I have created a new myspace site where I can post tunes I have been working on at my home studio.

The first two are West Side Surf and Chauffeur Blues by the JP Lepage band, who I play drums for.

The second two are Here Again and Mississippi Queen by Jess Reimer a bluegrass singer, and acoustic bass playing friend of ours.

I will post more stuff there as we do more.

Nice work dudge. Clean sounds and well mixed. I enjoyed them all, and I gotta tell ya, I loved the song Mississippi Queen. Beautifully done!

Thanks man, I appreciate your kind comments.

Jess has written some great new tunes, and another friend Dwayne has also. I'll see if he will let me post one of his, too.

This is cool stuff, man. Chauffeur Blues I thought was way cool, sort of John Mayall kind of stuff - really dug it. Did you record the first two songs playing all together in the room?

I agree with Rob on Mississippi Queen. Nice roots bluegrass Americana thing going on there. I really dig Bluegrass, which is probably weird coming from an indie rock guy but I really, really like it. I heard only one "weird" spot, at somewhere around 5 minutes (a bit before the end) her voice seems to hit a bit of a digital overload... I think. Not sure, just seemed like it crackled just a split second or clipped or something right about there. Hard to tell with Myspace though, it's notorious for unflattering file compression. Really good stuff, I like it a lot!

Really like your studio space, too - looks like you have lot's of room! That's very, very cool - lot's of good gear, too!

I need to start listening to more music and checking out more studio pages - got too wrapped up in ridiculous political discussions lately. Thanks for breaking me out of a tedious routine

-Adam

Hey Adam! Thanks for the kind words.

Everything on the site was recorded live, excepting the harp on Chauffeur Blues, which was over-dubbed.

JP's tunes were recorded in the basement of my old place. Jess's were done live at my new place (in the pictures) with M/S ADK TL'S and a DI for the upright. Real simple.

It's a great room... 19' x 25' and I'm still working on it. Some diffusion and a door to close it off from the rest of the house are next on the list.

I'm more than happy to be a brief distraction from the politics. You still have months to go before your election.

Thanks for the listen!

The vocal chain on Mississippi Queen really works for her voice. I gotta say, when I started the song I was waiting for maxed out P90's, but instead was greeted by a girl, with a tale she told very well.

Great stuff with the Blues. Love the harp stuff.

You also have a most impressive (I'm not jealous, Really!!) equipment list.

I'm looking forward to hearing more

Lemme ask you something, Dudge: All the instruments were recorded in one take using M/S? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but it sounds like the violin in panned more right and the guitar more left on Mississippi Queen. How'd you accomplish this using M/S?

Hi Walker. I set up two ADK TL's into the Sebatron Cygnus X-2 pre-amp in an M/S config.

One mic was cardioid facing Jess, with the other mic in Fig 8 right below it facing the sides.

Jess stood right in the middle and sang and played her upright which was plugged into a DI.
The Guitar was facing the left side of the fig 8 mic and the fiddle was facing the right.

The guitar player stood quite close and the fiddle was quite a bit farther away, but moved closer when he wanted to be louder. None of them even wore headphones.

It was really just a quick and dirty capture with them playing live around the mics.

In hindsight, I would do it differently if I was to do something like this again. It worked quite well for these two tunes. In some of the others with backup vox and busier arrangements, it was ok, but it would have been way better to have had separate mics on the instruments (for later balancing levels), and control of the backup vox to instrument balances.

It was just a way to quickly get it down live with minimal mics in a really short amount of time.

Thanks for your comments Dutchman!

The vocal chain is as noted in the above post.

Because it was M/S there were two mics in front of the vocalist, and in some of the tunes you can hear when she moves a little off to one side.

I'm still learning one mistake at a time too.

Maybe I'm dense, but I still don't get it. With M/S, you've got the two duplicate channels (one with phase flipped) panned hard L & R, and then one channel in the middle. How do you have a stereo recording with some instruments right and some left? Shouldn't everything be center? What am I not understanding?

Well... Walker, an M/S pair (after the duplicate and phase flip of the side pointing fig 8 mic which has one positive lobe and one negative lobe) gives you the same thing as if you put up a coincident pair. Stereo. It gives you a stereo image of what's in front of the mics.

If you put up an XY pair or ORTF pair and some instruments were to the left and some to the right of the mics, that's where you would hear them, no?

Don't let the track duplication and phase flip confuse you, it is just a stereo pair of mics with some phase cancellation trickery between the three tracks that makes it stereo.

I just added two more demo tunes by our friend Dwayne Dueck.

-Always With You
-I'm Learnin'

These are in more of a country style with acoustic and pedal steel.

Vocals- SM7B - Sebatron VMP
Acoustic AK-47 - Pacifica
Pedal Steel ADK TL - Pacifica
Live recording.

Apparently, I'm just going to hijack this tread until I understand what's going on. Sorry about my stupidity.

I totally understand how an XY pair would give you a stereo image, but there are two things I don't understand about how M/S would accomplish the same thing:

1) Aren't the mics in ALMOST the same location, and thus should have approximately the same amount/type of signal reaching them?

2) The Fig 8 pattern is panned hard L & R, giving you a symmetrical (except for the phasing aspect) signal. The cardioid is center, giving you a symmetrical signal. How does anything end up on one side or the other??

Obviously point 1 is less important and can be argued, but I don't see how to get around point two. What am I not getting?

Here's a decent explanation of how it works Walker.

MS-stereo

One cardioid microphone and one bi-directional microphone in the same point and angled 90° creating a stereo image through a so called MS-matrix.

MS Stereo means using 2 different microphones and a special matrix to create stereo spread and localisation. M means Mid mic and S means Side mic. Normally a cardioid (often hypercardioid or shotgun) microphone capsule is chosen for the Mid channel, but omnis are sometimes preferred to capture low frequency richness at distance. A bi-directional microphone (figure-of-eight-microphone) at the same point, angled at 90° is the Side channel.

The MS signal can not be monitored directly on a left-right system. The MS matrix uses the phase cues between the Mid and the Side microphone to produce a left-right signal suitable for a normal stereo system. Due to the presence of the centre microphone, this technique is well suited for stereo recordings where a good mono-compatibility is needed, and is extremely popular in broadcasting.

When recording the two microphones seperately the stereo spread can be adjusted afterwards with the MS matrix by blending the M and S components in appropriate balance.


The easiest way to understand the MS matrix is by studying these two simple calculations:

Left channel=M + S
Right channel=M - S

The MS system will give directional information since the bi-directional microphone captures two directions and only puts out one signal with mutual opposite polarity. When sound approaches the MS arrray from the right, it enters the bi-directional Side mic in its phase inversed side. The matrix calculation says that Right output is M minus S. If you subtract a phase inversed signal from something it is like adding it. Mathematically speaking minus minus is plus. So, voila, sound approaching the MS array from the right side creates a signal in the right output of the matrix due to a simple subtraction.

For the left side, the sound meets the Side mic in its in-phase lobe and is simply added to the Mid signal.

Copied from DPA Microphone University
http://www.dpamicrophones.com/

Good sounding stuff, my fellow Canuck. I really enjoyed Mississippi Queen. It's kinda neat hearing the way she drifts off the mic. Add's a neat effect.

quote:

Originally posted by WalkerGibson:
Apparently, I'm just going to hijack this tread until I understand what's going on. Sorry about my stupidity.

I totally understand how an XY pair would give you a stereo image, but there are two things I don't understand about how M/S would accomplish the same thing:

Heh, I actually posted an eg in your own thread, Walker

One thing I really like about M/S, is that it's pretty hard to get into phase issues compared to say, spaced pair. I also prefer it for single guitar parts with just a singer.with just the right (slight) amount of S mics, you can open up the stereo feel, w/o it sounding unnatural. More like the guy in the room per se. I'd continue to experiment with it Walker.

Really digging the acoustic and vocal sounds. Great work! Any compression used on any of this?

quote:

Originally posted by Darius:
Really digging the acoustic and vocal sounds. Great work! Any compression used on any of this?

Yup. On Jess's tunes it's- UAD-1 LA2A on the center mic (vox) and UAD-1 LA3A on the bass. Light compression. Also a tickle of UAD-1 Precision buss comp and Precision limiter to get it louder for the kids.

I didn't use any of the analog comps because it was a quick demo.

Thanks for your comments!

Here's another new song just posted on my site.

My partner Linda Hiebert just finished the recording of "Yes I Can" a new song that she wrote for the Council For Exceptional Children.

Linda played guitar and sang live. We used a Peluso P12 in Figure 8 pattern into the Sebatron Cygnus X-2 and LA-4 compressor for vocals. An ADK TL in figure 8 was used into the Cygnus for acoustic guitar.

We overdubbed backing vocals with an R-F-T AK-47 into Pacifica and LA-4.

We overdubbed standup bass played by our friend Jess Reimer with a Peluso 22 47 short body in figure 8 pattern into the Cygnus.

We then added another acoustic part played by our friend Jeremy Hamm with a Peluso CEMC6 mic and Cygnus pre-amp.

We recorded all the overdubs and mixed and printed up copies this weekend.

We got it all done just in time for the "Yes I Can" awards banquet put on by the Council For Exceptional Children on February 21st in Winnipeg, MB, where exceptional kids get recognition for their accomplishments.

Many thanks to Jess and Jeremy for their help with this song created for such an excellent organization as the Council For Exceptional Children.

KUDOS Dudge and Linda. No better reason to make music than to support kids.

added!

How are you digging that Folcrom? You mixing with it?