[LAU] Prog rock instrumental, sort-of WIP

[Q]

Hi Jonathan

Thanks for listening and commenting, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Given your 
background, by organ part I'll assume you're referring to the pipe organ 
rather than the earlier Hammond ;-)

I think Aeolus is one of Linux audio's hidden treasures. I'm not an 
organist, but to my ears it sounds utterly convincing and being 
synthesized is so lightweight to use. I have problems with it not always 
starting the first time (like my classic cars!) but once it does I have 
so much fun with it.

I had to cheat though: after widdling around I had to sequence it in 
Rosegarden and employ some pretty tortuous midi routing to be able to 
get two manuals and pedals and played well/strictly enough that that 
section demanded.

Originally I recorded it wet using the in-built reverb in Aeolus, but 
ended up recording a take completely dry so I had more freedom over the 
reverb.

I use the old technique of two reverbs, to which are sent varying 
amounts of each track -- one very, very short reverb (or ambience) to 
glue everything together to sound like they were recorded together, then 
a longer one for a sense of space, the traditional use of reverb.

Using large amounts of the long reverb (large plate HD in TAP 
Reverberator) made the organ sound great but too distant, not the right 
amount of presence that I wanted.

So instead I gave it it's own 'verb (Cathedral HD) so it stands out a 
bit more, sounding to be in a different "space" to everything else (bits 
of Goblin I've heard are like this, you can hear the space the organ was 
recorded in and it's entirely different to the rest of the band). I did 
want to give it big dollops of reverb, but I am concerned not to 
overwhelm the much quieter Odyssey parts.

Maybe if I experiment carefully with the amount of reverb to make it 
bigger but keeping an ear out that it doesn't drown out the synth. I 
wonder what is likely to be best: just up the wet level, up the wet 
level whilst shortening the reverb time, or lengthen the reverb time and 
lower the wet level -- anyone got any suggestions?

I have this urge now to go and fire up Amarok and listen to some Yes :D

Thanks again,

Q

Jonathan Gazeley wrote:
> I really enjoyed this. I'm a classical organist, although also a fan of 
> Yes. The transitions were good and I enjoyed the organ part.
> 
> The one thing that struck me is that the organ doesn't seem to have much 
> of a reverb. Of course the style of that section is "choppy" but I think 
> it would be interesting to have the other instruments stop dead and the 
> organ continue reverberating for a while, as if recorded in a cathedral.
> 
> Good work!
> Jonathan
> 
> ----------------------------
> Jonathan Gazeley
> Systems Support Specialist
> ResNet | Wireless&  VPN Team
> Information Services
> University of Bristol
> ----------------------------