One more time, with FEELING...

[LoudnClear]

Dave, Sorry I'm late to the game, but what is the background on these files? Who's performing, where? I take it you recorded these in two channel with ribbon mics?

Thanks much, I'm always on the prowl for beautifully recorded material.

Kimball

[Mallette]

Dave, Sorry I'm late to the game, but what is the background on these files? Who's performing, where? I take it you recorded these in two channel with ribbon mics?

Thanks much, I'm always on the prowl for beautifully recorded material.

Kimball

Kimball:

Here are the notes I copied from previous posts:

"Earth and All Stars" - performed on the 1861 Hook Organ at the
Church of the Angels, Marine City, Michigan by Daniel John Susan. The
PAW, kids, and I were traveling to Washington state for my nieces
senior recital and HS graduation and took the scenic route to visit
friends, including Daniel and his talented singer and old instrument playing wife Barbara, former music minister at my
old parish in Lewisville, Texas. He had composed this extraordinary
extravaganza on the Anglican hymn tune of the same name. Having a
traveling rig at the ready, I spent a full 15 minutes setting up and
recording this awesome old tracker in a truly fine space. This
instrument has been featureed on "Pipe Dreams." Daniel's performance
isn't perfect...the whole session was impromptu and he was working
without music. In this case, I was after all the "space" I could get
of these delicious acoustics... How well did I succeed? I'd like your
opinion.

Mozart Wind Piece Whose Name I Forget - Embarrassing, but easier to be embarrassed
than dig up the notes on this. First movement of well loved Mozart
wind ensemble piece piece performed by the Dallas Camerata conducted by
James Rives Jones. The acoustics were pretty poor in this Lutheran
church and there was a buzz from some flourecents so the miking was
done to minimize the influence of both. How well did I succeed? Let
me know...

Brahm's "Andante u poco Adagio" for Clarinet and
piano, performed by Paul Garner, principal clarinetist of the DSO,
accompanied by Michelle McDonald, founder and artistic director of the
Hubbard Chamber Music Series. Clarinet up close and personal miked
with an RCA KU-3A ribbon mike, the "Stradivarius of Microphones."
Pride of my collection and one of 600 made in the 1930's. You can hear
his fingers half-keying... These acoustics were ABYSSMAL in a
converted fire station. I miked to eliminate them entirely... How
well did I succeed?

St. James Infirmary, Asylum Street Spankers. I recorded this at the
Saxon Pub in Austin. The place was packed. I used two DAW's I built,
one with ESI WamiRackXL for 4X 24/192 surround (25mb/s!), and the other with Card
Deluxe for 24/88.2 stereo. The stereo feed was from the front mikes of
the coincedent rigged surround setup (Ocktava ML52). This is at
16/44.1 downsample. I might put up the 24/88.2 if there is interest.

Claire
de Lune, Stewart Wayne Foster. SWF was winner of the first Dallas
International Organ Competition. He played a piano recital to dedicate
a donated grand piano at my old parish in Flower Mound at the request
of our music minister who was a friend. Primary mike here was RCA
KU-3A (1936 - one of about 600 produced) placed about 3 feet over the
soundboard and equidistant from all strings. Second mike was a Beyer
ribbon at 90 degrees and about three feet off the rear of the piano.
The creaks are from the bench, which mortified our Music Minister to no end.
Personally, I think they add a bit of real life... Acoustics in the
building are amongst the finest I've ever heard.

Handel on the
Strand, Hubbard Ensemble - My only commercial release (not by me, it
was a commission job). It was recorded at the Mesquite Performing Arts
Center in Mesquite, TX. I felt the hall was way too live for chamber
music, but as "hired gun," I was not the producer. However, I've grown
quite found of the lush sound over the years. This Grainger piece
features Delbert Petty (now retired) who was principal second chair
violinist and his magnificent Amati.

Mark: I recall you asked about processing. Yuk. None of any kind. I do not even normalize or ever use a mixer. Mike>Vacuum Tube preamp>DAC>HDD. Play the ball where it lies. Every track here is a bit for bit master, except for downsampling. I have found that divided by 2 downsampling does not have an audible impact on my ears (other than the limits of the sample rate). In recordings where I've down an alibi of a 24/88.2 at 16/44.1 and then downsampled the 24/88.2, I cannot tell the difference. Neither better nor worse, but identical to my ears.

Dave

[colterphoto1]

awww,am I late to the party? are the files GONE???

aww, ok, now I'm at the FTP site, but how to start the downloading process and how much disk space is needed?

[Champagne taste beer budget]

I'm trying again right now, I just right clicked, then "Save as" to appropriate disc. Going to save one, see if it works in the Oppo before I save any more. It DOES save as a WAV, so I'll have to figure out how to change that, apparently. Let me know if you get it to work right.

[Champagne taste beer budget]

Have Clair de Lune playing on the Oppo as we speak, on one channel until the receiver warms up a little and starts working right, I should have had it turned on earlier.

[thebes]

Just spent one of the most enjoyable hours listening to the stereo that I've ever had. This is what we spend the bucks for boys.

When playing Dave's stuff you really have to quiet the extraneous room noises etc. because you don't want to miss a note. Indeed, when I put this on I had a bird out back singing away, I presume doing what many males do on a Friday night, and that's attract a mate.

Had to open the sliding door and yell at him to pipe down. Damn struttin bird compelled ignored me.

By then the organ piece is on and quite frankly my feelings are mixed. Organ music in a church has certain connotations for me. When I was a young man, the Most Holy Roman Catholic Church made a collosal error in judgment and made me an Altar Boy. Mass would invariably start with an organ recital and offkey singing by the local matron. I'd cringe, become bored and would soon start cataloging the sexual indiscretions of the various members of the congreation to my fellow miscreants (albeit pious looking in our altar gowns) in a more than a loud voice. Steps were soon taken and I found myself liturgically out on the street. Indeed, I suspect I was in part responsible for what has become known to history as Vatican Two.

But I digress. This is seriously well recorded music and Dave does one of the best jobs of capturing live recordings that I have ever heard. Can I quibble? Sure. But I don't hate good music enough to pick it apart . My smarmy audiophile side may start to object but it's soon shouted down by the part of me that lievs for music.

Dave I'm sure there are lots of people here with tons of server space. Consider putting up a few more and have somebody here hosting.

Michael just bouble click and follow your browsers instrucitons to download.

[Mallette]

awww,am I late to the party? are the files GONE???

aww, ok, now I'm at the FTP site, but how to start the downloading process and how much disk space is needed?

Just drag'em to somewhere or right click and "Save As."

I did verify that the latest Windows Media Player has burn Redbook built in. Just click "Burn" and select "Audio CD."

Dave

[Mallette]

>Can I quibble? Sure. But I don't hate good music enough to pick it apart .

Not fair, Martin. If I do not learn something from this it's just an ego exercise. Tell me what sux...

Dave

[thebes]

" Just spent one of the most enjoyable hours listening to the stereo that
I've ever had. This is what we spend the bucks for boys."

Quibbles. I thought the organ wasn't as dynamic as it could be. It's probably the sound level compared to the other recordings and I was too lazy to walk over and tweak the volume. Also, the drums on the Spankers piece were a smidge too forward. I'll be listening to these a lot and given the amount of music I have available that's high praise indeed.

These are absolutely superb recordings Dave. Relax and bask in the full appreciation of a newly converted fan. Don't send these to Chesky or other audiophile labels. They will go into a deep depression.

[wallflower]

Dave,

Outstanding job!!! What great recordings.

The overall effect is very impressive. Why can't all symphonic, chamber, et al music be recorded this way? Your recordings provide a spaciousness and "realness" that I've not heard in other recorded classical music.

Thanks for sharing!

Jeff

[Mallette]

>It's probably the sound level compared to the other recordings and I was too lazy to walk over and tweak the volume.

Quite possibly. I do not adjust levels during the recording and do not normalize after the fact.

>Also, the drums on the Spankers piece were a smidge too forward.

This is due to their setup. Since I do not use a mixer I have to get the mikes in the best possible position. In this case I was dealing with the forbearance of a commercial establishment who had no horse in my race and had an SRO crowd. The mikes had to go up on a light beam (where one's ears almost never are). Ms. Mars vocals are a bit distant in some other cuts...but this is consistent again with their setup. They do not use electricity for anything but light, not even for announcements. Their hard-headed all acoustic approach was one of the reasons I wanted to record them.

Thanks, Martin. If anyone else has any coments or corrections I am all ears (some say that anyway).

Dave

[Mallette]

Thanks, Mark. If you guys keep this up perhaps I will learn something. I did not come here to preach, but in search of salvation...

>3. Although these pieces aren't particularly hugely dynamics in nature,
the dynamics within them is really natural and good. Drum kit, sounds
like a drum kit, etc. Again, the commercial guys would have compressed
all this into a pancake.

For dynamics, I recommend the Clair de Lune. Set it initially to what you'd expect in SPL on the opening notes if you were standing next to an open grand piano. I think you will find when he builds a considerable and very fast dynamic range. The incredible speed of a ribbon to respond (very much like the tympanic membrane) to such attacks is one of the reasons I am a ribbon fanatic. Actually, his final touch of the keys and the decay are very special to me. Love them as I do, this would be quite difficult to duplicate on an LP.

It is admittedly much easier to use multiple mikes for some venues. I suppose that is why they do it. However, each mike placed creates an exponential issue in "naturalness" of sound that is totally beyond me, and apparently most of those who attempt it. I will not say it cannot be done, but I will say the technique is always painfully obvious to me when I hear it.

Dave

[garymd]

I'd love to hear these but I don't have the capability on my old POS computer here. Maybe Mr. Wallflower can burn me a copy and ship it in the box he's about to send back to me? Mr. Wallflower? You still there? I would greatly appreciate it.

[soundbound]

I must be doing something wrong. I can't get there by ftp.mallette.org

[garymd]

I'll drop one in the mail for you Gary.

Thanks Mark.

Edit.......and Dave of course. I'm looking forward to hearing the CD.

[Mallette]

I must be doing something wrong. I can't get there by ftp.mallette.org

What browser are you using? What error message do you get? Where do you wind up?

Dave

[LarryC]

EDIT: OK, I got great over-phone tutoring, downloaded to the desktop, dragged & dropped the icons into a new iTunes playlist, and burned the whole bunch onto one CD. However, I couldn't do it via AOL, had to open IE.

Yeah, I know, simple is as simple does....

[Mallette]

To keep this simple, it only applies to Internet Explorer 7. There are "X" ways to ftp, but if you know about them, you don't need this:

1. Enter "ftp.mallette.org" in the address bar.

2. When the file list appears, click on 'Page" on the the right side of the top where the "Print" and "Home" icons are and select "Open FTP site in Windows Explorer."

OR
Click on "View" in the toolbar and select "Open FTP site in Windows Explorer."

Once there, you can copy to a folder, drag and drop, copy to clipboard and paste to a folder, or whatever.

Remember, to play these in a CD player you must make Redbook. The latest Windows Media Player can do this as well. Select "Burn" and "Audio CD"

While I realize this is not totally simple or intuitive, it has never been easier. I recall making coaster after coaster of CD's when blanks where 7.00 each. Things have gotten better!

Regards,

Dave

[Marvel]

Larry,

Put this in your browser address line:

ftp://ftp.mallette.org/

You should get a list of the different songs. Right click on one song at a time and choose <save target as>. This should be what you get with the IE. In Firefox you choose <save link as>. You should get it from there.

Bruce

[wallflower]

Gary,

Please see your PM.

Best Regards,

Jeff