@sam-houston
Category: Music
<p>I uploaded a new song called "ShadowWolf". Please check it out if you get a chance.</p>
<p>Uploaded a new song called "She Wont Drive Me To Drink". Check it out if you get a chance.</p>
<p> Hi folks. I’ve been thinking again. I know I know, it’s a scary thing for me too. I’m sort of reluctant to continue this because I’m not really sure how to approach it. I’m relatively sure it will offend somebody somehow but my interest in this subject is strong enough to pursue it. So, when all else fails, just say it.</p> <p> I will say this though, try to remain civilized, mature, and respectful and I will too. There’s no reason we can’t discuss this reasonably.</p> <p> I’ve always been very curious as to what draws one person to another, in particular an audience to a performer. What is it about a performer that can cause a person, or group of people, to be so enthralled and infatuated? They will even go so far as to fight about it. When I was playing full time I had many fans, as I’m sure most of you have too. Even now that I’m not on stage all the time, I still have many fans. And again, I’m sure most of you do too. And these are people I don’t even know and have never met in person. But, why? What has any performer ever done to deserve such admiration and accolades? Is it just the act itself of being brave enough to get up in front of many people and expose a little of your inner self in a song? Is it that we can do that and they can’t? It certainly isn’t because we are the greatest that ever was at singing or playing the guitar or whatever. Many times, just the song itself can provoke deep emotion. But, when that type song is coupled with great musicians and a from-the-heart singer, it can be life-altering for some people. But that’s just one song and is not what I’m getting at. People attach themselves to performers. They believe in that performer like no other and will believe just about anything they say, sing, or play. Why?</p> <p> Now that I’ve posed that question, I want to go deeper. I did a blog a few days ago regarding home recordings and got some good feedback and advice that I intend to implement and try. But, since then I’ve had conversations and read Mix forum topics on that subject and also on emotional vocalization in a song. That got me thinking and eventually brought me to this subject.</p> <p> Although my main theme here will be mainstream music and performers, it has to do with everybody that has anything to do with music. The root of all this is that I want to understand why some mainstream performers get awards of every sort, sell millions of albums, have sold-out shows, make millions of dollars, and have screaming, half crazed fans all clamoring for even a brief glimpse of their favorite performer, while other performers who are obviously MUCH more talented get very little airplay and are relegated to relative obscurity in what amounts to a musical “Death Valley”. It seems to me that if a performer is contributing positively to the collective good of his/her genre, they should be allowed to continue and receive the same airtime and awards as anyone else. Why should they be cut from the mix? It makes no sense. It seems in the music industry these days, performers of legendary status are forced down and denied their rightful place in the spotlight. If they are still able to perform then they should be allowed to and be billed right up there with the top sellers, but they aren’t. They have to play places that hold maybe 1/100th of the quantity of people they once performed for. It’s sickening.</p> <p> It’s also sickening to think about the fact that music of today is just not what it once was or what it should be. With technology comes laziness. People are always figuring out how to do more and more with less and less but never seem to care about the costs involved. We can synthetically reproduce practically any sound imaginable, but do we really want to? You lose all the intricate nuances of live performance by a human being when artificially reproduced. I’m not referring to home recordings or small studio recordings. I’m talking about the supposed “upper echelon” of the music industry. They have multitudes of musicians at their disposal but readily utilize synthetic sources when possible. That has a lot to do with what we hear, or don’t hear, these days. Rather than paying a musician to participate in a recording, they can just as easily use sampling or other means to attain the required part. I’m not saying they always do that, but it happens. And for me, that degrades the quality rather than improve it.</p> <p> Hang in there, this will come full circle momentarily. So, what is it that drives people to be fanatics? By the way, that’s where the term “fan” came from. It’s short for fanatic. Merriam-Webster defines fanatic as “marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion”. So, there you go, “uncritical devotion”. That’s what I was saying before. Essentially this means that when someone is a “fan” of a performer, they are unconditionally devoted to them, regardless of whether that devotion is rational or not. However, we all know there are varying degrees of fanaticism. But, I often wonder what motivates some people.</p> <p> If we are honest with ourselves, we know that there are plenty of high level mainstream performers that honestly just don’t have it and should not be in the lime light they are in. There are even others that shouldn’t even be in the music business at all. At this point, I will refrain from referring to specific performers because I don’t want this to turn into an argument over who is the better no-talent. You will note however, that throughout this blog I have continually referred to them as “performers” rather than artists or entertainers. These people are performers….period. They simply appear on stage, similar to a dancing chicken with a hot plate under it. So, with that being said, what causes “fans” to be attracted to these type people when some of these performers these days blatantly get on stage and play the wrong notes, sing off key, play out of time, etc etc.? If somebody continually gets on stage and cranks out amazing guitar solos or just has an amazing voice, then I can see why people would like that and be attracted to it. But, when that isn’t the case…..why? Is it that the performer has been marketed in such a way that it draws in lots of people? Is it that people are so gullible that if television and radio says it’s good then it must be? Are people tone deaf? I would agree that a lot of the songs are good songs but then get butchered by the performer. But, maybe it’s the message in the song. But, don’t people realize that a lot of performers don’t write their own songs? What is going on? There used to be an unspoken “code of ethics” in music that said if you can’t play, don’t. If you can’t sing, don’t. That doesn’t seem to be the case many times in mainstream music these days.</p> <p> I just don’t understand this type of strange behavior. I just don’t get why somebody would gravitate to a performer who is obviously significantly musically challenged. I also don’t understand how these performers get to the levels they are. It just makes no sense.</p> <p> That’s why independent music and musicians are taking over! But, the mainstreamers are “supposed” to be the best of the best. But, obviously that isn’t true in a lot of cases. This seems to hold true no matter what genre or age group. So, what goes through peoples minds when they select these people to idolize?</p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"> The majority of my musical knowledge has nothing to do with recording and/or mixing multi-track recordings. There was always an engineer in the studio taking care of all that. Of course I've made cassette recordings or digital handheld recordings just so I wouldn't forget something. But that is not the same. I am a lone wolf at the moment. I choose not to have a band, but I still go play live with somebody from time to time, but mostly it's just me. So, that being the case, I'm left to my own devices.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"> With technology being what it is these days, once you have an audio file created, you upload it to websites and/or radio stations online. Obviously you already know this if you're here at Mixposure. But, my point is that many of us don't have access to high end recording equipment nor can we afford high end recording software, but we want our music to be the best that it can be with what we have to work with.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"> So, that brings me to the point of this blog .....article .....blarticle .....articog .....whatever. I have recently been trying to figure out recording and mixing multi-track recordings. I want to improve on what I have. This is mainly because I know it can be done because I hear studio quality music here all the time and it drives me crazy that I can't get mine to sound that good. So, I've been working on it, reading a lot about it, and learning. And, since there are well over 6000 members, at the moment, surely others have experienced some of the same issues as me. Plus, it helps me to learn and remember if I write it down, or type it in this case. Therefore, I thought I would share some of the things I've learned so far so maybe it will help somebody somewhere along the way.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"> Let it be known that I <span style="color: #ff0000;">IN NO WAY</span> claim to know anything about anything and absolutely <span style="color: #ff0000;">DO NOT</span> claim to be even close to the vicinity of the neighborhood of the recording pros. So, please, take the time to investigate these things yourself and <span style="color: #ff0000;">DO NOT</span> take what I say to heart, because I'm trying to learn also. And, if any of you pros, or anybody smarter than me (which is just about everyone), has any corrections or anything to add, please do so. I need all the help I can get.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"> So, not long ago, I recorded a song called "Pair Of Dice". I had many issues with this song in particular. I used up 16 tracks to get it done. Not all 16 are full tracks. As a matter of fact, there are NO full complete tracks all the way through from start to finish anywhere in the song. I have the drum and bass on one track (they are together because it's basically a digital sample from a synthesizer), the vocals are on one track, the rythm guitar is on a track, the lead fills on a track, and the lead guitar on a track. So, I've already used 5 tracks right there. Some of the rest of the tracks are snippets of things that I used to fill in here or there or add something that I couldn't add any other way, like a seperate bass run or to add a hi-hat somewhere. I put them on seperate tracks so that I could control the volume of each seperate item and add different effects on different things.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"> I used Kristal Audio Engine (free) to record and mix the song. However, this was the start of the problems. The main problem I was having was latency. A very simplified explanation of latency is it is "lag time", which can be as high as 50-75 milliseconds on a standard Windows sound card, from the time a signal is created (your voice for example) until it reaches the processor and onto that specific track. Let's suppose, for example, you have track one already recorded with a rythm guitar and you are now using track two for vocals. Ordinarily, while recording the vocals, you are playing back track one with the rythm guitar on it. With Windows typical MME <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(multi-media extensions) latency of 50-75 ms, your vocals will be off by that much as compared to track one. The thing is, depending on what the latency actually is, you may not realize it until you are several tracks into it and going back and re-recording it won't help the situation because you will still end up with the same result. So, you can imagine the difficulty involved when many tracks are involved and there is a latency issue on every track.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For more information and further reading on latency, please see </span><a href="http://www.digitalprosound.com/Htm/Articles/April/Audio_Latency.htm">http://www.digitalprosound.com/Htm/Articles/April/Audio_Latency.htm </a>This article explains latency and the many different types of latency where digital recording is concerned.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"> A quick sideline..... I haven't noticed latency issues nearly as bad while using Audacity as opposed to Kristal, while using the same computer. I haven't quite figured out why yet but I suspect it's because they may be using different audio drivers. I don't know yet.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"> So, what do you do when you have a situation like this? There are several solutions. But, here is what I did to get Pair Of Dice better than it was, and then I'll mention some other solutions. As I mentioned, Pair Of Dice is comprised of 16 seperate tracks, and each one had latency issues. What I did to start was to mute every track accept the drum/bass track and the vocal track. Muting all but two tracks eliminates trying to here "between" the other tracks and cuts distraction down to nothing. I then aligned the vocal track with the bass/drum track, at least the best I could with my ear. Once that sounded decent, I muted the bass/drum track and unmuted the rythm track. Now I only had the vocal track and rythm track on. Again, I aligned the rythm track to the vocals. The reason I aligned the rythm to the vocals instead of to the bass/drum is because vocals are more prominent than bass and drums and chord changes are much more evident and need to be relatively precise. After that, I then proceeded to mute the rythm track and turn on the lead fills track and also aligned it to the vocals. I again chose the vocal track for alignment of the lead fill track because lead fills are typically done between words or sentences. However, for the main lead guitar track, I turned on the vocals AND the bass/drum track. I did this for two reasons. I included the bass/drum track to get the lead guitar as close to being in time as my ear would allow and I included the vocals because I needed to know where the lead break started and stopped. I followed this type procedure until the song reached a decent equilibrium. It still isn't perfect but it sounds much better than it did.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"> So, that demonstrates one painful way to re-align a song recorded on a computer where latency is an issue. It works but is far from being exact and far from the way you would typically want to do it. The right way to do it is to eliminate the latency issue altogether....or as much as you can.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The one obvious solution is to empty your wallet and buy a high end sound card or, buy a new current computer.....and then buy a high end sound card for it. But, either way, empty your wallet. But, if you're like me, you don't always have money just falling out of your pockets. We can't all be Garth Brooks <img title="Surprised" src="http://www.mixposure.com/include/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-surprised.gif" border="0" alt="Surprised" />. So, what's the answer? I don't know. But I do know there is a solution that <span style="text-decoration: underline;">should</span> (and I use that word cautiously) dramatically help with the situation. Windows wants to use MME and/or Direct X with its native drivers to create or manipulate audio. MME is probably the worst with regard to latency and sound quality, from what I've read. Direct X is better than MME but still isn't great. One fix is to install ASIO drivers on your computer. ASIO technology, or </span>Audio Stream Input/Output, was developed by Steinberg Technologies, and was initially developed to assist with VST plugin quality (VST plugin technology was also initially developed by Steinberg Technologies). ASIO helps by supporting variable bit depths and sample rates, multi-channel operation and synchronization. According to Wikipedia "<em>ASIO bypasses the normal audio path from the user application through layers of intermediary Windows operating system software, so that the application connects directly to the sound card hardware. Each layer that is bypassed means a reduction in latency. In this way ASIO offers a relatively simple way of accessing multiple audio inputs and outputs independently. Its main strength lies in its method of bypassing the inherently high latency and poor-quality mixing and sample rate conversion of Windows audio mixing kernels (KMixer), allowing direct, high speed communication with audio hardware. Unlike KMixer, an unmixed ASIO output is "bit identical" or "bit transparent", that is, the bits sent to the sound card are identical to those of the original source, thus having higher audio fidelity.</em>" So, there's a guy named Michael Tippach that has developed an ASIO driver which works seemingly with just about every sound card out there and it's free to all. You can find it <a href="http://www.asio4all.com/">here</a>. Download and install it and you should notice a huge difference. There is also an article concerning .NET programming <a href="http://www.codeproject.com/KB/audio-video/Asio_Net.aspx">here</a> that also discusses latency and ASIO drivers.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"> I know this has been a pretty long winded post but I think if you're going to learn about something then you should try to learn all you can. I know I've learned a ton of things about recording and mixing since I've been on Mixposure and since I started digging more into digital recording. If you've read this far, I appreciate your time, and I only hope that this helps somebody.</span></p>
<p>I remixed "Pair Of Dice". It's not perfect but it's a hell of a lot better than it was. Please check it out.</p>
<p>I just wanted to let anyone that listens to my songs know that I realize that some of my recordings are less than good. I've talked with a few folks here about it and have been given some good advice and hints.</p><p>The problem is that I don't really have any recording/mixing experience to speak of, especially when dealing with multiple tracks.....and with dealing with recording digitally on a computer.....and with not having fancy equipment or software.....and with dealing with it just being me without a band.....and with.... Well, you get the idea. Recording this way is all new to me. I'm used to just showing up with a guitar, stepping up to the mic, and having somebody else deal with all the recording issues. I was always the one saying "this mix sucks" or "what are you getting paid for" or "are you freakin' deaf". But, as with most things, it's not always as simple when you're on the other side of the fence. (i didn't really say all those things.....I thought them.....but didn't say them....that i remember....probably....)</p><p>Anyway, I'm just saying that as soon as I can I will be re-recording some of my songs and hopefully they will turn out better.</p>
<p>Uploaded another song called "Demons and Dirt". Check it out <a href="http://www2.mixposure.com/Full_Blood_Country/song_focus_21851.php">here</a> if you get a chance. I included lyrics this time, just for clarity.</p><p> </p><p>I updated the song info with some additional comments.</p>
<p>Uploaded a new song called "Playin With My G and L". Check it out <a href="http://www2.mixposure.com/Full_Blood_Country/song_focus_21841.php">here</a> if you get a chance.</p>
<p>Uploaded a new song called "Pair Of Dice". Check it out <a href="http://www2.mixposure.com/Full_Blood_Country/song_focus_21645.php">here</a> if you get a chance.</p>
<p>I've mentioned before that my son is in a metal band. And, even though I don't like that style of music, he is one of the best drummers I've heard. He's just plain awesome.</p><p>So, I want to record him and use him on some of my songs.........very toned down of course <img title="Surprised" src="http://www.mixposure.com/include/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-surprised.gif" border="0" alt="Surprised" />. And, I also want to record him and the band "Eclipse Of Destruction", create a Mixposure account for them, and post their music.</p><p>The problem though is that he plays so unbelievably loud that I'm not sure how to get a recording without it being nothing but complete clipping all the way through. And no, there's no chance of him backing off.....trust me. Also, we do not have a plexiglass drum wall for him either.</p><p>Here's the current setup. We have all of our music equipment in the music building, and practice, and record <a href="http://www2.mixposure.com/Full_Blood_Country/photo_5624.php">here</a>. When I record I run vocal mics through a 12 channel powered mixer (400 watts) and then set up a seperate mic between speakers (or sometimes pointed at a speaker if low gain) and run to a computer. Obviously I don't wire in any racks (power amps (Peavey CS1000's), crossover, eq, etc.) or any other boards, for this situation. The speakers set up in the building are two Peavey SP4's (two 15's and a horn in each) and two Peavey towers (five 12's in each). I have other speaker systems but these are good enough for this. Mics include Shure SM57, Shure SM58, and a few other lower end cardoids. The SM58 is really to hot of a mic to use this way so I usually use a Sampson cardoid or sometimes the SM57 (but it's fairly hot too). When I use the keyboard I run a hi-Z chord from it to the mixer and use a mic between speakers ran to the computer. Guitars I use an amp (either a Peavey duel 212, Peavey Heritage 212 VTX, or a 1968 Fender Deluxe Reverb chrome face) with a mic running to the computer. Bass is either keyboard bass or a bass player with their own rig, with a mic running to the computer.</p><p>So, with what I have here, what is the best way to record my son and/or his band with their ear-bleeding volume? Is there a way to shield the mic by building a box around it or something?</p>
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