On 21 Dec 2007, at 08:53 , Carl Edlund Anderson wrote:

As it happens, just this past week I've just pulled out Doggiebox for for the first time in a awhile, the first recording project I've done since a recent transatlantic move, a kind of "folk metal" version of ye olde Scottish Border ballad "Twa Corbies".

And here's a link to the first pass at this, replete with cheezy samples and wind, rain, and (of course) crows:

http://www.carlaz.com/music/Twa_Corbies.mp3

It's "folk", Jim, but not as we know it .... ;)

All drums by Doggiebox, of course! :)

Cheers, Carl

-- Carl Edlund Anderson http://www.carlaz.com/

http://www.foolishu.com/sounds/Pheromone3.mp3

I don't think I've shared this one with the DB list yet. Forgive me if it's a repeat. The song linked above uses a Sonor kit who's origin I can't recall. It was written by my collaborator/lyricist/singer Kevin Crane, who does the vocals. I played all the instruments and had lots to do with the overall production (so can take either credit or blame).

I'm interested, as always, in feedback on the songwriting, production techniques, and the use of DB.

Only given a few listens, so I can't say much except that the drums sound very natural and the Sonor kit seems like a good fit to general vibe. Did you drop a stereo AIFF with all the drums right out of DB, or did you split things into different drum tracks?

This is probably the only song I've done recently where I did NOT split drums onto different tracks. It's a lot of work to do that, and this one sounded OK without a lot of extra futzing around.

When I do split things up, I'm usually using the original NSKit. I stopped using the version 7 of that one because the toms sound wrong. Sort of "spitty" or "fizzy" on the attack. Splitting sounds, as you all know, is a hugely time consuming effort, and it's one of the last things I'll do. I want to make sure all tweaking is done beforehand, since it's virtually impossible to edit patterns without all the instruments in one song file.

I'll usually create just three files: Kick, Snare/toms, and cymbals. My logic is that much of compression and reverb that sounds good on snare also works well for toms. Kick is mostly dry, but requires different eq than everything else. Same for Cymbals.

Echoing your previous comments, the ability to isolate drums on export is the highest thing on my wish list at the moment.

Thanks for listening! We're working on more, too. Most of it seems like it will be in this country/rock/whatever sort of vein.

On 01 Jan 2008, at 02:44 , Charlie wrote:

Finally got around to listening to this - FWIW - It passed the test I always use - I play the track and concentrate on the drum part. If I'm still listening to the drums and not the song after about a minute or so - you fail...

Glad to know I got through that, especially given the drums don't start until about a minute in, and then take a break in the middle as well :)

BTW, there's an updated version online now: <http://www.carlaz.com/ music/Twa_Corbies.mp3>

Putting together the drum track was fun, since much of the song is in 3/4 with occasional trips to 2/4 or 4/4, and I don't really have many models for that sort of thing in heavy rock! There's no real chorus in the song either for obvious tricks like slipping from hat to ride, but I tried to throw in a few such changes in the course of the verses.

This is the first recording on which I've tried recorded separate drum tracks. I'm using the ns_kit7 samples, which are very flexible but completely dry (no compression or reverb or anything on there to start with) and with sample sets from different parts of the kits having widely varying dynamic ranges (as is, the snares seem relatively quiet while the cymbals can very very loud). After recording the song around a basic all-in stereo AIFF output from DB, I took the dbsong file and erased all but one part of the kit -- one of cymbals, hats, snare, toms, kick -- and saved it as a new file. I then reverted to the original dbsong file and did the same thing again and again for different parts of the kit. At the end of this somewhat tedious process, I could output different AIFFS for the different parts of the kit and import then separately into GarageBand, controlling the gain on individual tracks separately.

Since then, I've also tried to teach myself some of the rudiments of mixing, applying different compression and EQ to the different drum parts trying to get them sounding more "pro". :) I don't think I'm going to win any engineering Grammys ;) but I think I've been breaking a little personal ground with this, at least :)

PS Cool cover art... (and crows)

Courtesy of (and apologies to) late 19th/early 20th century English book illustrator Arthur Rackham who produced the original art for _Some British Ballads_ in 1919.

I took a scan, inverted the color pallette, twiddled the hue/ contrast, cropped it down to a square, and slapped the lettering on :)

The sampled crows are courtesy of a recording from Freesound: http:// freesound.iua.upf.edu/

Cheers, Carl

-- Carl Edlund Anderson http://www.carlaz.com/

On 11 Jan 2008, at 06:44 , Sion Morris wrote:

This is your best vocal to date Carl, great on the high notes.

I've discovered this key is absolutely at the top of my range, but I'm now living in a relatively well-insulated (with regards to sound) apartment building with few neighbours around during the day, so I felt a little freer to belt it out, which I think helped me on those high notes (as does plenty of delay! :) Virtually all of the vox were done in one pass, intended as guide voicals, but I decided unlikely to better them and so left them. :)

Bizarrely, the hardest part was the quiet bit in the middle, probably because there was nothing to cover up the rough edges. ;) I did endless passes on different lines of the verse, tacking together the bits I hated least :) and pushing the track volumes around.

Gosh, I hate doing vocals! :) But I ain't got anyone else to do it for me. ;)

nice guitars too.. especially the wah lead and grungy bass - and of course Db track.

The mix remains a challenge that I'm trying to better and tweak even this morning. I suspect I'm still actually swamping the drums a bit with piles of guitar and grungy bass (I do _like_ grungy bass -- Bruce, Pappalardi, Entwhistle, a bit of Glover, Geezer, Lemmy, Allen Woody -- those are my boys on the bass :). But trying to adjust the levels, compression, and EQ on multi-track drums from scratch when you've never done it before is a _heck_ of a thing! And at the moment, I feel too lazy to tweak down the levels on everything non- drums ... ;)

At worst, I don't think it's _too_ bad :) but I've got plenty to learn ... either about mixing or that I should just go back to using a handful of multi-velocity samples that someone _else_ has already processed to sound good together ;)

I read on your site that

...

the music is largely based on a traditional Breton tune called "Alar'ch" ("The Swan");

Which is interesting as In today's Welsh 'Alarch' does also mean 'Swan! The Breton language and Welsh language are very strongly connected as I'm sure you know. I hadn't heard the tune before though.

Too many years in uni has given me a modest background in Celtic historical linguistics, even though I only recognize words here and there in the various languages and can't actually read or speak the simplest sentence! But it doesn't surprise me to hear the Welsh word for "swan" is much like the "Breton" one. :)

I should emphasize that I cannot at all claim credit for the pairing of words and tune. :) These were originally joined up by Scottish poet Maurice Blythman (aka “Thurso Berwick”) who set the words (only known sans tune) to the "Al Alar'ch" melody that he learned from a Breton folk musician named Zaig Montjarret (about whom I know nothing more!). I think the first recorded version came from Scottish singers Ray and Archie Fisher in the early '60s, and this inspired a 1970 version by Steeleye Span which I think has been the basis for most other people's versions since then. I think I get to claim the first heavy rock arrangement, though! ;)

Coincidentally, another pairing of a random Breton folk tune with originally unassociated lyrics is Martin Carthy's match-up of the "Ar Ch'akouz" ("The Leper") melody with English Civil War vintage anonymous political lyrics "Dominion of the Sword". I've mused for years over a rock version of that -- even attempted it with a band when still living in the UK -- but haven't settled on an approach. It'd be easier than "Twa Corbies" though, since it's pretty straight 4/4 (as opposed to the grab-bag of time signatures in "Twa Corbies"!)

Perhaps no one but the Bretons is quite sure how to pronounce the words in their folk songs, so they just cart away the melodies instead .... ;)

Mike - Great song and nice production as usual. I know what you mean about the toms in nskit. These sound really good. Quite a dark sounding kit, but not a 'live' as Ludwig.

The professionally crisp production on Mike's recordings never fails to blow me away, and his drum programming always nestles right in there with a transparently natural sound. Great stuff.

Charlie - your best to date too I think. Nice harmonies and guitar work.

Very fine! My ears may be off-base, but it actually gives me something of a late-Beatles John Lennonish vibe. You may have spent more time on the drum part that Ringo might have worried about, though :)

I've been inspired to upload some of my 2007 recordings too - latterly using the Ludwig kit, but also Yamaha 9000 http://www.sionsmusic.cinnamondesign.co.uk/index.php? option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=29&Itemid=29

Just downloaded the current version of "Cowboy Blue" -- good stuff! I had a bit of trouble getting my download to complete, so perhaps this is just some errors in my copy of the file, but I get sporadic bursts of static in the right channel after about 1:40, particularly in the following 30 o 40 seconds before the fade-out starts. Anyway, yes, I hear the Hey-Joeish thing -- you just need to pan the guitar lead more wildly around the stereo spectrum for that Jimi vibe. :) Some other early 70s-ish rootsy vibes, too ... maybe something Eaglesy or CSNYish ...

I've probably had too much coffee ;)

I see from your site you've got the "Tone Heaven 2" patches. I'll have to look into those, having got "Tone Heaven 1" and having used it on a few recordings. You can never have too many presets to poke around with :)

Finally - am working on a nice shiny new DB kit using free samples I found from http://www.warrenstreetstudio.com Samples were recorded on a Yamaha kit I think. Should be ready soon!! Sounds really good so far, just got a few icons to go. Will let everyone know. :-)

Groovy! :)

Cheers, Carl

-- Carl Edlund Anderson http://www.carlaz.com/

On 11 Jan 2008, at 14:22 , Sion Morris wrote:

having said that it always helps to be slightly dissatisfied with ones own results I think. Keeps the creative juices flowing!

Definitely!

Thanks for taking a listen to Cowboy Blue. Sadly the static crackle is not an upload problem. Its something that started happening a few months back when exporting to AIFF from DB, and also when locking a track in GB (and I think sending a song to iTunes). I think it must be something to do with my macs audio settings and processor speed (v slow Graphite G4).

And I thought my ol' G4 iBook was getting creaky! I upgraded to a Intel Mac Mini a few months ago, and it definitely runs GarageBand much more happily. And that's just as well, since in prep for moving I had to sell my amps and my ol' Roland DAW, so GarageBand is my whole studio at the moment.

On a related issue - the new db build, I have to report it not working for me in Tiger. I've tried it on two G4 Macs, on the first there is no sound at any time incl playback and drum selection. This is true for the kit editor too. On my other (G4-Quicksilver), there is sound, but its scrambled 'white noise' . The duration is ok and the amplitude (it decays), but something is scrambling it up. If you import into the drum editor, you can see a scrambled waveform. I guess this is something to do with the framework you mentioned Ben.

Grimness! I hadn't tried using that latest build in anger yet, so I hadn't encountered this. Sounds like I shall stick with the previous beta at the moment. (Might be mid-2008 before I jump to Leopard -- I'm not sure what it sells for locally, but well-marked up over the US prices I've no doubt!)

I think Breton Cornish and Welsh derive from a similar place. A lot of words sound similar especially place names - but spellings of these are often very different. Lots of Zs and Ks in Breton i seem to remember.

Breton is a bit closer to mostly-extinct-slightly-resurrected Cornish. They split from the ancestor of Welsh around the early 6th century AD, and from each other around perhaps the 9th century. There are several orthographic systems for writing Breton, but yes :) it's awash in k, z, and c'h. (I realize I spelt "swan" wrong -- it should be "alarc'h" or "an alarc'h" for "the swan" as the tune title should properly be!)

But I digress! (as I frequently do ;)

Cheers, Carl

-- Carl Edlund Anderson http://www.carlaz.com/

On 11/01/2008, at 8:44 PM, Sion Morris wrote:

I've been inspired to upload some of my 2007 recordings too - latterly using the Ludwig kit, but also Yamaha 9000

http://www.sionsmusic.cinnamondesign.co.uk/index.php? option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=29&Itemid=29

Sion,

Sounds good (Cowboy Blue) - another example of DB sitting nicely in a mix - I'm a fan of the Yamaha set - it gives the song a 70's feel as mentioned by Carl

Finally - am working on a nice shiny new DB kit using free samples I found from http://www.warrenstreetstudio.com Samples were recorded on a Yamaha kit I think.

Should be ready soon!! Sounds really good so far, just got a few icons to go. Will let everyone know. :-)

Excellent news - I downloaded the zip file - the sounds seem pretty good to these ears when heard in isolation.

Cheers

Sion

Sion Morris www.sionsmusic.cinnamondesign.co.uk

Cheers

Charlie

I finally listened to this, Carl. I think it's cool. I don't get a lot of exposure to Celtic influences, or whatever that is. I think your vocals are stronger as the song progresses. The beginning seems a little tentative, maybe. I like some of the bass runs near the end.

On Dec 21, 2007, at 11:21 PM, Carl Edlund Anderson wrote:

On 21 Dec 2007, at 08:53 , Carl Edlund Anderson wrote:

...

As it happens, just this past week I've just pulled out Doggiebox for for the first time in a awhile, the first recording project I've done since a recent transatlantic move, a kind of "folk metal" version of ye olde Scottish Border ballad "Twa Corbies".

And here's a link to the first pass at this, replete with cheezy samples and wind, rain, and (of course) crows:

http://www.carlaz.com/music/Twa_Corbies.mp3

It's "folk", Jim, but not as we know it .... ;)

All drums by Doggiebox, of course! :)

Cheers, Carl

-- Carl Edlund Anderson http://www.carlaz.com/

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