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Post by M57 on Sept 10, 2017 15:22:04 GMT -6
OK, I'll play a little devil's advocate.. Greatness is a subjective term. There's a lot more to music than performance experience. In the"classical" world of music, composers traditionally write what they want to hear - then it is realized by the ensemble/artist/orchestra, etc. Pencil and paper was the technology that enabled this, and technology has and will continue to stretch the boundaries of music. Of course, you can argue that there's a down-side to this. Most of what people think of as great music has turned into performance art. The show is often much more important than the composition. Take away the stage theatrics, light shows, videos, and 90% of the time you end up with a half dozen chords with sing-along melodies and insipid lyrics. However, it would be wrong to be judgmental about these musicians. Today, "Greatness" is mostly driven by what the larger public craves. You can't blame musicians for the state of music any more than you can blame politicians for the state of politics. Ultimately, it comes down to the knowledgeability and proclivities of consumers. The blame lies with the people who give them the stage. No. Greatness, for the most part, is art that passes the test of time, or (since often great works do become lost) at least evokes a strong emotional or intellectual (for a given value of "intellectual - I don't mean "highbrow") response from a significant percentage of the audience. That doesn't mean complexity - often simplicity can be quite profound whereas technically complex works may leave the audience cold. What the larger public craves on an immediate, popular level is all too often mediocrity and familiarity. Hence all the "me too" material on the charts. Also, sometimes greatness is not immediately recognized and only becomes apparent after a bit of time has passed. (But, of course, sometimes it is....) A glitzy performance may draw a large immediate audience, but that doesn't make it "great", it's just entertaining at the time. That doesn't preclude that the music might be great, but usually not, and it'll be nearly forgotten in a few short years. And sometimes the glitzy performance may actually be a distraction from the greatness of the art. I don't disagree with you. In fact, I agree with you pretty strongly ..except the "No" part. Our points are not mutually exclusive.
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Post by M57 on Sept 10, 2017 9:08:32 GMT -6
OK, I'll play a little devil's advocate.. Greatness is a subjective term. There's a lot more to music than performance experience. In the"classical" world of music, composers traditionally write what they want to hear - then it is realized by the ensemble/artist/orchestra, etc. Pencil and paper was the technology that enabled this, and technology has and will continue to stretch the boundaries of music. Of course, you can argue that there's a down-side to this. Most of what people think of as great music has turned into performance art. The show is often much more important than the composition. Take away the stage theatrics, light shows, videos, and 90% of the time you end up with a half dozen chords with sing-along melodies and insipid lyrics. However, it would be wrong to be judgmental about these musicians. Today, "Greatness" is mostly driven by what the larger public craves. You can't blame musicians for the state of music any more than you can blame politicians for the state of politics. Ultimately, it comes down to the knowledgeability and proclivities of consumers. The blame lies with the people who give them the stage.
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Post by M57 on Aug 28, 2017 17:02:42 GMT -6
I'm a musician first and and amateur engineer at best - so Clueless is probably a better descriptor for me.
But I love wearing all the hats. I enjoy mixing. My ADD never lets me finish a mix. I have a musical vision, but I almost never have a clear picture of what the final product should sound like. I track and mix, then track and mix some more. Then master - then go back and re-track or maybe add another track - then remaster. Luckily, time is my friend. My waveform screen is a mess. I have tracks sent to busses that might be sent to more busses such that the routing usually ends up rivaling the complexity of the NY transit system - and it doesn't help that Logic doesn't let you rearrange channels all that easily in the mix window.
I prefer to close my eyes when EQing, but I watch the meter like a hawk when compressing. I can agonize over automation lines for hours, but I prefer precisely places single points over curves and the paths generally look herky-jerky. My gain-staging is informed by a set of rules that I think is mathematical, but most of you would surely call it voodoo.
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Post by M57 on Aug 25, 2017 8:57:43 GMT -6
I thought it was ironic that thousands of people paid a lot of money to see far less in a stadium. We totally lucked out. Waiting till '24. Should be about 90% in the Boston area.. My brother has a place up in NH that's about an hour away from totality - The price is right.
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Post by M57 on Aug 23, 2017 7:15:45 GMT -6
However, when I was a kid I was in South Bristol Maine in either 1963 or 1959 (I think) when there was in fact total eclipses in the USA, contrary to all the hype on TV that claimed this recent eclipse was the only one in the US in the last 99 or 100 years. Looks like 63 to me. No doubt, it was convienent to disqualify any that didn't cross through the US exclusively.
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Post by M57 on Aug 20, 2017 5:02:57 GMT -6
Really a fantastic shoot out. Love that I can see the strips, what plugs you're using (and not using), and that it's relatively easy to move around - not to mention that takes are downloadable (I haven't downloaded them). I didn't spend a lot of time trying to pick things apart, but your pre-amp sounds lovely. I was focusing on the vocal when I listened:
I think the API may be the most transparent, but I wonder that it was strident at times. The Lola was nice, but off the bat, yours and the Grace were the top two for me; both flattered your voice, especially on the high notes, and I have to say I think yours (padded) beautifully thread the needle in the color vs. open and transparent department. Really nicely done all around. Thanks for this Dan. Are you going to be producing the DB for sale?
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Post by M57 on Aug 19, 2017 4:30:32 GMT -6
The "art" has turned into a hobby with people having dramatically less performing experience. ..and this is bad because? I dislike most musical performances I see. Dancing, strutting about - catering to what people see more than what they hear more than half the time. I'm only half serious about this. There is value in performing, but it is not the end-all where the art of creating sound is concerned.
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Post by M57 on Aug 19, 2017 4:24:41 GMT -6
When I was in high school during the early '60s friends earned $100-200 each every weekend playing in bands. And that was REAL MONEY back then - like making one or two grand now! Awesome - what towns? Playing what kind of music? That's great if you what people want you to play and find other people who you enjoy playing with and want to play with you - and that's assuming you even like to play out in the first place. For most people, that's fine because that's the culture, but not all. I played out and I made money, but the music I played out was not at all what I was interested in. I'm just saying there were restrictions.
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Post by M57 on Aug 18, 2017 18:43:41 GMT -6
..and this is a problem because? I'm only mildly trolling here. The answer I'd normally expect is that "real" musicians can't make a living playing out ..add to that they can't make a living recording, writing, blah blah etc.. But my question still stands.. Is there less art where there are more artists?No, there's certainly more "art" - but the ability to create great, classic art that can and will withstand the test of time becomes exponentially more difficult to produce because of "cheap" art degrading - or perhaps a better word would be diluting - the marketplace. This is certainly a controversial and complicated issue, but I think verifiable if one looks at the situation as it unrolled over the last 25 years objectively. It is what it is. Pandora's box has been opened, and the genie is not going back into the bottle. Now it's a fight it and move on as best as we can era. I think that in 100 years, the creative surge of music throughout the 60-70-80's will be looked at as an amazing occurrence that will never be matched. The 'surge' of music in the 60-70-80 was probably about as big as the surge in the 40-50's when compared to the 20-30's. and of course, we're talking about recorded music. Speaking of the 30's and 40's What a kick in the butt it must have been to sit in the pews in Church of St. Thomas' in the 1730's and 40's and hear a new Bach Cantata every week, essentially witnessing the birth, proof of concept and practical exhaustion of the tempered tuning system we use today in western music. I'm not discounting how important or incredible a time the 60-80's were, but I'd wager the this technological bump that we're experiencing now, and for instance the changes we're seeing in the home studio environment, is but in it's nascent form. 100 years is very long time. I've said it before - the 60's 70's and 80's were a fabulous time ..for those few who could afford to walk into a pro studio (or be part of the machine) and be recorded. I was around then and I wasn't one of them.
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Post by M57 on Aug 18, 2017 17:37:34 GMT -6
The problem is people willing to play for free or even pay to play. ..and this is a problem because? I'm only mildly trolling here. The answer I'd normally expect is that "real" musicians can't make a living playing out ..add to that they can't make a living recording, writing, blah blah etc.. But my question still stands.. Is there less art where there are more artists?
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Post by M57 on Aug 18, 2017 5:17:57 GMT -6
I'm interested - All I have right now is Logic's drummer. I'm sure SD3 comes with a good library of grooves, but how easy is it to zero in on the one you want. Does it have some kind of system that lets you play into it from a keyboard, from which SD3 then interprets and brings up relevant grooves? I hate scrolling through libraries.
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Post by M57 on Aug 17, 2017 16:53:55 GMT -6
"Gotcha bastards! They're all Alesia 3630 hahahahaha!!!!" Hah. I still have mine. I actually keep it in my rack just because. Hmm.. actually I should probably plug it in and send a signal to it; the thing does put on a nice LED light show.
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Post by M57 on Aug 17, 2017 13:50:53 GMT -6
C my favorite - retains character and detail across frequencies - transparent. E nice - brings color - softer, warm and could be the best depending on context.
B D and A are in no particular order of preference:
B warm but pinched in the mids or upper mids? D lacking life compared to C and E A can't remember
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Post by M57 on Aug 14, 2017 17:10:46 GMT -6
I think the mix sounded very good in the video. I particularly loved the soft sparkle of the cymbals. In fact, it's very close to what I consider to be the holy grail of overhead sound for contemporary jazz. It might be tempting to bring out the synth/organ ..and even more, the guitar - but honestly, I was not impressed (or confused) by some of the voicings they were playing at times. Where I would normally expect to hear cleaner altered/lydb7 substitutions or voicings in 4ths, etc. I heard mud. More politely - I thought the levels were well-considered. To be fair, getting a keyboard player and guitarist to comp changes together musically requires the best of players. Maybe the bottom end - both Kick and Bass could have been pushed a bit, but I'm writing this hours after listening to the video.
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Post by M57 on Aug 14, 2017 16:49:43 GMT -6
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Post by M57 on Aug 14, 2017 7:30:11 GMT -6
Yeah prices are getting stupid amazing, but unless I'm going to track with it, I don't really have a use for hardware because once ITB, I stay there. Please don't judge me too harshly. Lol as if I'm in a position to judge people. Just being pragmatic - if there was an easy shortcut wouldn't your engineer buddy have just suggested a workaround with normal eq's? Yeah, Actually he did work around it. He just said it would be easier and better with a pultec (obviously he uses them and likes them) and we were working fast and covering a LOT of territory - re-carving out a basic mix from a 40+ track mess that I had created. I don't think he was particularly pleased with his workaround, but it sounded good to me and it didn't seem like a good use of time figuring out how to emulate a pultec without a pultec in the middle of the session - we moved on. I'm just trying to process all the things I learned and had a couple of questions, that's all.
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Post by M57 on Aug 14, 2017 6:59:14 GMT -6
thanks - don't know how I missed that. Checked your link as well. Cool curve options. Could be worth getting a plugin. By any chance, do any of the high-end EQ plugs like FabFilter include Pultec style curves? I always close my eyes and use my ears when I'm using an EQ, but I also like to then look at the curves I've created to "see" what I'm hearing.
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Post by M57 on Aug 14, 2017 6:52:48 GMT -6
2. There is more to an EQ than just the frequency response on a graph! The effect of the 'weight' of the transformer(s), the smearing of transients by the caps, The rounding to the body by tubes and/or transistors - as amplifiers. Not all the things we hear can be seen. Maybe an awful lot, but not all. In my initial post I made it clear that I don't care about mojo - e.g. smearing, etc. Just the curves. If anything, I'd be looking to emulate these curves with as transparent an EQ as possible.
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Post by M57 on Aug 14, 2017 6:48:21 GMT -6
A couple of points, friends. 1. Every EQ does this. When you boost one area, another invariably gets cut. It may be semantics, but his doesn't seem true to me. When you boost one area, it certainly gets louder than the areas not boosted, but those non-boosted areas are not "cut"
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Post by M57 on Aug 14, 2017 6:44:34 GMT -6
Isn't this what all of us have tried to do? Use a screwdriver as a chisel? I've got the WA's and love em, but for 300 bucks The KT is a no brainier surely (Unless you hate the ethics of them like I do)? Yeah prices are getting stupid amazing, but unless I'm going to track with it, I don't really have a use for hardware because once ITB, I stay there. Please don't judge me too harshly.
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Post by M57 on Aug 14, 2017 6:40:19 GMT -6
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Post by M57 on Aug 14, 2017 5:38:33 GMT -6
Why doing this, you would have to many variabels..... use a graphical parametric EQ and tune as long as it sounds good to you. Use some tube harmonics mixed in paralell behind it, voilla. .... Using the Slate tube thing in parallel just 10-20% mixed under the reverb return, make things opener, wider. I'm more curious than anything else. I had an engineer over to my studio the other day helping me out with mixing and at one point he asked me where my pultec plug was.. I'm pretty sure Logic doesn't have one. I have the bundle; which Slate Tube thing? ..Earth? Like I said, it's not the tubey mojo I'm after anyway, just the eq curve. It may be more of a thought experiment than anything else, but just having the picture of the curve in my mind can give me ideas when I'm playing around with an eq. Of course I could go out and buy another plug, but I'm starting to learn from experience that unless the lack of a feature exposes a gaping hole in my arsenal of tools, I should be able work around it. In the under $100 category, the Waves pultec seems to get good reviews, but $50 is a lot of money for something I might not even need.
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Post by M57 on Aug 14, 2017 5:12:38 GMT -6
Just found this, though it looks like it's at 1kHz, not 100Hz.
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Post by M57 on Aug 14, 2017 4:51:44 GMT -6
Tubey mojo thing aside, is there any way to create the kind of fancy curve that a Pultec can create in the lower frequencies using a couple of standard parametric eq's in series? For instance, using a two shelving HP filters set to the same frequency but with different bandwidths, one with gain and one attenuated? Throw in a bell curve or two if you need to.. Doesn't need to be perfect, but can you get close? Any chance someone can point me to a site that has a pic of what the famous Pultec trick curve looks like? Or perhaps someone can sketch it? I wasn't able to find it on the net.
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Post by M57 on Aug 13, 2017 4:49:19 GMT -6
Anything tube, inexpensive, and worthwhile to look at out there? Also, everyone mentions to look at these Adcom solid state amps and have JW mod them. How are these unmodded? Should I be looking at these even if I have no intention of modding them? Is there anything else inexpensive, but nice that I should consider? Carver? Hafler? Others? I sold the 555 many years ago while working sales at a Hi-Fi store - I've never heard it modded and I don't even know what the mod does, but I was never a huge fan of the stock model. I seem to recall it being somewhat flat and lifeless - but those were my non-engineering ears listening. Also, I always wondered if it truly lived up to its power specs.
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