Recording concertinas

[Chris Timson]

Do people compress concertina? Do they use valve preamps?

Just my own opinions, because I'm certainly not professional though I try to get the best results I can, as we all do.

 

The valve "warming" effect is (or should be) subtle and a matter of taste. I like it, especially for instruments like my baritone anglo and used a valve preamp on the Lily Marlene recording above, but I think a preamp that has a major effect on the sound is probably faulty! What you are looking for in a preamp, really, is clarity and not much more. As for compression, I should have thought you wouldn't need compression with a concertina unless you had to cope with an unusually dynamic player - someone who from time to time lets loose with great handfuls of buttons (which, come to think of it, is a good description of your average Jeffries duet player ...). Certainly I would never use compression as an effect in its own right, because I really don't like that effect!

 

Interesting question about monitors. I think you have to mix for the best sound you can get on ordinary speakers, since that is what most people listen on. In my studio (aka the bedroom) I listen on Tannoy Reveals, but when I've got somewhere close to what I want it helps to take a recording round the house and listen on various other systems.

 

For excellent advice on all matters to do with recording can I recommend the forums at Sound on Sound? There's a lot of knowledgeable and helpful people there (and also a couple of idiots who think a concertina is a type of accordion and hence an appropriate target for the same jokes, unfortunately) and I have learned a lot there and from the magazine archive as well.

 

Chris

 

PS watch out in valve preamps for the cheaper "starved plate" designs that run the valve at just 20 or 30 volts. A proper valve preamp should be running the valves at 200 volts or more. The cheap ones sometimes have little orange lights inside to make you think the valve are operating at normal voltage - honest, I'm not making that up!

 

Edited to add PPS: I don't think you can go too far wrong with any of the Rode mics. I have owned an NT1a and currently I have the NT4, two NT5's and an NT2a multi pattern LDC. All very good mics, especially for the money.

Edited February 28, 2009 by Chris Timson

[Jody Kruskal]

Jody:

 

Having made several albums with the Florida dance band chaps I don't think I'd disagree with any of the points you make. Sound quality probably matters more to us than to our audience, though there are exceptions. For example, some years ago my studio experiences taught me that studio monitors, not hifi speakers, were the way to hear what the musicians and engineers heard in the studio, and so I bought some for my living room. It was a great decision, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to listen seriously to music.

 

But your points beg questions that take me straight back to my request at the beginning of this thread. How do people these days process raw concertina recordings? I think I understand about reverb, but what about other common recording techniques? Do people compress concertina? Do they use valve preamps?

 

Gav

 

[edited for spellings and sense!]

Gav,

 

I enjoyed hearing you play last year at Bradfield. Great stuff.

 

I'm told that preamp quality is important but I just use what comes with my recording platform, a Pro Tools R3. Before that I was using a Roland VS 1680 workstation which had two mic preamps. The Roland is a stand alone multitrack digital unit and was fine for solo concertina or a small ensemble and sounded great. Mine is, perhaps 15 years old. I'm sure you could pick a used one up cheap or the even older VS 880.

 

For mixing anything complicated with multiple tracks like a band, it really helps to see it all layed out on a computer screen the way that most newer recording systems do like the Pro Tools I now have. Turning the audio info into visual info is a big help in the editing process, cutting, pasting, fixing mistakes, adjusting relative volumes of tracks to bring out musical phrases and musical clarity. All of that function was needed to turn the raw tracks into something worth listening to for my band recordings. For my solo recording I did absolutely no editing. Each track on "Naked Concertina" is just the way I played it, mistakes and all.

 

Compression, reverb, EQ and lots more are effects. You apply them after recording and if used properly will only serve to to make you sound more like yourself, if that is your goal.

 

I'm looking forward to hearing more of your recording efforts. Why not put up a few samples on Henk van Aalten's "Recorded Tunes Link Page" http://www.anglo-concertina.net/links.htm so we can hear what you are up to?

[Kautilya]

What's the current thinking on recording concertinas please?

 

Are large diaphragm studio mics a good way to go? And what should the distance from the box be? Are there any other bits of useful techniquery here that a chap should know?

 

If you know the answers I'd love to hear from you please!

 

Thanks,

 

Gav

Zoom H2 Digital Recorder

 

It may be worth looking (we did a lot of research) at the following very small mike unit which needs no mains and records direct to SD card (as in camera say up to 4GB which is several hours hiqual), so recording can be downloaded later straight into the computer for editing.

 

The H2 model for some reason has more options than the H4 which have never understood.

 

As H2 has four mikes for 360 degree sound (sound bouncing off certain walls can improve or worsen the overall recording effect quality) as well as uni-directional possibilties.

 

It is good for closeup work and it can be used with groups and in halls etc etc (stick it in the middle) and is used by some professional musicians (including flute and hurdy gurdy and fiddle and pipe groups with folk singers ) to record concerts for later CD sales.

 

Our is used mainly for radio broadcast (recording presenter's input at 'this' end direct to the computer via USB cable from the H2 -- instead of using the SD card) while computer then pulls in other remote voices/sounds via Skype etc. for recording.

 

H2 is not cheap but nor is the slightly smaller Sony electret condenser professional stereo mike (it does not record like H2, only picks up sound) which has 360 and 90 degree pickup as well as full and reduced sensitivity if you want to cut out other noises near you (like tapping feet!) is still a benchmark after 20 years or more - I think the latest configuration is ECM-MS957 and it costs from 140 to 230 quid depending on ....

Even the older model (which is good for life so secondhand can be interesting) cost about 90 quid a decade ago. I dont have that model number to hand.

 

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[Gavin Atkin]

Chris -

 

Your point about duet players throwing in handfulls of chords is exactly what I'm thinking about - though I guess we'll fix these kinds of things in the mastering.

 

Thanks particularly for your point about valve pre-amps. There's always a danger that the snake oil will creep into anything about sound, and I feel this might be one of those situations. What's more, I can't justify investing in an expensive anything!

 

Jody - I'll try to remember your excellent suggestion about putting up some samples. However, I fully expect to haver to put in some hard work before we've got something that seems worthy!

 

Gav

[Gavin Atkin]

PS - Julie and I got married last week, and I thought some of you might be entertained by this short video from mthe reception:

 

Gav

[Hereward]

PS - Julie and I got married last week, and I thought some of you might be entertained by this short video from mthe reception:

 

Gav

 

That is much better entertainment than some weddings I've attended. Great singing and playing - a marriage made in heaven.

 

Ian

[Steve_freereeder]

PS - Julie and I got married last week, and I thought some of you might be entertained by this short video from mthe reception:

Gav

That was lovely! My congratulations to the pair of you! Hope to catch up with you both before too long. Will you be at Mendlesham?

[Chris Timson]

Your point about duet players throwing in handfulls of chords is exactly what I'm thinking about - though I guess we'll fix these kinds of things in the mastering.

You might want to consider some gentle compression during recording - the point here being to enable you to keep your recording levels reasonably high without overloading the preamp or the ADC when you suddenly throw in that great handful of notes. I've got a TC Electronic C300 compressor and a Presonus Blue Max. Both compressors provide presets which make them vastly easier to use than fully manual compressors, and they aren't hugely expensive on eBay which is where most of my studio kit came from. Basically over the course of years I bought bits and pieces of kit through ebay and if I liked them and could see the use in them I kept them, if not, I sold them again, usually for little loss and sometimes a small profit. It all proved a relatively inexpensive way to learn my way around this stuff.

 

PS - Julie and I got married last week, and I thought some of you might be entertained by this short video from the reception:

I'll add my congratulations too.

 

Cheers,

 

Chris

Edited March 1, 2009 by Chris Timson

[Jody Kruskal]

Gav and Julie -- congratulations. You two certainly make beautiful music together.

[Gavin Atkin]

Gav and Julie -- congratulations. You two certainly make beautiful music together.

 

Many thanks Hereward, Steve, Chris and Jody! It certainly was a great day, thanks to our friends and family.

 

Gav

[Chris Timson]

As a man who likes mics, you might like this. A snip at just £9995 (nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety five pounds, postage included, you'll be glad to know).

 

Chris

Edited March 2, 2009 by Chris Timson

[david_boveri]

has anyone tried mic'ing the concertina with a ribbon mic? i dont have a lot of mic'ing experience, so i know next to nothing about the whole process, but it seems to me that it might do something interesting to the sound.