That Bad

[ashcatlt]

This is not SPAM! Just thought I'd share something I'm rather excited about with some folks I've come to consider friends.

I've been working up this band called Circadian Nations. We're playing our first show on 7/11, but can't have another full band practice till the night before. So we recorded our practice this past Saturday so we'd have something to practice with. Also, I wanted to get a listen to the overall mix.

This should be pretty close to what we will sound like, give or take the eccentricities of whatever we end up using for a PA.Edit - garageband.com went under and took this recording with them. Here is a link to the same song from an actual "studio" session we did. This was mixed an messed with a bit afterward, and is not exactly what you would hear at a concert. The video later in this thread is closer to that.

We don't have a live drummer (thought we did, but then he turned out to be, you know, a drummer), so we'll be playing back the canned drums from either an iPod or a laptop.

Both guitars and the bass are running through Behringer V-Amps.

The one on the left is my 3HB no pots strat - set for the middle pickup in series - through the "British Class A" (AC30) model of my Bass V-Amp Pro with just a little bit of the built in pre amp compression dailed in.

The one on the right is Dave's 330 copy (not sure what brand, but it's a bolt-on) with stock HBs in the "both" position (I think). He's playing through the "British Blues" model on my blue V-Amp pro.

The bass is a Yamaha P/J type thing. I've no idea what he was doing for pickup selection, and forgot to look at which amp model he's using, but he's got the Bass V-Amp (table-top version) with quite a bit of compression.

The vocals were recorded (for this test) through both a Shure SM58 and some Audio Technica hypercardioid into the ART Dual MP and dbx compressor. I haven't yet whipped up the passive filters for this, so I applied them in software after the recording. These are panned hard L and R for fun in this mix. At a real show Josh would only get one of these (and I will compensate for the volume) while Dave gets the other.

At the show, all of these line-level sources are going to feed this old MidiMan "passive" line mixer. It sums the signals, period. No faders or panning or anything. Well, it's got 4 mic pres with gain adjustment, but we're not using those. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of jacks wired together, probably with some mixing/isolation resistors, and a makeup amplifier at the end.

The FOH/monitors get one stereo feed from that amp. Turn it up and maybe make some EQ adjustments to compensate for the room/system. This would be a soundman's worst nightmare, if it didn't sound so darn good.

[D2o]

I had a listen and I kinda dig it. I won't tell you which wicked-cool hip Canadian band it reminds me a little bit of.

I wish I was in a situation to have a band. Instead, I just gently strum my guitar, alone in my basement with my socks in a puddle of beer.

Hey, let me know how the laptop vs iPod thing works out, because I record vocals on my computer, but I have resorted to playing the music through an iPod while doing so.

It seemed like the computer couuldn't handle running the media player and the recording software at the same time, so I would end up with a bunch of farts and tiny little bits of missed vocals when the computer would hiccough while deciding what the heck it was going to give priority to.

iPod to play, computer to record. Problem solved.

You shouldn't have that problem if you are just doing the one task - playing the drum backing track. Nevertheless, you may be wise to either plug in the laptop or set the battery save settings to such a duration that it doesn't decide to go to sleep in the midst of your song.

Fun stuff - thanks for sharing.

D2o

[cynical1]

I'm with D2o on the iPod thing. There's a horn player that busks right outside the Randolph Street station in Chicago that uses an iPod for the "band" while he plays his horn.

He runs it through a battery powered practice amp and it sounds pretty good, actually. He said it's good for 3-4 hours out of both of them them and he can set up a playlist, or jump from song to song with no problems if he gets a request.

He also puts 30 seconds of silence and the beginning and end of every tune. He says this gives him a nice breather between songs and makes it easier to turn off when he needs a break.

Why introduce more technology...and the opportunity for more things to go wrong...then you need...

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[ashcatlt]

Yeah, and that neat click sound when mousing around selecting new songs will be like a snare hit through the PA. And what happens if Windows decides to alert us of something in the middle of a song?

DONK!

[D2o]

Jul 3, 2009 10:42:39 GMT -5 ashcatlt said:

Yeah, and that neat click sound when mousing around selecting new songs will be like a snare hit through the PA. And what happens if Windows decides to alert us of something in the middle of a song?

DONK!

Well, you could have a little fun and adjust the DONK sound to something a little more entertaining, just in case.

[sumgai]

Jul 3, 2009 11:14:44 GMT -5 D2o said:

.....a little more entertaining

Saved! For purposes of posterity only, you understand!! ;D

In opposition to Kylehead....




sumgai

[ashcatlt]

Then this leads to the question: What cables do I have to get the ipod (1/8" TRS) from stage center to about 20' - 30- away where the mixer (1/4" TS, preferably dual) is likely to sit? I've got several 1/8" TRS > dual RCA cables in the 6' - 10' range. Then I've got some RCA extenders that could get the rest of the way. Plug these into some RCA>1/4" adapters...

...but that's far too many (likely) points of failure.

So I built these:

adapter cables. 1 x 1/8" TRS > XLR and 1 x XLR > dual 1/4" TS. Between these I can connect standard mic cables. The cool thing about XLR mic cables is that they daisy chain so easily, and generally lock securely into place, so one never has to worry about them coming unplugged.

Now the question is: How to be abso-flingin-lutely sure that the plug doesn't pop out of the ipod while the vocalist (who'll likely be running the thing) is thrashing around? I purposely made that adapter 6' long, so the heavier XLR end can rest on the ground and hopefully have some slack. Still not completely comfortable with it, though.

Duct tape came to mind, but

1) it's not my ipod, not sure how Dave will feel about this, and

B) it can't cover the scroll wheel thing, or we'll have very short breaks between songs.


You may have noticed that the 1/8" side goes to a female XLR. This is on purpose, to help alleviate the temptation to plug the ipod into a mic input somewhere. Not that it would probably hurt anything, unless phantom power was turned on. I'd expect to hear a mono mix of all of the elements which are not panned center - that is, a karaoke mix.

It just occurred to me now, though, that this means somebody could plug the ipod into a microphone. This will probably produce a very quiet and thin sounding drum track until the mic's diaphram tears itself apart.

[newey]

It just occurred to me now, though, that this means somebody could plug the ipod into a microphone.

Aah, the age-old problem. There is a possible failure mode and humans are involved . . .

You could tag the cord/plug with a label, or put a big fluorescent orange dot on it or something. Still not completely fool (in every sense of the word) proof, but it might make someone cogitate a bit first.

As far as securing the iPod, you could get one of those plastic iPod "skins" and tape that down so as not to damage the iPod.

I figure it's only a matter of time until the creative guys in Cupertino realize that musicians are gigging with iPods and come out with a road-worthy version with Line Outs, etc.- the "iPod Pro", no doubt.

[D2o]

While not inexpensive, if we can use wireless with guitars ... why not also with iPods?

[ashcatlt]

Jul 10, 2009 9:15:44 GMT -5 D2o said:

While not inexpensive, if we can use wireless with guitars ... why not also with iPods?

The answer, at least for me today: $$$

Good idea though.

[D2o]

Jul 10, 2009 10:01:31 GMT -5 ashcatlt said:

$$$

Yuh ... yuh ... yuh ... you and me both, brother.

Oh, the amazing things I still couldn't do if I had a bigger music budget.

[sumgai]

ash,

You mean even this is out of the picture? (Errr, the picture is a link.)



$40 and up. And that's not even pestering Craigslist or anything.

Temporarily put the arm on a boom box out of your kid's room, and you've got a receiver for the night.

HTH




sumgai

[ashcatlt]

Anyway, it worked out pretty well. I know that I know what I'm doing, but I'm still somewhat surprised at how easy everything went. No sudden surprises or anything. And it sounded pretty much the same as it did at rehersal.

Dave had a armstrap thing for the i-pod, which allowed us to hang it from the mic stand without duct tape. One thing that we did find out is that pushing the play button tends to turn the thing down! Luckily I had built in some silence at the beginning of each track, so there's time to turn it back up. Of course, that means we have to remember to turn it back up every time. Guess it's a good thing our vocalist has been clean and sober for 10 years.

[D2o]

The drums sound great!

Good job with that solution, and good performance - it sounds true to the recording you originally shared with us.

[newey]

Nice!

The tractor as a stage prop is a great touch, but the roadies will object to having to move it! ;D

[ashcatlt]

They actually did move that tractor! It had been about 150'-200' to the right as you're looking at the picture. No, it doesn't run. They knew better than to ask me to help.

[ashcatlt]

We do have other songs, too. I've got most of the show on YouTube, just search "Circadian Nations".

The night before the show we uploaded all the drums to the ipod and did a dress rehersal. We found out that the drum track for our Skeeter Davis cover wouldn't work. In fact, every time we tried to play it, the ipod would reboot! So we did it without drums. Not a huge deal.

But why did this happen?

Well, I created these drum tracks in Sonar using EZDrummer. Rendered them to 24bit .wav and then used SoundForge to dither and downsample to 16 bit. Apparently, I forgot to do the downsampling on the .wav for "End of the World". Gonna hafta be more careful in future.