Last City Samana Show at Theatresource

City Samanas Lily Kinner, Dave Wolfe, with Andrew Bellware on guitar and Vinnie Marano blowin' harp, City Samana Greg Bartus (partially obscured.)

 The City Samanas played their final show at Theatresource tonight. They invited me to sit in with them which was a great honor. I could only play the one song -- a 26-minute version of Dark Star. At one point Vinnie Marano found a harmonica (on the, er, floor apparently) and sat down and blew some licks with us. Luckily the harmonica was in A because otherwise... I don't know what we would have done.

These pictures are all taken by Maduka Steady.

Note that I chose the Celtic Edana JTM-45 clone for this gig. Into a Celestion Alnico Blue 12" the way God intended when she invented the Gibson Les Paul. All clean sounds that sustained for days. 

Lily, Dave, Andrew, Vinnie, Greg. 

I couldn't be playing with a nicer bunch of folks.

Piano vs Band

John August suggests guitar and piano for grade-schoolers. As in "piano and guitar only". In the classical-music world, learning piano first is a kind of trope. The piano is polyphonic, it's the default fundamental instrument of Western music (even though Bach and Mozart never had one, they had precursor sorts of things and wrote all kinds of music we today play on the piano.)

With the best of intentions, we’ve taught kids to be helpless cogs in a symphonic machine. Worse, we’ve created a system that pretty much guarantees most adults won’t be able to make music by themselves.

 Well, sorta. But on the other hand we've taught kids to do something together. Of course, they do a crappity job of it, but they are at least trying to play at the same time. Which is interesting.
But my main criticisms of his thesis are two:

1. that there seems to be a false dichotomy between piano or band. Which I think Mr August backs off on because he himself started on piano before moving to clarinet as a child. (If I were King I would order that each child take a piano lesson each day -- don't even make 'em practice at home, just sit and play with a teacher for an hour each day. But I wouldn't say they should do that instead of joining band.)
2. that kids will automatically learn musical theory just by playing piano as a kid. In my experience kids are able to play piano and guitar and have no idea at all how chords are constructed or how parallel movement works. In fact, as a guitar player, I deliberately took a music theory course in the 9th grade just to find out how chords are made so I didn't have to look them up in a book anymore.

So although learning at least a little piano is certainly a goode thinge, I'm not so sure it does a good job with replacing bands. I certainly enjoyed playing trumpet, and then trombone. And right, I didn't learn any music theory when doing that. But (as far as I could tell) neither did any of the kids who took piano since they were five.

But the other advantage Mr. August points out is that piano and guitar are stand alone instruments. You can play them and accompany yourself singing. Well, sure. That's true with autoharp too. It's also true with singing. The problem we have in this country is how anti-singing we are. Well, at least how anti-singing dumb white people are. But that's an issue for another post.



Mickey Hart and other dudes from The Grateful Dead did a bunch of the percussion for the score of Apocalypse Now.

Chicken systems has software that will presumably translate Gigasampler files. Apparently it doesn't work 100% though.

Do You Feel?

You know, Peter Frampton is a very precise yet tasteful guitarist -- especially for such a flashy guitar player. He gets those 32nd-note bits in with no slop at all. I mean really, where other flashy guitar players can be flashy and precise without being tasteful (I'm thinking Eddie VanHalen here). Or they can be precise and tasteful (David Gilmour). Frampton manages to be all three.




Perhaps I'm thinking David Gilmour because of the above (YouTube) 14-minute version of "Do You Feel Like I Do". I mean, most of the song is just I iii vii I -- you know, straight-up blues rock.
So the trick is getting as many textures as possible with those three chords. In other words, you better have a rocking rhythm section. But the guitar itself has a fairly tremendous dynamic range in this song. Especially for an electric guitar. And it's interesting that the energy of the song actually amps up during the pianissamo section.
The "talking guitar" section is the whole point though, right? Frampton pretty much ruins talking guitars for everyone else for all time just with this one solo. After hearing this, why bother even trying?
And again it's interesting to hear his incredible precision alongside the very tasteful use of dynamics and his phrasing -- which leaves very musical "holes" and space not only for the other instruments but for the "breathing" of the song itself.
There's songs like this which are so overplayed on rock radio that I think we tend to forget how good they actually are.
And if the moment where the band kicks in and the talkbox goes off doesn't bring chills up your spine, then you're not alive.

Here's Mine

Question 811B is whether Tyrannosaurus Mouse is going to record anything before the end of the year. And will we do it here at Theatresource or will we do it at my apartment or what?

Via Jonathan Newman, the Contemporary Classical Composer's Bullshit Generator. Here's mine:

My work aims to re-bar generatively-integral arts with modernly-ambiguous chords whilst composing certain pitches or psycho-extended tessituras. Recently, I have started to embrace silences as a strongly-modernistic alternative to established forms of microtonal time-signature-experiences, which has made my work diametricly apparent. The fact that imitations tend to (at least in their aesthetic state), harmonically visualise, even in the presence of a strong element, is, you will agree, patently absurd. My latest piece begins with a rather musical 'sketch-aesthetic', before experimentally transforming the existing innovative material into a more Stockhausenesquely-quartal state, a process I term 'actively-rhythmic-examining'. Recently, I have started to embrace techniques as a strongly-integral alternative to established forms of choreographic device-installations, which has made my work innovatively predominant.

Synthestration

So, I was talking with a friend the other day -- a guy who is a professional composer but (and I hope you're sitting down for this) writes music on paper. I know, right?
And my point was that I'd never tell some 20-year-old kid who wanted to be a professional composer anything other than "You have to be able to deliver complete, recorded, scores." And by that I mean you have to be able to do what my friend would call "synthestration". You know, using synths and sound libraries to create complete - sounding scores which can (sometimes) pass for real orchestras recorded specifically for the project. Why do you, as a new and young composer, need to do that? Because that's most of the work that's out there.
To make matters weirder, I actually know two composers who write on paper. Now note, when I'm teasing them about "writing on paper" they do actually use Finale and Sibelius so it's not like they run screaming from computers altogether. But they don't do any "synthestration".
There are, however, specialists whose day jobs consist of synthestration. I think they mostly work in Hollywood. Plus, lots of commercial music is composed by ateliers -- music houses where a "master" composer has a number of "journeymen" and apprentices. And sometimes it's the journeymen (or one of the journeymen who serves essentially as the master's assistant) who does the synthestration.
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For the last few movies I've done I've been using the Video Copilot scores to build our music cues. And, especially when mixed with the scores I've done for previous films and a couple plays, they work pretty well.
But frequently I find I need just a little more. One counter-intuitive thing about scoring for film is that a shocking amount of the score has to sound pretty bland and boring by itself. That's because, essentially, the "melody" of the music is the dialog that goes on top, not an instrument that will make the dialog harder to hear. And the intelligibility part of the dialog is right where you'd go and put a melody (if you had one).
That's why drones and bits of percussion are so popular in film scores.
And, of course, the music has to go well with the sound effects. Indeed, they should all be part of the same "score". On big Hollywood films the two departments -- sound effects (or sound "editing") and music -- tend to "compete" for prominence in the mix. That is, on the face of it, a horrible idea. We're all making one movie here guys, not competing for screen time. Right?
Anyway, this does mean that I require a professional way to make orchestral scores. I was meeting with a guy who produces music for commercials the other day (the meeting wasn't about music, but about real estate) I asked him "What do your composers use?"
He said "Mostly Logic, a couple Digital Performer users, and one or two ProTools."
So for the next couple days I'm all thinkin' hmm... maybe I should get Logic or DP to compose scores on?
But no, forget that. I'm a Samplitude user dang it! And it's not Logic or DP or ProTools which actually make the sounds you use. No, most of those things are VST plugins anyway.
But what I do need is a library. And honestly what's most important to me in a library is decent percussion. Because a couple tubular bells, a tympani, and maybe one of those big pieces of metal you dunk in a tub of water is 3/4 of film scoring.
The rest of film scoring is decent strings. And because we make sci-fi movies we are more interested in string "effects" than soaring strings (although we do need those, too.)
And the thing is that we live in a golden time for orchestral sample libraries. If you're good, and you pay a lot of detailed attention, you can make an orchestral score that sounds a lot like a real orchestra. There's a whole subset of composers who as a day job make "synthestrations" of other people's scores. They can get paid very well. The work involves going through every dang part and making sure each phrase is played by the right sample and massaged so that the dynamics and portamento and all the other details are just right.
Sometimes it's easier to just hire good players, right?
But an orchestra (the real kind) is fantastically expensive. Even if you go to Eastern Europe to record one you'll pay at least $15/hour/musician plus some amount for the space and the recording. And that's after you've split out your parts and made copies for everyone. So it's actually economical to throw a couple thousand dollars at a "synthestrator" -- especially if you're making a demo for a client to listen to -- a demo which could result in them giving you enough of a budget to hire an orchestra. (Even better if that synthestrator works for you full-time.)

The joke there is that if you synthestrate a score and then record an orchestra over it, you may likely find that you'll want to mix the two together. Adding some cellos from a sound library to the live cellos might be just want the client really wants to hear.
One thing that clearly makes no difference at all is whether you work on a Mac or a PC. Except for Logic and Samplitude, all the programs people use are cross-platform. Samplitude is PC only, Logic is Apple-only.
So, where does this leave me? Well, the least-expensive way for me to go is to simply upgrade my Samplitude system to the next version. I think that's just four hundred bucks. It comes with 70GB of samples and such and can theoretically read my old Gigasampler discs through an add-on application called Independence (although apparently it doesn't understand the "note off" parts of the .gig files so, er, no). But it is a big ol' orchestral library.
Still, with VST instruments like Kontakt it doesn't matter what application you're running (DP, ProTools, Logic, Samplitude) -- you can load 'em up with one of the gazillion sound libraries out there and off you go.
And there you have it. Everything I know.

Hardened Music

What is it that's wrong with this Florence and the Machine song, Dog Days are Over? I liked it when I first heard it but there is something very... "hard"... with the sound.

I can't quite put my finger on it. Is it the limiting in the mastering? Well, there is actually some dynamic range in the vocals. There are some pops in the "p"'s but... I dunno. The "plainsong" style is interesting. Hmm... maybe the vocals are limited out the wazoo. Are they just autotuned within an inch of their lives? Like I said, I can't quite figure it out.
Now here's a song with some very solid low-end, but a complete lack of auto-tune on the voice. Cat Stevens' Peace Train.

Truthfully, I dig some of the live versions of this song even better. I think at some point Cat Stevens sounded more like "Cat Stevens" -- like somewhere around 1976.
And come on -- that very clear tape edit at 3:01 is just amusing. I mean, could you imagine that passing muster in a modern recording? The mastering engineer would just kick that back to the mixer.
And I forget that that coda exists too...

License to Shred

On the back of my guitar-playing license the Agency stamped the following restrictions:

X cannot play funk
X blues may only be played for practice
X no jazz during daylight hours

I've been pulled over for playing funk by the guitar cops and they let me off with a warning. I was allowed to drive home and believe me I was just doing scales 'till I got inside. I won't be doing that again.

New Studio Review

In my search for new studio space I started looking at recording studios that has space. And there are some really fantastic rooms out there in New York City.
Nightlife has a rental of it's second control room. There are some very interesting shares like this place with the groovy oriental carpets. Three days a week for $750/month. I know the link will be dead in a few weeks but I'm blogging with it anyway.

Pearl Studios is a rehearsal studio in Jersey City, NJ.

Acoustic Guitar Strings

Mandolin Brothers says that Martin and D'Addario strings are basically the same. And they're about the same price.

I bought a set of Martin Marquis strings at Carmine Street Guitars. That's what we'll use on the Tyrannosaurus Mouse Album then.

More Listings

Rehearsal Studio NY is a classical-music oriented rehearsal studio. $20/hour for most rooms.
Erin Hill is kickstarting a music video album.
King Killer is another rehearsal studio.
Flood Music Studios -- "drum rooms" starting at $300/month.
Band Space NYC is a set of rehearsal studios that... I do not comprehend.

The Absurdity of Reality

A few years back I was in a mastering session and I met a dude who was a sound mixer at Fillmore. Dude -- I'm talking the Fillmore -- not even the Fillmore West. This guy was working there in like '64 and thought "Hey, why don't we mix the band from out in the house?"
He remembers having to invent a way to split the microphones for the House and Monitor feeds.
He mixed (and toured with) the Byrds and the Stones. He was at the studio I was at because he had multitrack recordings of Fleetwood Mac in '67 he'd recorded at the Fillmore that he found in his garage. So he called up Mick and said "You mind if I release these on  my own label?"
Mick Fleetwood said "Hell no, I'll release 'em myself!" And so now he was mastering the records for Mick's label.

When this dude started doing sound they didn't have balanced microphone cables. They (and although he didn't take credit for it, possibly he) figured out that the front-of-house mixer had to be, you know, in the front of the house.

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When I got into sound, early-1980's, loud speaker/PA systems sucked. They were terrible. Horns sounded like crap and they were the only (somewhat) indestructible way to get loud sounds to go (roughly) in the direction you want them to. And the boxes had to be HUGE just to get any kind of low end out of them. And the sound out of them was (to be polite) non-linear. Or (and not to be racist) but very, very "honky".
I wish I had a picture of these horrible 3-way Community cabinets I had in my back yard in 1984(?) (they were fiberglass, nothing could destroy them, unfortunately). They sounded like dog bark. A sound company lent them to me (Sound by Paul -- anyone remember them?) for about a year. Because, you know, they sucked.
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At the time, the best mixing guys (and yeah, back in the day the disparity of men/women in sound was even worse than it is now) would tune the crossovers as they mixed. Tune the crossovers while they mixed. Tune the crossovers.
They were tuning the crossovers.
While mixing.
Nobody tunes crossovers anymore. Heck, most crossovers are sealed up deep inside the electronics of little rack-mount processors boxes which only have an "on/off" switch on them.
Why? Because at some point in the 1980's these geniuses in California -- whether it was Apogee or Martin or Meyer, or all of them at the same time like spontaneous generation of a brilliant idea -- realized that if they were building crossovers and EQ's that were specialized to the speaker cabinets they were making, they could ignore the straight-up physics of cabinet design and make up for the inherent problems and non-linearities of the physical speaker and cabinet by feeding the speaker with "processed" audio.
Is your speaker cabinet too small for loads of low end? No problem, just electronically feed the box a disproportionate amount of that same low end (in exactly the right proportion, however, if you get my meaning) and voila! You have a little box that sounds BIG.
Is there a mid-range "honk" you can't get rid of by mechanical or acoustical means? Use the magic of electricity to balance out your system. Problem solved.
I remember those early Apogee boxes in the late 80's were noisy. The electronics in the processors were just hissy. But they were musical. The sound, out of the box, was good. And we didn't have to adjust the crossovers.
The other thing that was new about these boxes with proprietary processors both before and after the amplifiers, was that you didn't have to do any EQ to make the box sound good (because that had already been done at the factory). So the only EQ you were doing was to try to make the terrible room you were in sound better.
Oddly, it seems that they got the smaller boxes -- the 2-way speaker cabinets with 12" drivers and 1" HF drivers -- to sound good and then they started getting those big boxes -- the ones that you needed two guys to carry, 3-way with a pair of 12" or maybe a 15", a couple 8", and a 2" horn -- to sound good.
But now all the systems sound good. Even the cheap ones. Even the custom ones made by some shop in Indiana or North Bergen, NJ.
Speakers sound good now.

This is a big freakin' deal, and one we take for granted now. But hey, the entire world of pro audio in live sound has gotten good. We can do a lot of fantastic stuff -- and do it cheaply.

Just look at this thing. It's two thousand bucks. And it will do whatever you want. If you can't get your band to sound good with a mixer like this then the problem is your band doesn't sound very good. There ain't much you can do about it.
With a mixer like this you don't need outboard EQ's. You might want them because they can be easier to use than flipping through menus and finding the offending frequency on the right output channel. But then again, you might not. And when you're short on dollars, space in the van, or just extra weight you want to carry then remember: you don't need outboard EQ's. Not anymore. Not for live sound.
I've used the lower-end Yamaha mixers like the O1v (or whatever) and the... what is it, the DM1000? And you get used to the interface very quickly. With a mixer like this you are relatively low on outputs. But did I point out it's only two thousand bucks?