Bottlehead Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: xcortes on November 27, 2011, 03:31:06 PM
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Finally I digitized my first recording and gave a first try to the artist: Louise Phelan.
She posted a sample online. Not my favourite song and at crappy resolution but gives you an idea ofnthe quality of her voice (and the superb recording engineer!). Imagine that voice in the same session singing "what a wonderful world" recorded direct to tape at 15 ips.
http://audioboo.fm/boos/561660-don-t-know-why (http://audioboo.fm/boos/561660-don-t-know-why)
Inhope you like it!
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VERY nice, and I liked the song :) and I thought the recording was stunning..I dont know who recorded the other songs that were from a year ago that I also heard, but have to say , your recording was dramatically better and more natural... Thanks
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She has a beautiful and powerful voice. Your recording shows her range of expression.
I, too, don't know why she selected that cut rather than What A Wonderful World.
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That is just fantastic! If you/she ever make a lossless copy available, i'd buy it. The presence is "right there" and I love her voice. Well done indeed!
John
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Wow!
Sounds killer Xavier!
Now, time to spill the beans.
What mic's and where?
Preamps?
Any pictures of your mic's placement etc.
I want the whole bloody story!
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You mean you want the whole "enchilada".... :)
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Thanks for the comments guys. She's very happy with the results and she's planning on posting more songs.
Steve, I remembered I had a couple of pics from my cel phone taken a few days before the recording session. I had planned to take good pics during recording but in the end I decided to concentrate on the latter. But here's the two I did take
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And another:
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So you can see it's my "regular" room with some extra absorption and difussion material. Actually I ended up removing most of the extra absorption material 'cause it was killing the room too much.
The mic is a Neumann SM69 that I used in Blumlein configuration. One of the only two things I would possibly have done differently is setting it up a little farther to get the image more centered (I like the image because it's closer to what I heard being there but my "audiophile" friends complain about guitar coming from one channel and voice from the other). But then again the position of the mic was set with the two players already playing and moving it until I found a sweet spot. So it would have been a compromise. IIRC the mic ended up being a little bit farther and higher than its on the pics. They did sit on those chairs and the guitar amp was nearby. It was a hummy amp and you can hear that hum at silent passages.
The mic preamp was a Manley dual mono tube. It ended up blending very nicely with the Neumann. One day I'll modify a Seduction. I already have the input transformers.
And directly to the ATR. I checked levels and off we go. I think I should have used slightly lower levels. There's some moments where I think I saturated the tape a little bit more than I would have like to.
All in all a fantastic experience. She's ready to do another session with a fantastic pianist. For this one I'll need to move and that's where my TdP Technics will show it's capabilities. Or a mint and perfectly working Nagra IV-S with CCIR eq that is coming to me from Europe!
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BTW, there's two members that have heard the recording through tape. Maybe they can chime in and "constructively" criticize my work!
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Here's three more songs:
http://audioboo.fm/boos/567455-you-are-the-sunshine-of-my-life (http://audioboo.fm/boos/567455-you-are-the-sunshine-of-my-life)
http://audioboo.fm/boos/567452-it-don-t-mean-a-thing (http://audioboo.fm/boos/567452-it-don-t-mean-a-thing)
http://audioboo.fm/boos/567407-bewitched-bothered-and-bewildered (http://audioboo.fm/boos/567407-bewitched-bothered-and-bewildered)
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I don't know if your preamp can matrix a mid/side output (not many can) but it's always an interesting option when you can configure your capsules to a card/omni and a figure 8.
M/S gives a more conventional stereo field. Of course, the extra processing adds noise and I know that's not what you're looking for.
In any case, the recordings sound superb!
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Yes , your audiophile friends feel the same and are experiencing the same as myself, I am getting 90 percent of the vocals in my right ear , with a vocal presentation from the left ear like she is off singing in another room, however to me, the guitar seems fairly balanced, just the vocals have that pronounced imbalance to the listener, however, with respect to you, maybe THIS is what you were wanting to acheive.... but for us "stereo" listening buying public, we GOTTA have that brilliant vocal presence dead center in the soundstage.. and sorry, I am ignorant to the whole "mono" world, Is this a "mono" recording, and is this what happens to a mono recording when played back through stereo gear? anyhow, for MOST 2 channel people, i would imagine, get her vocal soundstage centered and I think it is perfect what you are acheiving... very nice dan TERUS!!! (that means continue)
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Sounds like I'm hearing Ziva David, Cote de Pablo, singing. Similar timber to the voice. (I don't think the vocal on NCIS when she sang was actually her voice.)
I hear a little less of the instruments than the voice. Both are very well recorded. I'm bothered by the early Beatles Stereo mixes, the four lads on one side, all instruments on the other. But that is why you have a Mono switch. PJ outlined a good place for that in the Foreplay layout recently, after SS before volume.
Considering the space Xavier had to work in I think everything came out very well. Come to think of it, somewhere I have seen a blend control schematic. That would bring both the voice and the instruments inside of the speakers, nearer the center without going full Mono.
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but for us "stereo" listening buying public, we GOTTA have that brilliant vocal presence dead center in the soundstage..
I think it is interesting that people might become so content with what they have been served that after a while they believe it is what they must have. We deal with a lot of hard left/right panned material in the Tape Project including some vocals, and I have to say that I like the break from "center bighead". Had a conversation the other day with someone who was commenting that in a recent re-release of some opera the engineer actually went to the effort to center vocals that in the original release naturally moved across the soundstage as the singer moved across the real stage.
I am one who has a copy of Xavier's tape and I think it's a great first effort. Concentrating on getting the sound of the vocalist and the sound of the guitar right without distortion and with clarity is the proper place to start. Once you have that down you can start to experiment with manipulating image localization. That of course leads to experimentation with multitracking, panning, EQ, compression, limiting, overdubs...
If I were to offer one critique it might be that it would be neat if there was a way to get a little more intimate sound out of the guitar to match the vocal. However this would probably require something beyond a simple stereo pair and this is why different mics get used for vocals than instruments, etc. It's quite easy to drift away from the minimalist mic concept.
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Yep Doc you are right, JUST like our Moms cookin'.. it is the best because that is what we all were served... I was served the standard stereo image and visual image at live venues (singer(s) usually center of the stage... Can't help it, and can't help but think MOST people feel the same... I think his recording was a SUPERB effort, and i can imagine it is not easy when you do such an honest minimalistic (the way i like it, myself) recording, to be able to manipulate the vocals without maybe ruining or altering the superb natural fidelity.... i will leave that stuff to you guys , the experts.. HOWEVER, having said all this, hearing this type of recording is making me want more and more of this type of thing.... beautiful stuff....