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He is probably reading this now, dont want to make his head bigger but he is simply the best guitarist I have ever heard, the bass was played impeccably, great musician, I wish I was half as good as him Dave
ORIGINAL: Billyboy He is probably reading this now, dont want to make his head bigger but he is simply the best guitarist I have ever heard, the bass was played impeccably, great musician, I wish I was half as good as him Dave
Just to clarify - he didn't actually play the bass, thats a virtual instrument (a VSTi plugin).
Its an expensive piece of software you plug into a midi sequencer. You can just enter the notes with a mouse on a grid (or use a midi keyboard like I do) and hey presto you have a fretless bass accompanying whatever you record - the midi instructions trigger the bass samples at the appropriate time.
Interestingly, Todd says he sequenced his using a midi guitar. Presumably as its the only way he could have got the bass lines in sync with the guitar during those unison lines. It would be a nightmare trying to do that in midi editor.
Mind you, this doesn't mean you don't have to be a good musician to be able to do all this!
How do you make the midi sound realistic, with the right intonation, and also how do you work out the bass lines that do not follow the picado sections. Cheers Dave
ORIGINAL: Billyboy How do you make the midi sound realistic, with the right intonation, and also how do you work out the bass lines that do not follow the picado sections. Cheers Dave
Midi doesn't sound at all. Midi is a set of instructions that tell 'something' to play a note at a certain time, for a certain duration, at a certain pitch, with a certain vibrato etc.
You define these parameters yourself - you enter midi data into a kind of onscreen editing grid with your mouse , or you can play the notes on a midi instrument and it enters the notes on the grid for you (this is often MUCH easier).
The quality of the actual sound you get depends very much on where you send your midi instructions. Todd is usinga $349 virtual bass module. This is an expensive, high quality plugin. Think of it as a collection of bass samples - short clips of actual recordings of real bass guitar. Todds midi instructions tell the module what note to play when and for how long etc. The quality of the original samples mean that it will sound like the real thing.
Most people new to midi think that midi = that horrible sound they get out of their computer when they play back a midi file, and it sounds electronic and crap. This is because the midi data is being sent to a crap, cheapy soundcard synth to play it back as audio. You could send the same instructions to a better synth and you'd be amazed at how different and realistic it can sound.
Was Todd's ability ever in doubt, only his forum style and I do not want to open that can again here, so be warned
When it comes to MIDI, given enough time, software, hardware and patience, one can do an awful lot e.g. I did not play much or write any of this, nor is it flamenco but it is relatively unique:
Note: this is no disrespect to Todd or any other musician that uses MIDI for backing or even entire pieces, what choice do most of us have. Doing it for flamenco is pretty rare I suspect but almost unavoidable if you live outside Spain.
Mind you, this doesn't mean you don't have to be a good musician to be able to do all this!
Exactly Jon! Being a solo musician these days really requires a knowledge of all sorts of things besides your instrument, much like a visual artist will keep up to date with new materials and techniques for exploring the possibilites. Gerardo Nuñez has his own home studio and is apparently a bit of a whizz at the technical stuff. Like yourself and Todd, the pro and semi-pro guys up here, even though they are just doing popular guitar and vocals etc are heavily into digital audio,backing tracks and sequencers etc, since that's the only financially viable way of making a living playing pubs and clubs.
Anyway, you could give me the best studio setup around, plus a whizz recording engineer and Paco de Lucia's own Conde and I'd still sound rubbish. So Todd's gotta be doing something right.
Brilliant Alegrias. Todd's definitely made a step change in his ability over the last six months or so and I think even PdL, Tomatito or VA etc would certainly have to give a serious listen to that piece.
It is really good. You don't hear non-signed people play like that too much. Now, can he write a whole album full of good material? Can he actually get palmeros, a cajonero, and a bass player to work with him? Because this MIDI is not good enough for an album. Also, can someone tell him to cool it on the compression? It makes everything sound plastic. But yeah, he's good, excellent control of his instrument although I'll pass on his "picado" sound.
Well, it sounds very artificial to me. It doesn't work with my concept of how a guitar, and specifically flamenco guitar should sound. I wouldn't mistake the MIDI for live musicians, and the picado runs in general sound too pure in nature--the result of the pick. Maybe you are giving him a lot of respect becuase you record yourself and know how hard it is to get a good sound? I think it sounds really good, perhaps not just to my taste--the skill he has playing the guitar is undeniable. Or do you think it is an acceptable sound for an album? Well, if you do and other people do, then that's good news for Todd!
You can give him head ,erm give him a big head if you want, It is a very Tomotito'sh type of composition, sounds very similar to the alegria on Barrio Negra album, I like the picado, but must admit I like the clean scrach free playing anyway. If I heard it in HMV I would buy it, although I prefer the trad style rather than the modern. I have heard albums by Del Monte and a host of new guys and he beats the lot. Dave
ORIGINAL: Miguel de Maria Well, it sounds very artificial to me. It doesn't work with my concept of how a guitar, and specifically flamenco guitar should sound. I wouldn't mistake the MIDI for live musicians, and the picado runs in general sound too pure in nature--the result of the pick. .. Or do you think it is an acceptable sound for an album?
With respect Mike, I think you are overestimating the amount that live musicians are used in modern studios, and I think that your prior knowledge of Todd - his technique and recording techniques (and attitude?) - influence your views. Are you really saying that the bass sounds artifical? If so, how? I will bet that if Todd had said he got one of his colleagues in to play those bass lines you wouldn't have batted an eyelid.
If you read the industry press you will see just how much studios are reliant on software these days. Using midi to trigger synths and samplers is not merely a 'home-recording' thing, it is part and parcel of how it is done in a professional studio environment. I have a Tomatito album sitting on my desk with a string section on one number that sounds a hell of a lot less realistic than Todds bass! Todds percussion was sampled directly from a commercial flamenco Alegria recording, so if you think that sounds artificial, blame the original recording.
As far as his picado tech goes, I've heard some players play very cleanly, and the more I hear him the more the 'he's playing with a pick' fades into the background. Did you hear that little clip that Florian posted of the National ballet guy? Sounded pretty clean to me.
One thing I will agree with you is that he uses a lot of compression, but then so do most studios these days, it seems to be a fashion. Todd's mix is no worse than some of the big names in this department. There's a thread over on FT right now about the amount of compression on Amigos latest recording, for example.
Sorry to give you a hard time Mike, but I think there are huge misconceptions about midi and what it represents.
Thanks Jon, Todd must have a good head piece on him, I could not find the time to learn all the complexities of recording, coupled with guitar practice, not to mention the blood sweat and tears it takes to come up with your own compositions, and over the months I have heard substantial pieces of Todds in Solea, Buleria, Zapateado etc the guy must be super human. Dave
Yes, he just doesn't sleep. Just plays guitar all the time.
On the compression issue, the link Jon mentioned (thanks Jon...great link!) is geared mainly at producing good quality recordings. However compression can also be used for effects too.
In the mid 50's when kids would listen to rock 'n roll on Juke boxes, the record producers wanted to try to make their records come out louder than the oppositions. This involved making the groove bigger and using compression to drastically limit the dynamic range (especially on the low frequency bass and drum sounds) so the volume could be pumped up to max. Inadvertently, they found that this produced a more "exciting" sound which fans liked. Since then, it's been used extensively in pop music. (Remember Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound"...layer upon layer of sounds all tightly compressed.) This is why an electric guitar will sound more exciting played through a 30w valve amp with all the volume controls full up rather than a 300w amp with the volume only quarter set. The overdriven amp compresses then limits and if overdriven enough will distort producing "fuzz", the effect much used by the rock bands towards the end of the '60s. (Though they eventually produced a box to do this to the signal before going into the amp, which is a much safer method LOL!) Back to Flamenco....compression used here can produce a more punchy sound, but has to be used with care or the operation of the compressor will be audible. A good example of this is Paco Peña's first album "The Incredible Paco Peña", (late '60s), where you can audibly hear the "breathing" (level variation) effect of the compression, but it does make the Bulerias, Tientos and Fandangos tracks sound really exciting.
This is why an electric guitar will sound more exciting played through a 30w valve amp with all the volume controls full up rather than a 300w amp with the volume only quarter set.
That explains my AC30 versus the Marshall stack. Thanks Ron, informative.
What is compresion and what does it sound llike on a CD
Dave,
Ron said it quite well. Compression can be a very useful tool, but it’s a bit like reverb; if a little is good, more must be better. It can be overdone very easily.
Compression is actually the result of using a compressor. Compressors are available in hardware and software versions. The acoustic guitar is very difficult to record properly. The flamenco guitar compounds the problem with its high dynamics. Dynamics as far as we are concerned can be described as very high volume levels and very low volume levels. As a rule, a classical guitar would be described as having lower dynamics than the flamenco, and thus easier to record.
Without the use of compression, flamenco recordings would result in passages that are too low in volume ranging to blowing your speakers out. Compression, literally, levels out the high and low volume parts.
The mechanics of this is quite involved, but here are the basics. A compressor simply reduces the level (volume) of the “high volume passages” and raises the level of the “low volume passages”. As you can see, if compression is overdone, you can literally remove al the dynamics from a recording. What results is a very flat, boring, monotone recording. The other problem if overdone is raising the noise level in the low volume sections. You hear this a lot in older recordings that have been re-mastered to CD’s.
As Jon said, go to the “Recording Advice” section and download the article Tom and I did. We recorded some examples of compression.
Jon, It may very well be true that my prior knowledge of Todd makes it very hard for me to appreciate his output. That being said, I don't like the "clean sound" of picado, if that means sounding like it's using a pick! I do like very much how Paco sounds, though... there's something very different there, I have to say. And maybe I couldn't tell if he were using a live bassist or MIDI, maybe it's just the sound of fretless bass that I hate. Although Todd admitted on the "other forum" that there's no dynamics on the piece, which is something that happens when you are using a computer and not a real musician. I have Sarah Brightman's album (don't ask), and the keyboards on it sound really good. The keyboards on the movie "Gladiator" sound really good, too.
Seriously does anyone think that such talent (Todds) is wasted on flamenco, at the end of the day is there any money to be made from flamenco, and learning these complicated recording programs, could someone tell me before I go out and buy Cubase Dave
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