[wullemaha]

Hey guys and girls,

Are there any musicians/ people who create/cover/write music for a hobby here in this forum?
Maybe some of you are focused (no pun intended) on photographing live acts a lot?
Maybe you have an extensive vinyl LP collection and every needle is hand selected and costs a few hundred bucks?


Post everything music-obsession-related here, I want to know who else here is crazy about music.

I post it here because musician-related forums in the web are most of the time a pain in the ass, while this forum here has a really nice community. So even though Photography is my third hobby at best (after music and sports), this is still the only forum I am currently active in.

About myself: I write and record music just for fun, a few years ago I also performed live a couple of times.
Nothing special, mostly Rock/Metal, but I did record an acoustic blues album at one point.
I also have vinyl records at home, but mostly because it is a cheap and neat collectors hobby - I am not one of the guys who insists on the "better quality" of analog only... that's voodoo.

You?

BR René

[Tako Kichi]

I don't write music but I do play bass (20+ years) and am trying to teach myself guitar although osteoarthritis in my hands is making that harder recently. I've played in a few local bands over the years and when I was still in the UK I was in charge of a College recording studio, taught recording studio classes and helped out at a buddy's pro studio in the evenings and at weekends (all recordings done on multi-track reel-to-reel tapes in the late 80's to early 90's).

[wullemaha]

Awesome!
There's lots I would still like to learn about recording, that's an art in itself.
Nowadays it is easy to have "acceptable" results with home recording, but mixing and mastering is not for me...
And don't get me started on microphone positioning in front of amps - horrible!
Unfortunately you really need to have access to a studio and lost of time there to try, learn, try, learn, ...

Any samples around from stuff you used to do?
I always enjoy listening in on stuff that friends/acquaintances have participated in...

[Tako Kichi]

Awesome!
There's lots I would still like to learn about recording, that's an art in itself.
Nowadays it is easy to have "acceptable" results with home recording, but mixing and mastering is not for me...
And don't get me started on microphone positioning in front of amps - horrible!
Unfortunately you really need to have access to a studio and lost of time there to try, learn, try, learn, ...

More of a black art at times.

Micing live instruments and amps can be interesting at times and moving the mic just an inch or so can make a huge difference to the quality of the sound captured. One of the hardest instruments we ever had to record was a 'one string bass' used in a British traditional folk group. The 'bass' was a wooden tea chest with a broom handle fastened to one side and the string was literally a piece of the old fashioned hairy sisal stuff! Getting that to sound right on tape was a real challenge. Other instruments in the session included acoustic guitar, washboard and thimbles, squeezebox, spoons, tin whistles and empty glass demi-johns. I swear it took us longer to record that demo tape than some of the rock bands we'd done.

Any samples around from stuff you used to do?
I always enjoy listening in on stuff that friends/acquaintances have participated in...

All of the stuff I had on tape has long since deteriorated over time, plus I have nothing on which to play my collection of audio cassettes any more. The multi-track tapes obviously stayed with the studio or the artist. However, one of the bands I worked with has a web page with some audio snippets on there. Go to Final Conflict - Intro , enter the site and click on the 'Discography' link and scroll down to the bottom. I was the assistant engineer on 'Quest' and 'Redress the Balance'.

I had the very great pleasure of making some of the first recordings of a female vocalist while working at the College. She was a 16-18 year old music student and even at that age I could tell she had magical properties in terms of vocal range, power, and control. Opera was her chosen field and she eventually went on to win the opera equivalent of 'Pop Idol', recorded several albums, performed at a private function for HM Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and sang on live TV to billions of people during the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. She's still performing and recording new albums to this day. Denise Leigh - Soprano

[wullemaha]

Wow, seems you have been quite busy in this field.
Have you ever considered to bring the content from the cassette tapes to digital format...?
Depending on the amount you have, that could be a tremendous amount of work, but if there is original stuff on there that you can't just buy on a CD somewhere, it might be worth it...?
Of course, this is only idle speculation on my part, since I have no idea about the content.

Oh and by the way: wow, Madame Leigh can sing! Nice voice.

Now that I know what kind of experience you have I actually think it's a horrible idea to share a link to my amateur work, but what the heck... I think the best we every recorded (from a audio quality point of view) was a CD I did with a friend of mine, recorded in one week in my living room ...
https://soundcloud.com/wullemaha/vmp-far-from-home
https://soundcloud.com/wullemaha/vmp-poor-man-mean-woman

Stuff like that.
Nowadays I try to record some Metal, but since I don't have a band in my closet, I need to program the drums, which sucks a lot...

[Tako Kichi]

Wow, seems you have been quite busy in this field.
Have you ever considered to bring the content from the cassette tapes to digital format...?
Depending on the amount you have, that could be a tremendous amount of work, but if there is original stuff on there that you can't just buy on a CD somewhere, it might be worth it...?
Of course, this is only idle speculation on my part, since I have no idea about the content.

Thanks for the comments. I no longer have a working cassette player so getting them to digital is not an option plus with the age of the cassettes they have probably lost all the high frequencies or would drop oxide at an alarming rate if I tried to play them now.

Oh and by the way: wow, Madame Leigh can sing! Nice voice.

Errr...yeah, she can sing a bit!

The hardest job I had when recording her was keeping peak levels in check as she loved to put 'S' bends in the mixing desk Vu meter needles. They would hit the end stops and try to keep on going!

Now that I know what kind of experience you have I actually think it's a horrible idea to share a link to my amateur work, but what the heck... I think the best we every recorded (from a audio quality point of view) was a CD I did with a friend of mine, recorded in one week in my living room ...
https://soundcloud.com/wullemaha/vmp-far-from-home
https://soundcloud.com/wullemaha/vmp-poor-man-mean-woman

Stuff like that.
Nowadays I try to record some Metal, but since I don't have a band in my closet, I need to program the drums, which sucks a lot...

I had a quick listen to both tracks and I think you are selling yourself a bit short. They are actually quite good from a technical standpoint considering they are home recordings. I liked them musically too, the sparseness (in terms of the number of instruments/voices) works in the context of both tracks. If anything they seem a bit 'dry' and could possibly benefit from a touch (but not too much) of reverb so they don't sound like they were recorded in a totally 'dead' space.

[wullemaha]

If anything they seem a bit 'dry' and could possibly benefit from a touch (but not too much) of reverb so they don't sound like they were recorded in a totally 'dead' space.

Good tip. I think I still have the raw material lying around on my harddrive.
Since back then my cousin did the mixing, it might be a good homework for me to try to remix the stuff a bit.

[mikeSF]

jazz guitarist checking in...I love music and photography.

You Tube

You Tube

[Tako Kichi]

Some nice chops there Mike and a sweet sound out of that 7-string beauty.

[mikeSF]

Thanks!

[wullemaha]

Agreed ! Very nice indeed!

[bigdavephoto]

Drummer and Bass player here. Haven't played live in years, in fact, haven't played drums in years (though my set is set up in the attic) I do play bass a little bit now and then.

I still watch the music scene. I really like the software out of Japan called Vocoloid. Also still like a good concert. Music is one of the few things that can move people.

[Jacquot]

Drums (conga), reeds and flute here, for a good 50 years. Jazz in college, but always classical. Now is flute, any classical repertoire, most recently Prokofiev to keep the challenge going. Day to day, architecture and construction!

[Jacquot]

jazz guitarist checking in...I love music and photography.[/url]

Very nice, Mike! I really liked this, lovely..

[wullemaha]

I really like the software out of Japan called Vocoloid.

I am a musician and I live in Japan, but I have never come across this before.
Interesting though. Typically Japanese in some way