What Are You Listening To?

[oblong]

5 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Rhiannon Giddens is coming to Ann Arbor in September, by the way.   We're playing her new single today for New Music  Monday on 107one, I think it's in the 1pm hour.    

 

I put on a Yacht Rock mix this morning on Spotify.     I've gotten to the point in my life when I am no longer ashamed to admit that I love Yacht Rock.   I also love funk, punk, indie, rock, jazz, bossa nova and classical, but anyway, during the Yacht Rock mix the song Sharing The Night Together by Dr. Hook came on and I never liked that song, but now, thanks to the movie "El Camino" it makes me think of that creepy Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons) because he loved that song and now the song kinda gives me the creeps.  

Vince Gilligan and David Chase have exposed me to music I would never have listened to.  

[pfife]

On 8/1/2023 at 3:24 PM, CMRivdogs said:

Outside of my local NPR station I haven't listened to anything relatively new since the mid 80s. Stuck too long in the corporate Beautiful Music, Lite Rock before the (It was my job)

I'm basically one of those Boomers who think good music ended with Rap and auto tune. Now that I no longer spend time in the automobile I've been exploring more. 

Unsolicited weird opinion of the day:

I unabashedly love auto-tune.  

I think its awesome as an instrument/effect itself on people's voices and adds another dimension to a recording studio as an instrument itself.

As a paying studio customer regularly I love when a the producer can fix a note with 2 clicks of a mouse instead of multiple people having to redo a Take when time is money.   It liberates!

I can understand people thinking it's cheating/covering up absence of talent and whatnot.... but that happens in recording in hundreds of different ways.   

For instance, On a recent record I played on one of the songs is 2 separate takes copy/pasted together half way through.

Or... many people don't even know who actually played an instrument on a record.   Netflix documentary Hired Guns is incredible.

 

[pfife]

Here's another one that blew my mind when I first saw it.    For vocals on a lot of records, the way it works now is the vocalist will just run thought X number of takes, beginning to end.   Don't stop just because you messed up.

So you wind up with let's say 10 saved takes of the lead vocals.  Then they go through it syllable by syllable and meld/splice the final product out of the best syllable for each syllable out of the ten takes.   

Guitar solos are pretty similar.   Lol

Edited August 7, 2023 by pfife

[oblong]

35 minutes ago, pfife said:

Unsolicited weird opinion of the day:

I unabashedly love auto-tune.  

I think its awesome as an instrument/effect itself on people's voices and adds another dimension to a recording studio as an instrument itself.

As a paying studio customer regularly I love when a the producer can fix a note with 2 clicks of a mouse instead of multiple people having to redo a Take when time is money.   It liberates!

I can understand people thinking it's cheating/covering up absence of talent and whatnot.... but that happens in recording in hundreds of different ways.   

For instance, On a recent record I played on one of the songs is 2 separate takes copy/pasted together half way through.

Or... many people don't even know who actually played an instrument on a record.   Netflix documentary Hired Guns is incredible.

 

Hired Guns taught me that Nugent didn’t sing his studio songs. 
 

 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, pfife said:

Here's another one that blew my mind when I first saw it.    For vocals on a lot of records, the way it works now is the vocalist will just run thought X number of takes, beginning to end.   Don't stop just because you messed up.

So you wind up with let's say 10 saved takes of the lead vocals.  Then they go through it syllable by syllable and meld/splice the final product out of the best syllable for each syllable out of the ten takes.   

Guitar solos are pretty similar.   Lol

Depends on the artist, there are holdouts and purists, but sure. Autotune is a digital tech, but splicing and overdubbing goes back as far as good studio tape machines (1970's). It was done, just not to such a fine grain and it was more work. 

What I wonder about is how much of the digital tech is used in a typical live show today. I'm sure no artist would want to admit it, and of course in small venues with little or light amplification you are going to hear a real voice in real time, but in stadium level shows like Swift, or even auditorium size venues where the volume is cranked to >110 db, no one will hear hear any of the actual voice going into the mic, only what the PA system puts out. Any mixing board has plenty of equalization and compression options but I wonder how far beyond that live tech goes now.

Edited August 7, 2023 by gehringer_2

[pfife]

I think there's a ton of this stuff going on in live performances these days.   I also think there's a lot less outrage over fakers these days 

I mean any Solo singer is basically singing to perfected backing tracks.   I think almost all big time acts rely on at minimum MIDI guardrails.   I went to a concert last week where literally every vocal the lead singer sang appeared on the screen.   No way you're doing that accurately without having a universal tempo being set for the entire band.

[pfife]

There are local level bands making extensive use of midi and backing tracks. 

Midi is awesome.   Hope Biff can stop buy and share his experience with it I think his group uses it a lot

[gehringer_2]

23 minutes ago, pfife said:

No way you're doing that accurately without having a universal tempo being set for the entire band.

I am about as completely divorced from pop music as a person can be so I have no dog in this fight, but strictly philosophically speaking, the question might be where is the line between reproduction and performance? Does the modern fan care? Probably not.

It's not really even a new question since as noted, performers have been lip-syncing in front of their recordings since pop music first started showing up on television. Today it's just more like "American Bandstand" has met I-MAX. 

I get more musical enjoyment from walking into a church somewhere to hear a little gospel choir sing live into nothing more electronic than thin air than going to a stadium music concert, but that's fine, to each his own.

EDIT: just to note. Video production SW like OBS will have all the video overlays pre-cued for the show and the operator just has to follow the performer in real time if they want to bend things a little. And the artist can cue the booth if they are going to skip or add a verse etc. You can have a human in the loop - it could be completely tied down but it doesn't have to be.

Edited August 7, 2023 by gehringer_2

[ewsieg]

2 hours ago, oblong said:

Hired Guns taught me that Nugent didn’t sing his studio songs. 

As in songs he originally sang live...which is....Cat Scratch Fever...maybe?   Most of his big songs were Derek St. Holmes, correct?

[Biff Mayhem]

19 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

As in songs he originally sang live...which is....Cat Scratch Fever...maybe?   Most of his big songs were Derek St. Holmes, correct?

A mixture but yes Derek did a lot of the main vocals on the first album.

[Biff Mayhem]

47 minutes ago, pfife said:

There are local level bands making extensive use of midi and backing tracks. 

Midi is awesome.   Hope Biff can stop buy and share his experience with it I think his group uses it a lot

I have no knowledge or understanding of Midi tbh. We do use click tracks with vocal cues which helps keep everyone on the roadmap (especially for songs in 6/8)!

The church I used to go to had Midi into our floor boards so that we never had to tap the delay tempo. I've been playing at a different church now and everything is there but the Midi so I have to tap tempo (which is no big deal).

On that note, I do have a tube amp for when no one is home but I am 99% digital now with my Helix. It is amazing. If anyone else has one, I have some great patches that I'd love to share. Only one of them is metal! 🤣

Here's a video that really captures what we hear in our IEM:

 

 

[CMRivdogs]

25 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:. 

I get more musical enjoyment from walking into a church somewhere to hear a little gospel choir sing live into nothing more electronic than thin air than going to a stadium music concert, but that's fine, to each his own.

 

Same boat, maybe it's age related. I do occasionally get out to a few of the local festivals or weekly offerings of the region. A couple of "swing" bands have got my attention. If you're ever in the South Atlantic region, check out Good Shot Judy. It's the one group I've seen that has groupies in the 50-70 crowd. The dance area is always full.

One of the local churches brings in an eclectic collection of musical fair, from Scottish Folk to groups like the Harlem String Quartet (which has ties to the Ann Arbor based Sphinx origination 

[pfife]

38 minutes ago, Biff Mayhem said:

I have no knowledge or understanding of Midi tbh. We do use click tracks with vocal cues which helps keep everyone on the roadmap (especially for songs in 6/8)!

The church I used to go to had Midi into our floor boards so that we never had to tap the delay tempo. I've been playing at a different church now and everything is there but the Midi so I have to tap tempo (which is no big deal).

On that note, I do have a tube amp for when no one is home but I am 99% digital now with my Helix. It is amazing. If anyone else has one, I have some great patches that I'd love to share. Only one of them is metal! 🤣

Here's a video that really captures what we hear in our IEM:

 

 

That video was informative thanks for posting.  I've never heard the sound from iem like that before!    I'm thinking the person talking to the band at the beginning and end was a live person but the voice alerting them to chorus/Verse etc is pre programmed based on measure count ot something like that?

[pfife]

Could any band member get a personalized mix in their ear like no click but ill take that voice reminder for the change?

[ewsieg]

56 minutes ago, Biff Mayhem said:

A mixture but yes Derek did a lot of the main vocals on the first album.

I believe Meatloaf even sang some, not sure if that was in studio or on the road (or both).    Over this past weekend I was talking music with my daughter and her friends, one mentioned that of her dad's music, about the only one she really likes is Van Halen.  She knew the name Eddie Van Halen, but always thought he was the lead singer.  

[oblong]

With someone like Swift the fans want the whole performance.  The visual and the audio are equally important. Besides the crowd is singing along every note so who cares if there’s backing. I loved the passion of the swifties. Not my thing but I don’t get in the way of what others like.  

[Biff Mayhem]

31 minutes ago, pfife said:

That video was informative thanks for posting.  I've never heard the sound from iem like that before!    I'm thinking the person talking to the band at the beginning and end was a live person but the voice alerting them to chorus/Verse etc is pre programmed based on measure count ot something like that?

There is a musical director (MD) who has a mic only the musicians can hear and there is the voice built into the tracks which can be switched on and off so you nailed it. Depending on who is playing any Sunday, the MD either has to talk a lot or very little. 

We have iPads with our sheet music and an app to control our mix. I'll try to grab a picture next time I play to show you what it's like.

For my mix, the click track, lead vocalists and MD are high up while everyone else is down.

Fun fact: we get the songs on Tuesday or Wednesday and then have to learn our parts on our own. Sometimes they're songs we've played before so that's easy because I already have the notes on the ipad (and hopefully am assigned the same EG part - we have two EG parts which are always different from each other for layering). We show up at 8:30 Sunday morning, play the set once and then go live at 9:30 and again at 11:15. No rehearsal other than that. Know your parts, follow the click and the MD direction. Pack it up...go home.

I'm not tooting my horn when I say this but not just anyone can do that.

[Biff Mayhem]

41 minutes ago, pfife said:

Could any band member get a personalized mix in their ear like no click but ill take that voice reminder for the change?

No one eliminates the click....things would go south fast! The voice guide is optional only for the leader to remove depending on if we're sticking to the original version or if we want to go off the path and shorten/extend any song.

 

ETA: in that video you'll notice that the guy (guitarist) whose IEM we are listening to doesn't have any drums in his mix. I might add a little snare but the click really keeps things in time.

[Biff Mayhem]

35 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

I believe Meatloaf even sang some

Mr. Paulson preferred to have Meat and Loaf separated thank you very much 😝

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

With someone like Swift the fans want the whole performance.  The visual and the audio are equally important. Besides the crowd is singing along every note so who cares if there’s backing. I loved the passion of the swifties. Not my thing but I don’t get in the way of what others like.  

This is a very good point. In today's society, people need/crave shared experience because it's in large part missing from the rest of the modern society. That is largely what a concert show is about today - connection. From that viewpoint, a Swift concert is not fully about the music - as music per se, it's what the music represents in term of a bridge - a shared total sensory experience - across the audience. In small scale live acoustic music performance, or if you plug yourself into a Hahn recording of a Bach partita, the variety in tempo, bending of a note, all the freedoms the performer takes in that particular performance as they put their present tense (even if recorded) emotional stamp on the performance make that an animal different enough from a concert show to be apples and oranges. In that case music is an individual experience. All the texture that electronics could wash out is the whole point. It's almost an exact converse.

Edited August 7, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Mr.TaterSalad]

Uncle Lucius Keep the Wolves Away always hits me. Such a well written, emotive song.

 

[CMRivdogs]

Just needed to drop in and pay homage to Robbie Robertson, guitar player, song writer and one of the more influential groups of the late 60s...

I may need to screen The Last Waltz again today

 

[oblong]

Here's a great version of The Weight.

I think it might be the perfect song.  I love it when you have something like a music festival or tribute show and this kind of song is the finale and you have 25 legends on stage singing it.

The best part about The Last Waltz is Neil Young's cocaine booger.

 

 

[Motor City Sonics]

Martin Bandyke will be doin at two-hour tribute to Robbie Robertson on Fine Tuning tomorrow afternoon from 4-6pm on 107.1 in Ann Arbor - and at annarbors107one.com    

[Mr.TaterSalad]

Brandy Clark's new self-titled album is so, so good. It was produced by the other, also equally amazing Brandi, Brandi Carlile. My top tracks off of it are Dear Insecurity (which is tops by a mile for me), Northwest, Come Back to Me, and this song below, She Smoked in the House. Fantastic songwriting as always by Brandy Clark who continues to be one of the best singer/songwriters out there in the Country/Alt-Country/Americana genres.