harmonizer
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Posts posted by harmonizer
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As a huge fan of early Chicago, seeing isolated Covid videos made me want to make such a video of the song "All Is Well" from Chicago V.
The drums played by Ira was the first part I recorded back in 2021, but sadly Ira passed away before the entire project was completed.
For me this has been a labor of love. My son Justin is on trumpet, trombone and backup vocals, and a former bandmate flew across the country to record his bass part. That's me on the EP part, sax, and lead vocal:-
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9 hours ago, stoken6 said:
Sounds great. The mix/balance of the whole band is good too - what's your secret?
Cheers, Mike.
Thanks for the kind words.
To be fair, what you hear on the youtube video has its balance optimized by doing a post-gig mix. We use a Zoom L-20 as a dual-purpose live mixing board and multitrack recorder which has 18 completely independent inputs. We need this many inputs because we have 7 people, 5 of whom sing at various times (as well as playing instruments), and we use 5 mics to capture the drum kit.
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If I were restricted to a single brand I would choose Yamaha, because they also make some wonderful saxes, and sax is my main instrument.
I really like the intonation on my Yamaha Bari Sax (seen and heard here):
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On 1/1/2024 at 12:54 PM, AnotherScott said:
On the flip side of that... I read that John Lennon's classic vocal on the beatles version of Twist and Shout sounds the way it does *because* he had shot his voice after a bunch of takes.
I also heard that Lennon was sick with a cold that day. I'm not sure of my source for that, but it might have been an interview with George Martin.
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The QSC looks like an impressive machine.
But it does look like one might need to do some screen navigation to set output levels for individual tracks. (edit: at first I thought this was true for setting preamp levels too, but then I saw the physical dials on the Touchmix-16).
From about 2008-2016 I used a Korg D3200 as both my live mixing board and for the multitrack recorder, and it was tricky to do this. It looks like the QSC device is way better than the Korg D3200 as a live mixing board, starting with the fact that the QSC device has a much bigger screen. But my experience with my Korg D3200 from 2008-2016 gave me sensitivity to how needing to navigate screens can make it more tricky to make adjustments on the fly at a gig. I'm not saying you can't use the QSC as a live mixer, but I would prefer a device that allows output levels for each track to be viewed and adjusted without any screen navigation. The picture I saw of a Touchmix-16 shows the settings for 8 faders on the screen. I don't see any physical faders for output levels for tracks, so it looks like the these only exist in a screen on the QSC. If you are a small-time covers band and don't have a full time sound guy, you're juggling a lot of balls in the air during setup and as you make adjustments during the first few songs.
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I watched the movie and really enjoyed it.
I have always been interested in Leonard Bernstein: back in the 70s/80s I enjoyed an LP my parents had of Isaac Stern playing Bartok's Violin Concerto #2 with the NY Philharmonic, and an LP containing Firebird Suite by the NY Philharmonic, with both conducted by Bernstein. And in the 80s or 90s I was in one of the major record stores in Manhattan (Tower Records?) looking through classical LPs with Bernstein's name on the cover (probably either Bartok or Stravinsky stuff), and an employee shared his opinion that only Bernstein could make 20th century classical sound like music. I had already noticed I really liked Bernstein-conducted versions of Bartok and Stravinsky pieces much more than those conducted by others, so his statement resonated with me.
I have tremendous respect for what Cooper has done in his career, for me the highlights are Silver Linings Playbook, American Sniper, A Star Is Born and now Maestro.
I would not have predicted such a path for Cooper just by watching him in his earlier movies like "The Hangover", when it seemed he was just a "pretty boy".
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Zoom L20.
It has 18 completely independent inputs.
I use it as both the live mixing board for our covers band gigs, and as our multitrack recorder.
We have 7 people in the band, 5 of whom sing at various times. On some songs we have 4 people singing at once, with some of those singers playing keys or guitar at the same time. And two of us play horns and sometimes switch rapidly between playing a horn (which uses a separate mic) and singing backup vocals.
It has 6 separate monitor outs, which can each have a separate mix - this is a wonderful thing, especially if want to have separate monitor mixes for certain band members using in-ear monitors.
The separate tracks get recorded on some sort of SD card, which I can then easily transfer to a computer for post-gig mixing.
I have used my Zoom L20 for at least 7 gigs with this 7 person covers band. From my perspective, it is completely up to the task.
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On 12/21/2023 at 10:19 AM, Stokely said:
..... I've maintained my current weight (give or take) for many years but I just can't seem to get it down to where I want to maintain it. Part of it is stress, part is drinking (see 2nd resolution) leading toward snacking, people not me bringing junk food into the house is a real problem, and part is past injuries and conditions making it tougher to exercise (holy vicious cycle batman)........
In case this might help anyone else who has similar challenges to me, here are three things that have helped me:
1. I stopped drinking diet cola completely. Previously I had been consuming more than one 2-liter bottle a day. This had been encouraging me to eat stuff to accompany the diet coke. (I still allow myself to have 2 cups of coffee each morning, but no diet cola).
2. I was able to convince myself to eliminate certain types of snack food 100% - certain specific snack/dessert things I just do not bring into the house at all. This was the only way I could stop eating too much of those specific items, for which I am not capable of eating them in moderation. Since I already do the grocery shopping for our family, I don't have much of a problem from what others bring into the house.
3. Re injuries/conditions making it tougher to exercise: I have had a battle with plantar fascia in one heel since 2010. I'm 62 now, so all I was trying to do for exercise was to take long walks, but my heel had been stopping me until 2 years ago. Finally I found a way to put my plantar fascia in remission: (a) really good hiking boots with additional padded insoles, (b) I wear two pairs of heavily padded socks on each foot and (c) I found routes to walk that were mostly grass and dirt. All three factors add up, and now I can take a 4-mile walk every other day and I have no heel pain. I have a couple friends who take the additional step of never walking or standing around inside their house without wearing decent shoes or sneakers for foot support, but I have not had to do that.
More on (3-c): if you live in a suburban town, look for streets with sidewalks, because these almost always have a grassy median between the sidewalk and street, and you won't feel like you are invading the homeowner's lawn if you walk on that grassy median. Another advantage of streets with sidewalks is that they often have streetlights, especially if it is a street that kids take to walk to school. If a street has streetlights, it might have enough lighting for you to walk before sunrise or after sunset, which is important when walking on uneven grass and dirt areas, so you can avoid spraining an ankle.
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To not gain back the weight I lost during November 2022-April 2023.
I lost 60 pounds during that time, and so far I have kept it off, although it has not always been easy to do so.
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Limiting this to musical gear:
Reliable: my Roland KC-150 has never had a reliability problem. It was demoted to a backup when I purchased an EV zx-a1. Had to pull out the KC-150 from my car when the zx-a1 overheated and shut itself off during an outdoor gig. I believe my KC-150 will outlast the apocalypse.
Unreliable: I bought a Behringer two channel preamp, which failed after limited usage. Really I blame myself, because I had read enough before I bought it such that I should have known better.
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Sometimes when someone other than me played keys in our band I felt their keys playing was getting in the way. Sometimes it was them playing too loud, but more often the problem was too much sustained notes (either by holding the keys down or overuse of sustain pedal), or a bad patch choice or the voicing/placement of chords they are playing. When a keys player and rhythm guitarist are both playing chords, they need to figure out how to get out of each other's way enough so that both instruments can be heard. Sometimes that means carefully figuring out the voicings and fretboard/keyboard placement used on the original. Sometimes it's figuring out your own solution, since sometimes a studio recording can be mixed in a way that sounds ok, but using that same playing live will result in mud. I really don't think the size of the keyboard amplification matters: My EV zx-a1 (8" driver) has plenty of power to create a living hell for my bandmates if I make the wrong choices for when to play, voicings, patches, or sustained notes.
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Regardless of who owns the (Steely Dan) band going forward, Becker was the co-writer with Fagen of most of their songs. If Becker (whether alive or dead) is no longer a member of the band, I would think that band is not entitled to perform his compositions for free in commercial performances where they collect millions of dollars in ticket revenue, unless there is some compensation to Becker as the co-composer. If this is correct, it should have some impact on any negotiation.
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When I transcribed a piano part to play for Steely Dan's "Home At Last", the voicings I chose were largely influenced by what note I wanted to be on top and thus most noticeable. Sometimes a sequence of different chords sounds better when the top note stays the same for 2 or more chords in a row, and sometimes the movement of that top note at the right time is an important choice.
Good advice was given above to leave out certain notes, with the root and 5th being leading candidates to leave out. You don't HAVE to leave them out, but if the chords have lots of upper extensions (6th, 7th, 9th, 11th) it is likely that you will want to leave out notes like the root and 5th, because you are trying to get the jazzier colors of those chords to be heard. The bass is probably playing the root, and there is a tendency of a listener to hear the 5th even if it's not being played.
Decide whether you will be playing long held notes, or something very percussive (with sound gaps in between). You might choose some busier chord voicings if you are playing percussive hits with sound gaps in between them.
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On 11/8/2023 at 1:08 AM, Synthaholic said:
This really pisses me off. I don't know what GM Alex Anthopoulos is thinking. Eddie is not only a huge fan favorite, he's an incredible value.
Eddie Rosario: 21 HR/74 RBI - $9,000,000
J.T. Realmuto: 20 HR/63 RBI - $23,875,000
Giancarlo Stanton: 24 HR/60 RBI - $32,000,000
.......
I will just offer this other perspective: I would not want any of my teams to pick up someone who had 21 HRs and 74 RBIs (and only 34 BB) playing in the outfield (where offensive stats are usually better) on a team that was an offensive powerhouse like the Braves were. He's not worth the 9M. And you're forgetting that Realmuto is a catcher. Offensive production such as 20HR from a catcher (or SS or 2B) is worth a lot more than 20HR from an outfielder or someone playing 1B.
Stanton is a completely different situation: He did not add any value to the Yankees this year. His stats page (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stantmi03.shtml) shows him having negative offensive and defensive WAR, and his offensive stats in 2023 were abysmal for someone who could only rarely even play in the outfield. I am sure the Yankees would much rather have Eddie Rosario than Stanton, but I think the Yankees are stuck with Stanton because of his contract.
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From their first album (Please Please Me, March 1963), I consider at least 4 tracks to be very good pop music compositions: (I Saw Her Standing There, Please Please Me, Love Me Do, Do You Want to Know a Secret). That's pretty good for a first album. And the performance of "I Saw Her Standing There" is blistering. Our covers band has performed it over 10 times at various gigs over the last 19 years, but I don't think we've ever done it justice. Noteworthy new compositions over the next 16 months included "All My Loving", and pretty much all of the 13 tracks on "A Hard Day's Night". Transcribe the chords in the intro of "If I Fell". That's some pretty cool stuff.
All of the above is from their early period, before the "Help", "Rubber Soul", "Revolver", and later works.
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Through the 1968 season, the team in each league having the most wins in the regular season advanced to the World Series with no playoffs (unless there was a regular season tie). Personally I like having the additional rounds of playoffs before the "final series". But having these poses the risk of devaluing the regular season accomplishments of those teams having the best regular season records. I liked it best when baseball had 5 teams qualify in each league, with the two wild card teams forced to potentially use their best starter in a single-game elimination game, with the winner of that one game forced to play in the next round against the team having the best regular season record. That top seed got rewarded with competing against a potentially non-optimized rotation of the single wild card game winner.
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Andrew Barth Feldman's Maneater:
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Congrats to the Texas Rangers on their first World Series title in their franchise history, since they started as the expansion team Washington Senators in 1961.
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I also made the change to capture and mix my audio in 48-bit once I started making videos of our covers band.
Re 16-bit vs. 24-bit, I did not trust I could capture 12 tracks at once during a live gig with 24-bit audio using my old Korg D3200 (which uses a hard drive), so back then I did the audio capture in 16-bit. But since I got my Zoom L-20 I do the audio capture with 24-bit audio (and I am capturing 16 tracks at once during our live gigs).
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I am rooting for the Texas Rangers, only because their franchise has never won a World Series (the Texas Rangers played as the Washington Senators from 1961-1971, before they moved to Texas and changed their name).
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Here's "Late in the Evening" from our covers band's recent gig.
The lead vocal is by our newest band member, my son is on trumpet, and I'm multitasking on sax and keys. The EP patch is the Nefertiti on my Stage3: -
Regarding the losses by Atlanta and LA, who both had fantastic regular seasons:
If a weaker team's pitchers get hot, anything can happen in a short series.
An example is the Phillies' Ranger Suarez, who had a very mediocre year, going 4-6 with a 4.18 ERA in the regular season.
Up until last night's start against Arizona, Suarez had a post-season 0.64 ERA, and in 2 games against Atlanta he gave up only 1 run in 8.2 innings.
Having over 100 wins during the regular season does not protect strong teams like Atlanta or LA from this. -
I wonder what all of the people named Bill Evans think about the music of the person we're not supposed to be talking about here.
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It's time for me to hijack this thread and tell my Bill Evans story.
In the 1990s I was living in an apartment in a walk-up building near Manhattan. One morning I walked outside and I noticed my two neighbors who shared an apartment one floor below mine, and they let me share their cab ride into Manhattan. During the ride I proceeded to tell them an amusing story that involved the confusion between the two musicians named Bill Evans who had played in bands with Miles Davis, made even funnier by the fact that at that time there was also a weatherman named Bill Evans on one of the NYC evening news TV channels. I was really enjoying telling them this story, but then noticed both of them staring at me with a really big grin. They had to be onto some kind of joke that I was not getting. And then I remembered that one of the neighbors who was sharing the cab ride with me was also named Bill Evans, and that it was obvious to my neighbors that I had totally forgotten this while telling them my funny story.
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Official MLB 2024 Thread
in The Keyboard Corner
Posted
Good points about the impact of his home stadium on Helton's offensive stats.
One criteria I have heard for whether a player is HOF-worthy is how many times did they appear in the top 3 (or top 5) of a key stat? In others words, it is not necessary that a player actually lead the league in home runs / slugging / batting / ERA / wins in order to consider their performance great, but to be very near the top.
Helton had 7 years where he was in the top 5 for both batting average and on-base percentage. He had "only" 4 years where he was in the top 5 for slugging percentage. Normally that would be pretty impressive, but playing half your games a mile above sea level is going to elevate anyone's slugging percentage. And hitting lots of home runs is going to enable you to get more walks, if you have a good eye and avoid swinging at bad pitches - which will elevate your on-base percentage. And first baseman and outfielders are expected to have the best offensive stats. I'm not claiming that Helton is not HOF worthy. I just don't think I can tell by looking at his stats.