Dear David, Narada and All,
Honestly, I feel that so many recordings are ruined with reverb,
hall-effects, etc
This is usually destined for poor quality CD systems that are often
thin sounding, but if the listner
has managed to acquire a fairly neutral system, these 'effects' can
be heard clearly as 'effects".
I so often wish they were not there.
I am thinking of Hopkinson Smith's Dowland's Dream, for example,
which has either been recorded
in too large a hall, or had too much hall-effect applied to it. I
feel that is such a pity.
I really do find it difficult to listen to that record. HS used metal
wound strings and that already tends
to smother the other voices, but if you add reverb it becomes even
worse.
David is using Pistoy basses, I believe, and that should give good
clarity and ballance to all voices.
Why make the sound vague through reverb?
Ok, I have made my point, and I don't want to sound too dogmatic, so
I will leave it there.
Also, in my last message, only part was really addressed to you,
David, I don't imagine you will be interested in analysing
other player's variations. I am still in the research and learning
process, and perhaps a few others might be interested in this aspect
of Amadeus.
Regards
Anthony
Le 14 juin 07 à 12:23, Narada a écrit :
> David/All,
>
> I generally agree with a room full of books to dampen the sound etc.
> However I use a Boss BR1600CD 16 track digital studio and I believe it
> has ( without looking ) around 12 different reverb effects all of
> which
> can be 'tweaked' to suit the individual. For recording with my
> acoustics
> I usually have 'Hall' switched on and then set so that the reverb is
> just 'wetting' the sound. I haven't tried recording with my Lute
> yet but
> intend to do so soon. Additionally I also use a program called
> 'Melodyne' which, amongst other things allows me to alter the pitch of
> the sound if it is flat or sharp. I won't go into the reverb
> settings on
> my FX rig as I run 2 of them, one on 'board' and the other on my
> amplifier.
>
> Kind Regards
>
> Neil
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anthony Hind [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: 14 June 2007 10:07
> To: LGS-Europe; Lute Net
> Subject: [LUTE] Re: home recordings
>
> David
> In general, books and book-shelves are the best things you can
> have
> for improving a recording studio or listening room. It should not
> make the room dry, but break up all the standing waves. In my
> listening room, I obtained a huge improvement by adding book shelves
> on the rear wall, and when I had to remove them during decoration,
> the room became far too echoey and over-bright.
> Glass windows are also often a problem, especially if they are old
> fashioned thin ones. The thicker plate-glass ones do not add so much
> reverb, but they still do reflect energy.
> On the other hand, if you open the windows the sound level of the
> sounds within the listening or recording room will tend to drop. This
> is not just because of extraneous noise.
>
> In fact, it is strange that extraneous noises are not necessarily a
> bad thing in a recording. If they are not too off-putting, they can
> make you feel that the event is more live.
> I have noticed birds chirping on one of Anthony Bailes recordings,
> and I always listen for them. A passing motor-bike, on the other
> hand, might not be ideal.
>
> It is also possible to change the characteristics of the room, by
> hanging mirrors to make the sound brighter and more reverberant, or
> some sound absorbing material to darken and remove reverb. These do
> not have to be very big, if they are well placed in relation to the
> listener or the mikes.
>
> I agree that external mikes are necessary. Any internal mike will
> pick up noise from the component, and of course there is no way of
> placing the mikes in relation to the player.
> Amateur players who record themselves on computers should try to cut
> out the digital board of the computer for similar reasons. I have
> previously mentioned the Transit M-Audio as a cheap alternative to
> the internal board that takes up very little space. You can also use
> it for play back, again to cut out the internal board of the computer.
> If you happen to have a good portable cassette recorder you can use
> that as a preamp for the mikes. I have a Sony TCD5M, and also a Sony
> Walkman Pro. Both can be used as acceptable preamps, so that it is
> possible to use just about any microphone, and of course they do not
> take up much space. I generally use this set-up for recording voice
> for phonetic analysis. However, it does make acceptable recordings of
> music.
>
> I use a MAC i-book, and record with the programmes Amadeus II, and
> Amadeus Pro. Amadeus Pro would allow multi tracking ( up to 5 tracks,
> I think). They both also have noise reduction programmes, although I
> find you lose too much detail and the noise gate is completely
> audible to me. I personally think that a minimum of sound treatment
> is best. No reverb, is I think generally better than even a small
> amount of reverb. Both programmes allow you to record in MP3 or
> MPEG4. Amadeus Pro allows you to burn your recording to an audio CD
> straight away from within the programme.
>
> There is an "effect"" in Amadeus for altering "Tonalité" and
> "Vitesse". This makes it possible to slow down a recording while
> keeping the same diapason. I used this the other day to decipher the
> variations that Jacob Heringman had used in his interpretation of a
> piece of music. You can repeat a few notes until you are happy you
> have noted them. If the lute did not happen to be in the same
> diapason as your lute, it would be possible to use "Tonalité" to
> alter the diapason of the recording.
>
> It would also be possible to make a sonagramme with Amadeus and use
> the cursor to directly read off the notes played (in half tones or in
> absolute Hertz values). I have not tried this with music, but it
> works well for a quick overview of the pitch changes in speech. It
> certainly should work for music as I think that was what it was
> intended for. The name Amadeus, at least, would lead me to believe
> that was the case. I imagine similar programmes must exist for
> Windows, but I am unable to give any information on them.
>
> However, for phonetic analysis, I also use PRAAT http://
> www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/. This a free programme that allows you to
> make spectrograms, pitch and formant analysis, but I suppose it could
> also be used for analyzing music. The advantage of PRAAT is that it
> will work with any computer MAC, Windows, Linux, etc.
> Best regards
> Anthony
>
>
>
> Le 14 juin 07 à 00:12, LGS-Europe a écrit :
>
>> Thanks for all the feed back, I just got back and was pleasantly
>> surprised
>> with the number of good comments.
>>
>> I did the reverb after downloading a plugin (never did that before)
>> for
>> audacity. Straight out of the box, didn't change any settings. It's
>> way over
>> the top, so I far prefer the one without reverb, but I realise it
>> is _very_
>> dry. This was recorded in my _very_ dry study, too many books, so
>> I'll get
>> back to the living room for more experiments.
>>
>> To be continued.
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>> ****************************
>> David van Ooijen
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> www.davidvanooijen.nl
>> ****************************
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Anthony Hind" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> To: "LGS-Europe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Lute Net"
>> <[email protected]>
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 4:13 PM
>> Subject: Re: [LUTE] home recordings
>>
>>
>> I far prefer the non reverb sound. I agree with John Buchman
>> (Magantune) that choosing a large hall for recording lute or
>> harpsichord is a mistake.
>> If you add reverb, it has a siliar effect. I know that MP3 is a
>> little thin, but I don't think that reverb is the way out of this.
>> That is just my oppinion, and others may be used to that added glow.
>> Best regards
>> Anthony
>>
>> Le 13 juin 07 à 11:38, LGS-Europe a écrit :
>>
>>> I've bought myself a recorder and put the first trials on my
>>> website. Go
>>> to
>>> Home recordings in the left hand menu. Have to run now.
>>>
>>> David
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ****************************
>>> David van Ooijen
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> www.davidvanooijen.nl
>>> ****************************
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> To get on or off this list see list information at
>>> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
>>
>>
>>
>>
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