can, as they decrease in font size each row and become smaller and smaller.
Then they swing a large instrument in front of your face that allows them to place a specific corrective lens very close to one eye at a time, as the other eye is closed. Looking for different parameters, the optician will change the lens to a different prescription, then a different one, then to a slightly different one. Asking, ” Can you see better with One or Two?….. With Two or Three?…..With Three or Four?….”
This goes on and on with variations so slight at times you have to ask them to compare again, and often you aren’t sure you made the right choice! This is what mixing a song in the studio can be like. You make changes and minute corrections and aural enhancements that individually no one will hear. It is often necessary to make your mix sound the way you feel comfortable early in the session, and stop. Finish it. Finalize it. Put it away.
It is done.
Put on your glasses and look as cool as you can.
MIDIMike
Get out of Line MSK 1981
Posted: October 10, 2023 in PoetryTags: #12string, #audio, #lyrics, #michaelskennedy, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #ovationguitars, #personal, #poem, #poet, #poetry, #poetrypod, #recording, #recordingstudio, #reeltoreel, #singer, #singersongwriter, #songwriter, #sound
From a broken relationship and the ensuing emptiness reflections are not easy. You can’t forget and remembering is overwhelming. A realization that you don’t have to wait, but what you want will easily pass you by. And from that day on you will know your loss. I remember adding the line about the train because our bass player in the Merchants of Death said he really liked to watch trains. So there you go!
Music for “When In Doubt”
Posted: September 9, 2023 in MUSIC, My TunesTags: #alternative, #audiotechnica, #folk, #lyrics, #Martinguitars, #michaelskennedy, #midicontroller, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #personal, #poetry, #progressivefolk, #recording, #recordingstudio, #singer, #songwriter, #Studio1+, #StudioOne+
I am not really finished with this song. Many of my songs move on to the ‘finished’ shelf when there is a lot more to be done with the song and/or recording. Being the jack-of-all-trades singer-songwriter/engineer-producer and all the rest means I can generate decent versions of my original music without waiting for band mates, schedules, funding and studio availability.
I realized long ago I cannot make them commercial or ‘radio-play’ worthy on my own. But here you can see early versions of a song or two developing or maybe ones I pushed out into the lime light too soon. I’m OK with that because most of my songs are not ready for prime time. Still, I think I have a bunch of great tunes posted on this blog. Some of my tunes are progressive folk, some lean towards alternative, some are a bit on the soundtrack side. Maybe not your style of music, but there’s something for everyone.
I hope you enjoy an early glimpse of “When In Doubt“.
MidiMike 