[linux-audio-user] [ardour-users] new song on-line

[Dave Phillips]

tim hall wrote:

>On Tuesday 15 November 2005 14:43, Dave Phillips was like:
>  
>
>>I've uploaded a new song:
>>
>>    http://linux-sound.org/keepmesatisfied.ogg
>>    
>>
>
>Impeccable lead work and smooth vocal delivery. You just need someone like Ron 
>Parker on drums. ;] Bluestastic!
>  
>
Thanks, Tim. I admire your work too, it's some of my favorite stuff on 
the LAM site.

Btw, *anyone* on drums would be a vast improvement, but for the record 
here's some advice to recordists following my Ardour adventures: If you 
need to use a drum track composed with a MIDI sequencer there are a 
couple things you can do for greater realism. First, use a sample player 
like Specimen or Linuxsampler, you can then set variations in pitch on 
the snare and bass drums, it makes a big difference. Although percussion 
is usually classed as "noise" instruments there is still a pitch 
component that is heard. You'll certainly notice when it's missing, like 
salt in a cake recipe. Alas, you can indeed notice it in my tracks, 
indicating how lazy I am about this detail (of course it's also easy to 
improve just by re-recording the MIDI track using Specimen). The other 
trick is to add some sort of "disturbance" to the tempo track to upset 
the metronomic regularity. Example: For a song in 4/4 time I'll make a 
looping tempo track of perhaps three measures of 3/8 time, with tempo 
events at the 16th-note triplet level in a series like 
120-121-122-120-121-122-121-120 and so on. This tempo variation is 
slight enough to be felt but not overly-noticed throughout the track.

You can also eliminate this tempo dodge just by using Hydrogen and 
exploiting its humanization features. :)

Craig Anderton has written an excellent article on what he calls the 
Tutt/Guerin effect. Basically he just analyzed MIDI recordings of some 
top studio drummers and discovered how the various instruments in a set 
are all acting at slightly different times. The temporal distances 
between the activity of the bass drum, the snare, the hi-hat, and the 
ride cymbal all add up to a feel unique to each drummer's way of playing 
in the groove. Lately I've been listening to the drummers for the 
classic r'n'b bands behind the Stax/Volt, Motown, and James Brown  
sounds, really interesting stuff to compare in the light of CA's study.

But in the end, I'd only go to this much trouble (finessing a MIDI drum 
track) if I really couldn't find a decent drummer to play the parts. 
Alas, that is precisely why I write MIDI drum parts for my recordings, 
there's no-one in Findlay OH who can play blues drums well enough. My 
band's drummer is coming along, but he still listens to too much Robben 
Ford (fine musician) and not enough Muddy Waters (blues titan). Yes, I'm 
an unabashed blues purist. :)

It's my dream to someday journey up to the cold northern climate and 
record at Mirror Image. Maybe I can get Ron to play drums then... ;-)

Btw, I've been working with JAMin too. What a great tool, thanks to 
Steve Harris & friends !

More stuff coming soon...

Best,

dp