#soundman | MidiMike

Posts Tagged ‘#soundman’

Reels of Tape – A Few Shattered Lines

Posted: June 17, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: #12string, #acoustic, #atari, #audio, #band, #cdbaby, #create, #creative, #creativity, #demo, #dreams, #guitar, #harmony, #inspiration, #inspire, #itunes, #journey, #life, #love, #lyrics, #microphone, #midimike, #motivation, #music, #musicequiptment, #musician, #observation, #performance, #performer, #performers, #personal, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #Reel, #retro, #reverb, #runningsound, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #speakers, #story, #studio, #studioengineer, #vocalist, #vocals, #writer

As I continue to dig into past songs it is easy to see one problem I have; I am not good at naming my songs. Sometimes I go for the punch line, but the punch line is not even a line in the song! Sometimes I try to highlight one phrase, but ignoring conventional songwriting wisdom, I do not use a phrase over and over in the chorus and call that the title. So here is another example where the names have changed over the years. Originally the title was “A Few Shattered Lines“. I was reading a letter from a friend of mine at college and I pulled some of his phrases into the lyrics. Below are the results.

Reels of Tape has a deep meaning for me. I spent a lot of years recording on reel to reel tape decks. I still have my original 4 track TEAC machine. The lyrics are more abstract than other songs I have written and for some reason I can still slip back to those times when I hear this song. I am using my Ovation Balladeer 12 string guitar as my standard writing/recording instrument over the years, and I just love the tone and the progression of the chords. The twelve strings just sound so full, and when using open tuning, it can make the chords sparkle. The other quick observation: I don’t get rid of equipment I buy…… I keep it forever!

The lyrics seem to create images that expand beyond the words. Familiar topics can do that sometimes when looked at with a different point of view or even a change in mood. I love – Life pours past the flags unfurled, Crack the crystal paralyzed world – and other parts, but I could not really tell you why. Another phrase that sticks with me is – Forget today and tomorrow, leave this song behind, and all it’s sorrow. a lot of my lyrics have a rather dark perspective. But behind them all is a sense of hope and a promise that things will get better and improve. I am one of the most optimistic people I know!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dark-energy/id962943592

Recording as an acoustic tune, I use one track for the vocals (unless there is a harmony track) and I use another track for the ‘line out’ from the acoustic/electric guitar, and then I use another track for a microphone placed in front of the 12 string (even here, it is important to place the microphone at the ‘sweet spot’ to get the best tone. Placing a microphone in front of anything without testing will more often disappoint rather than delight. As in other posts, I have had better success if I literally stick my head up to the instrument and move back and forth until I get the best sound. Doing this while playing the instrument is not practical, so I place the microphone, record, listen and compare it to other tracks that use a different microphone position. Once you have the best of the best, you can be pretty safe using it again. Live situations with full bands and instrumentation is a challenge and I still try to stick my face in there to get an idea what that instrument sounds like but also if it is close to other instruments, speakers, or unwanted noise makers. Most vocalists will stand in front of the microphone, but even in this case if they lean or tilt one way or the other it can dramatically affect the final tone or sound. Much of this is tied to the proximity effect and we will get into that later. For the most part I will pan the 12 string guitar line out to hard Left and the microphone for the 12 string hard Right. Vocals go in the center, unless you have more than one vocalist or lead singer. I use very few processors like compressors, gates, limiters, and the like. As long as you start with a solid tone a bit of EQ if needed, bring in some light reverb or delay and the mix is done.

The Human Voice is an Amazing Instrument!

Posted: June 15, 2015 in Opinions and Observations
Tags: #12string, #audio, #band, #create, #creative, #creativity, #guitar, #harmonies, #harmony, #inspiration, #inspire, #Instrument, #life, #love, #lyrics, #melody, #midimike, #motivation, #music, #musician, #observation, #performance, #performer, #performers, #performing arts, #personal, #piano, #recording, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #soundman, #stage, #story, #vocalist, #vocals, #voice, #writer

When I was listening to music in my early years, it seemed very natural for me to sing along with the songs I like or new tunes I heard. I did not realize until years later that what I was doing was harmonizing with the melody, rather than duplicating it. This was probably my first gateway into music creation. I seemed to have a knack for developing harmonies. Rhythms and timing also came to me without me understanding what I was doing. Some people play sports, some are good at math, and some are builders. I just seemed to feel comfortable with music. My mother was in theater, radio and music and I have already blamed her for a lot of exposure to performing arts while I was growing up, so I will continue to do so!

The human voice is an amazing instrument. There is nothing like it. I know that I am not a powerful vocalist – I simply do not have the pipes it must take, but fortunately that did not stop my love for singing. As I sang along more and more, I got better at finding the notes that would enhance or decorate the melody line. I never tried to over power them, but to add to them. Sometimes a song only needs a phrase or two highlighted by harmonies or echoing the melody. Other tunes seemed to inspire harmonies throughout the song. Eventually I would hear the melody in my head and sing along creating harmonies. I could not begin to tell you how to create each note while singing… there are no manuals for this. There are lessons to be learned and great teachers or vocal instructors, but the basics are not easily put into words.

When it comes to instruments, there is a certain amount of knowledge and practice involved in understanding where the right notes are and hitting them at the right time. Just knowing the right ones to play are not enough as you have to know when and when not to play them. I bring this up because a lot of musicians talk about jam sessions or getting together and without a lot of details, start playing new themes and using ideas from other musicians to create and have fun. My point here is that I was never that comfortable simply bringing my instrument and jamming with others. I do feel comfortable with harmonies and if asked to add percussion or drums, I could fit in. But for me playing guitar, keys, bass, flute, sax, etc. without practicing and knowing what I was doing ahead of time is difficult. Many of the musicians I worked with were absolutely great at this. They were great at bouncing musical ideas off other players and coming up with gorgeous textures, themes and tonal landscapes. I have a few early examples of jams and creative sessions I would like to offer here from time to time.

LOVE/HATE Challenge – Getting to Know You

Posted: June 11, 2015 in Opinions and Observations
Tags: #12string, #artists, #audio, #band, #biking, #books, #challenge, #creative, #creativity, #daughter, #education, #family, #friend, #friendship, #guitar, #hate, #inspiration, #inspire, #life, #love, #midimike, #motivation, #music, #musician, #nature, #observation, #performance, #performer, #performers, #personal, #photography, #piano, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #runningsound, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #stories, #story, #studio, #truth, #writer

LOVE/HATE Challenge

I’ve been nominated to complete this challenge by several of you and after some convincing from my daughter, I’ve decided to give it a go. Instead of nominating 10 more bloggers, I would like to ask you all to post your favorite things in the comments so I can get to know you better.

I want to take this moment to thank all of you again for your very kind and encouraging comments. I have truly enjoyed reading your blogs and getting to know you better. Thank you for being a part of my journey.

Here it goes…

Love:

Writing and recording music
Biking
Photography
Nature – in all it’s glory and mystery
Family and friends
Reading great books, poetry, stories
Creative music – artists and performers
Teaching and helping others
Science, education, discovery and truth
Finding solutions to difficult problems.

Hate:

Wasting natural resources
Thinking that money makes you special
Personal and corporate greed
Things that should, but do not work
Violence
Thieves, scammers and swindlers
Demanding people
Bigots
Liars
Corporate and government politics

American Indian – An Instrumental

Posted: June 10, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: # mixer, #American Indian, #atari, #audio, #creative, #demo, #different, #digital, #equipment, #FX, #guitar, #inspiration, #inspire, #itunes, #keyboard, #midimike, #mixingboard, #motivation, #music, #musicequiptment, #musician, #Native American, #observation, #opinion, #performance, #performer, #personal, #piano, #recording, #recordingstudio, #retro, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #story, #studio, #studioengineer, #synthesizer, #tech, #writer, #Yamaha

I don’t mind acknowledging that I am different than a lot of the people I know and hear about.

I am PERFECTLY OK with this. I know my music and lyrics are not the typical main-stream songs blasted everywhere. I will not appear on any searches. Growing up and watching all the Westerns and TV shows, I never – not even once – wanted to be the cowboy or the soldier. I identified with the ‘good guys’ as most kids do, but to me the cowboys and soldiers were not the only good guys. I identified more with the American Indians living with nature rather than conquering.

I am not sure what exactly inspired this song when I started it. I often think about music videos and how that could help explain through images some of the themes in this musical piece. Possibly the new toys that could make sounds that added less traditional Western culture ideas and more ethnic and international instruments. I also like contrapuntal rhythms and themes, so you will hear a lot in these pieces.

Music’s Universal Language – Mathematics!

Posted: June 8, 2015 in Music Theory
Tags: #12string, #audio, #band, #bass, #cdbaby, #creative, #creativity, #drummer, #drums, #guitar, #itunes, #keyboard, #language, #logical, #major scale, #math, #mathmatics, #memorize, #midimike, #music, #music theory, #musician, #pandora, #performance, #performer, #personal, #piano, #recording, #recordingstudio, #runningsound, #scale, #sing, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #spotify, #vocalist, #vocals

Once we simplify the 12 notes and we are now able to find any Major scale very quickly (if you only did the exercise to find the other Major scales a few times you would see this is really easy….) and we can continue to explore the Major scales for other Keys. This is the foundation of the musical theory pyramid. It is important to understand how we get to the Safe Seven. No, you do not have to memorize every note in every scale, although ultimately that will help a lot. For now, try digging in and go over the Major scale for each of the 12 notes a few times. As you play the new Major scales, sing (or hum!) the Do Re Me song along with the notes you are playing. (tip for the day; as you hum each scale from the new starting note, you are changing keys!)

When we look back at the Safe Seven article, I showed a simple connection that I will repeat here:

C D E F G A B C

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1

There is a lot of math in music and music theory. But instead of confusing things and making you change from your creative hat to your thinking hat, I find the math connection actually simplifies the confusion. It allows me to see the connection the various notes have. Personally, I HEAR and FEEL music more than I THINK it through. I have friends that can convert and spit out scales, keys and modes as easily as some of us use Pandora, Spotify or I-Tunes to change a song. I am really amazed at their skills, but that is something I am not all that good at. But you will see how easy it is to understand the art and the science by following these posts.
If we look at the Safe Seven for each Major scale, we can make an easy conversion (or universal language) for describing note or chord progressions for ANY Major key. I know, I keep on harping on the Major scales, but the others will be really easy once we have this understood and comfortable with the Mystery of the 12 and the Safe Seven, so let’s keep going. For those of you new to this blog, I have no formal training and I am self taught. I can assure you I am no genius. If I can get this, so can you. I just hope to make it a bit easier for you if you are just diving in or curious about how this fits together.

Knowing now that we call the first note the Root, and the same note higher or lower on the keyboard are called Octaves, we will begin a simple conversion; Root = 1. Each note in the Safe Seven can be represented this way by assigning it a value of 1-7. We just assigned Root = 1, so moving up is easy. In the example above, C is the Root so C = 1 and continuing the scale, D = 2, E = 3, F = 4, G = 5, A = 6, B = 7 and the octave is again the Root or 1. Each Major scale can be represented the same way. Use the Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half system to find the Safe Seven and then assign each to their corresponding number and we can stop talking about note names! As we get more into chord structure and progressions, this will also come into perspective. But let’s not get stretched too far. Play with these exercises a few times a day and we will build our solid musical foundation quickly. I will also go into the names of the notes as they change keys and this can be confusing to many until you see the method to the madness.

Appreciation and Perspective From “The Touch”

Posted: June 5, 2015 in projects, Video
Tags: # mixer, #atari, #audio, #band, #bass, #Cassette, #creative, #demo, #digital, #drummer, #drums, #effects, #guitar, #keyboard, #livesoundreinforement, #microphone, #Midi, #midimike, #mixingboard, #monitors, #music, #musicequiptment, #musician, #performance, #performer, #personal, #perspective, #piano, #recording, #recordingstudio, #retro, #runningsound, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #studio, #studioengineer, #synthesizer, #tech, #technology, #vcr, #video, #videographer, #vocalist, #vocals, #Yamaha

I want to give you an idea of perspective on some of the articles I have posted and will continue to post going forward. This is the first video I have posted and while it is rather BORING, it is so informative at the same time. I guess I have recorded original tunes since the very late 1960’s. I recorded everything. I deleted a lot! But I recorded everything I could. I experimented and adjusted and re-did and failed a few more times than I succeeded in the early days to be sure! I also got into photography and then into video recording. I practiced the mundane over and over until I got the exposure right, then with video until I could zoom and focus manually. I joined the photography club in high school and learned to develop and enlarge my own pictures – something I thought was close to magic back in the day!

I shared earlier that I used (and still own!!!) what I think was the first personal computer to come out with built in MIDI ports – The Atari ST! I used a software program back then to record the MIDI tracks and I could generate SMPTE time code and send a signal from the Atari to sync it up with recording machines (I had the Yamaha 4 track CASSETTE recorder during most of this). When I talk about old technologies and how we used to record songs (or develop pictures…) It is hard for some to understand the challenges we had and the lo-fi quality of the final mix or product.

I want to use this video as an example of many things I refer to in this blog. In this video, you will see what I saw when looking at the Atari computer monitor when I was playing or recording tracks. Keep in mind this is all MIDI equipment available years ago. The song I posted earlier will now be stripped of all guitars, vocals, effects and additional live sounds you heard on the full mix. As you watch the video you will hear the sequences being played back live into the VCR input. I took the monitor video out and connected to video in of the video recorder so this is a straight feed for both. In the recording software, each “instrument” has a separate track. Drums are all on one track with additional percussion sounds on different tracks, and as a reminder, each note (as triggered from my DX7 keyboard) represented a different drum/percussion sound coming from a drum machine. You can hear the metronome from the Atari ticking away in the back ground as it is set to record. As each track plays you can see the musical notes light up depending on the intensity of the track information. You can also see the tempo of the song, the names of the tracks and the measures and beats as they click by.

The main piano sound is probably familiar to many of you even if you are quite young. It is the classic Piano Tine sound from the Yamaha DX7 synthesizers. This video should also give you a sense of quality and resolution available at the time. It might be difficult to hear the difference in song recording quality today, but we are all familiar with video resolution and HD cameras and large screen TV and computer standards available now. Just think how this applied to the audio quality back then and then play some really old songs you grew up listening to. It gives a better appreciation and perspective for some of the classic songs that seem to live forever.

Bassics – Adding Textures

Posted: May 29, 2015 in MUSIC, music technology, My Tunes
Tags: # mixer, #atari, #audio, #band, #bass, #bass guitar, #cdbaby, #creative, #demo, #digital, #drums, #equipment, #genres, #guitar, #inspire, #Instrumental, #itunes, #keyboard, #microphone, #Midi, #midimike, #mixingboard, #monitors, #music, #musicequiptment, #musician, #performance, #performer, #recording, #recordingstudio, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #speakers, #studio, #studioengineer, #synthesizer, #tech, #Yamaha

For me, sequencing is fun and very versatile. I am not the kind of keyboard player that can jump in on any song and just start jamming. I do better if I can take my time and learn, practice, and improve before practicing with a full band. A lot of this might be from the lack of confidence in the early days, but in reality I find myself a jack of all trades and master of none. If I had spent more time on any one instrument, I might have gotten pretty good. Fortunately – or unfortunately, I have always been interested in so many different things that my chops were not the best. As a percussionist, I was able to hear what I wanted, but did not play drum kits so my feet and hands were always locked in perfect step! Sequencing gave me the ability to lay down rough performances on the keyboard (and remember I use the keyboard keys to ‘trigger’ the drum sounds, so I am still playing keys). Once recorded using MIDI – again I am not recording the sounds but the physical action and movements, I could enter the Edit Mode on the sequencer and make corrections to timing, notes, durations etc. until the piece felt good to me. For the drums, the standard practice is to use the Quantizing feature (I can go into this later as well for future posts) to make sure all beats were perfectly ‘on the grid’. I have used drum machines and sequencers since they first came out. The sounds are great but too often the result of overusing the quantize feature makes the drum tracks sound mechanical – unmoving – and even impossible for a real drummer. I preferred to leave a little slop here and there. I want emotion in my songs, not perfection.

In “Bassics”, I just enjoyed the new sounds I had and played with this Bass Guitar patch and came up with the basic groove. I like adding textures and unusual percussion/FX sounds to keep the songs flowing and changing. Available sounds are so much better now, but I still enjoy bringing out these old tunes.

MIDIMike

Live Sound Reinforcement Series Chapter 16 – Coke or Pepsi? Mac or PC?

Posted: May 27, 2015 in Live Sound Reinforcement Series, music technology, technology
Tags: # mixer, #atari, #audio, #band, #bass, #creative, #demo, #digital, #drummer, #drums, #effects, #equipment, #FX, #genres, #guitar, #keyboard, #life, #Liveband, #livesoundreinforement, #Mac, #microphone, #Midi, #midimike, #mixing board, #mixingboard, #monitors, #motivation, #music, #musicequipment, #musician, #performance, #performer, #piano, #recording, #recordingstudio, #reverb, #runningsound, #signal, #singer, #singing, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #speakers, #stage, #studio, #studioengineer, #synthesizer, #tech, #tips, #vocalist, #vocals, #Yamaha

The sound board or audio mixer represents the hub in most audio mixing and mastering functions. everything connects to the board. Even the lighting system will use channels in the snake to connect from stage to console. Things get plugged into and things get plugged out of the mixer as needed. Today’s mixers are blue tooth USB WiFi fire-wired and light-piped together and will connect to an amazing array of devices. So far we have focused on what gets plugged to the Inputs of the sound board. There are a number of connection possibilities for the Outputs as well. We have already discussed some of them earlier, so this can be brief as you already know a lot of this in general.

On most sound boards you have a number of analog-out options. In earlier discussions we talked about XLR and 1/4″ cables and connectors. These will continue to be the main ones used for outputs. On the front or face of most mixing boards you will see a stereo headphone out. It will usually have its own volume knob and probably a selector to pick the options to Monitor including Stereo Out, Solo, Effects Sends, Effects Returns, Sub or Groups, Auxiliary Returns, and other options. On the back or the top of the mixing board you will see the panel for Out-put connections in different sections. There are some rules to determine what type of Audio Cable is used and whether it is a male end or female end and whether it has two connectors or three (or more).

In the early days of mixing boards, microphones and keyboards, it was important which brand you purchased. If you wanted to get ‘that sound’ you had to have this mixing board channel strip or that particular keyboard. Later on the computer industry similarly shot through their early days and you had the Macintosh or the Windows PC. If you were brought up with one you could not be talked into the other. Most modern equipment from PC’s to Automobiles can do everything. They all have similar platforms and emulators. There is style and quality as there always will be, but you can get software mixing programs and microphone/guitar emulator plugins that will make your audio tracks sound like anything you want —-THEY CAN EVEN MAKE YOU SOUND LIKE YOU ARE SINGING IN TUNE!!

So if you like Pepsi, no problem. Want Coke? Press this button…… More comfortable using a Mac? Go for it.

All it takes is cash, a thorough understanding of what all the terms mean and a good idea where all the buttons are?!!?

Enjoy!

Quiet Nights – Reflect and Create

Posted: May 22, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: #12string, #acoustic, #audio, #band, #cdbaby, #create, #creative, #daughter, #demo, #dreams, #family, #guitar, #inspiration, #inspire, #itunes, #journey, #life, #love, #lucky, #lyrics, #Midi, #midimike, #motivation, #music, #musician, #observation, #performance, #performer, #personal, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #retro, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #stage, #story, #studio, #truth, #vocalist, #vocals, #writer

Much of my early years I had tons of energy. Like most people my age, I got up early and stayed up through the evening. Unlike most, I got a bit extreme with this and as I started working I seemed to be able to handle the after hour and evening shifts quite well. Staying awake for 24 to 48 hours at a time was almost normal. I obviously was not! As most of the household was quiet and recharging their internal batteries, I would pull out my 12 string guitar. In the very late and dark hours, I would reflect on the day(s) past and go over experiences I or friends had. The fullness of the 12 strings (when I could afford to replace the old strings with new ones…) for me is just an amazingly soothing and inspiring environment. The guitar noodling started to reflect a mood and the experiences would turn into words, phrases or thoughts that I would repeat and refine until they started to gel into lyrics.

I would use this method over and over. Alone at night, lights out and everyone quiet or sleeping. Even now, decades later, this is still my favorite time to reflect and create. If you can, find your own time and environment that you can settle into quickly. If you cannot find the time – MAKE it. It does not have to be hours at a time. Rarely do we write a masterpiece or complete a painting or poem in an hour or so. The important thing is to set aside time – even little bits – and noodle, sketch, sing, or even think. Build your stage for creativity and perform there as often as you can. The masterpieces will create themselves…

Quiet Nights – An original tune I wrote based on this idea.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dark-energy/id962943592

Rule #1: Always Play with Musicians that are Better Than you!

Posted: May 20, 2015 in Opinions and Observations
Tags: #audio, #band, #bass, #creative, #dreams, #drummer, #drums, #guitar, #inspiration, #journey, #keyboard, #life, #Liveband, #love, #lucky, #lyrics, #microphone, #Midi, #midimike, #motivation, #music, #musician, #observation, #performance, #performer, #personal, #piano, #recording, #recordingstudio, #runningsound, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #speakers, #stage, #story, #studio, #studioengineer, #truth, #vocalist, #vocals

I have been very fortunate over the years in a number of ways. As I look back on my history and the events I have been involved in, this rule became obvious to me. I have always performed or created music with people that are much better than I am. I did not do this by design, it just seemed to happen over and over. One of my favorite bands I have been involved with for many years is Euphoria. Think of all the adjectives you know to describe excellence and you can use them all for the members of the band. They invited me to run sound for them and that is how I got the nerve to be a sound guy. As they played out and I ran sound and helped with musical toys as a music store manager, we became great friends and shared a real passion for great music. When the keyboard player decided to work on other projects, they found out I played keyboards and asked me if I wanted to take his place. I cannot tell you how much courage it took to say yes. I had never really played out before and we were into progressive rock and really complicated songs – many you heard clips from the studio demo posted earlier.

I knew I was not ready for prime time, but I got my keyboard gear together – practiced on my own every spare minute I had and forced myself to show up for practice. I had big shoes to fill. To their credit each of the band members were extremely patient! The knew it would take me some time to get to their level. Some songs on our set list were replaced with songs that had less emphasis on the keyboard until I could get my chops up to speed. Some we had to drop altogether. But they all worked with me and did not make me feel like I was slowing them down or not up to par. Had it not been for their great attitude and flexibility, I may have thrown in the towel and called it quits before it got started.

The only better piece of advice in this area I think is just as important is to always play with great people! Band life can be hard work, physically challenging and demanding and at the same time can be disastrous

MidiMike

Available on iTunes and CD Baby

Social Media

MSK original Songs

Posts Tagged ‘#soundman’

Reels of Tape – A Few Shattered Lines

The Human Voice is an Amazing Instrument!

LOVE/HATE Challenge – Getting to Know You

American Indian – An Instrumental

Music’s Universal Language – Mathematics!

Appreciation and Perspective From “The Touch”

Bassics – Adding Textures

Live Sound Reinforcement Series Chapter 16 – Coke or Pepsi? Mac or PC?

Quiet Nights – Reflect and Create

Rule #1: Always Play with Musicians that are Better Than you!

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Available on iTunes and CD Baby

Social Media

MSK original Songs

Posts Tagged ‘#soundman’

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