The Mandelbrot Set 3: Creepy Monkey Underpants

[paulrpotts]

MaW, I wouldn’t worry about the theremin tuning — I think the warbling around is part of the instrument’s charm! I think very few people can truly get a theremin to play in tune.

With the alignment problems mostly fixed, and new guitar and vox parts, including the Travis-picked guitar part, CD is sounding MUCH better already. The six-string parts are played on the Babicz acoustic, recorded with a Rode NT-5. The “soundhole boom reduce” channel setup in Logic works really nicely on it and I’m very pleased with the way it sounds. The Travis picked part is a little rough. I might try a retake if I can get it smoother, change the way the verse chords end, and maybe try to reconstruct the 12-string riff and 12-string strummed part.

I need to figure out why the alignment got so wrong. This didn’t happen on the other tracks, like I said, I must have changed a project setting, or found a bug in Logic’s synchronization. I guess maybe it isn’t important for this round anymore, but I have to make sure it doesn’t affect my next Logic project.

All my source tracks are now uploaded. I did not get a new test mix uploaded, but I will do that as soon as I get a chance. The vocal tracks are… well, as good as I’m likely to be able to get them in the near future, without professional help. I can’t really sing very accurately on key, but the multi-tracking and effects kind of round off the missed notes so you hear sort of an average that is close to on key, if that makes sense.

Also, the synth part needs a bunch of hand-editing of the MIDI notes to realign it to 140 bpm, and maybe to experiment with bringing it an octave up. Anyone who is good with MIDI parts want the MIDI file to play with?

[Caleb]

Paul: I just uploaded an overhauled version of the bells track. I chopped up and manually realigned a whole bunch of the notes. I tried mixing it both with the karaoke track and with your previous parts (but not the most recent retakes that you uploaded yet), and I thought it aligned a lot better.

I also noticed what you were taking about the bass being loose. I tried nudging the bass part earlier by something like a quarter of a beat during the choruses, and it aligned much better. In fact, I think a lot of the low frequency rumbling I was hearing was actually the off-tempo bass. I soloed just your guitar parts and the bass, and made sure they lined up, and everything else snapped into place.

I might try to rerecord the flute at some point too. Quite frankly, my intonation is terrible. Such is the lot of the Baroque flute — the slightest change in lip embouchure or breath pressure can send your pitch all over the map. I also still plan to record some harmony vocals and maybe some percussion highlights (triangle and/or tambourine?), but I’m pretty much out of time to do that tonight.

If you’d like, I’d be willing to take a look at your MIDI file too.

[paulrpotts]

Thanks, Caleb! Things are lining up much better since I figured out what was going on with my Logic projects, and with my new guitar/bass tracks. I may not get to work on it for a day or two, but I’ll be happy to have bells that don’t drift push/pull the beat.

I think you may be right about the bass — most of the tracks were coming out a fraction of a beat off, and it seems to sound better now. I have to do some more listening, and then I can get a test mix up. The problem was there just wasn’t a really solid timing reference in my first few mixes, when everything I recorded was playing back off the beat.

Personally, I think your flute part sounds just fine… it lines up well, and it fits nicely into the mix. But we are always our own worst critics, and I always cringe when I listen to my own guitar parts played back.

The only remaining track that is making me grimace is the mandolin. I love, love, love the way it sounds, and it mixes nicely with the bridge and guitar solo, but it also lines up imperfectly with the chord changes, quite noticeably. It could probably be fixed by very slightly time-stretching or compressing some of the notes (without changing pitch), and that might sound OK.

I’ll upload the MIDI tracks the next time I get to take a little studio time — maybe tomorrow night. But, it actually probably wouldn’t take me that long to realign the notes to the grid at 140… I should just suck it up and do it!

[Caleb]

Paul,

I was experimenting with the time stretch feature in Reaper this morning before work, and I think I’ve pretty much fixed the mandolin track. I want to take a more critical listen before I upload it, but I have to go to work now. I should upload it later tonight.

[robgonzo]

are caleb and paul the only contributors to Creepy Doll so far? Is the Kareoke our guide track?

[Caleb]

1) Not quite (Mick “Lunacy” Bordet contributed fretless bass, mandolin, and theramin tracks)
2) Yes. It’s on box.net

Very happy to see someone else taking interest! 🙂

[paulrpotts]

The karaoke MP3 is what I’ve been aligning to, although note that I was having trouble with alignment of my tracks for this project, for some undetermined reason.

[robgonzo]

I’m working on a uke part like what Kristen does live with JoCo. This version is slower than the live but there is less time between verses. For instance Live, they give 2 or 3 bars after the last Fmaj7 in the chorus to let Kristens plucking on the A string ring for a bit. But no mater. I’ll make do.

[Caleb]

Okay, the new and improved mando-track is uploaded. There were (and still are) a couple spots where you can hear two notes played at once. Those may not be the best aligned, but I did what I could.

FYI, the new re-aligned tracks are named:
CD Caleb Handbells Tighter.mp3
CD MB Mandolin1 Tighter.mp3

Looking forward to hearing rob’s uke part, and MaW’s vocals (if he records them).

ETA: Paul, I just added your newer tracks to my project, and I had to line them up to start about 50-100ms later in order to get them to line up with the bells and mandolin, so my tracks must still be slightly unaligned. But at least now it’s a constant offset, so it’s easily fixed. Just drag them a bit earlier to compensate. Overall, it’s sounding pretty good!

[The Clinger]

I’m curious as to was making the latency wrong in logic.

[paulrpotts]

Clinger, if I figure it out, I’ll let you know… but for the moment, in this project at least, I am aligning everything I added to the project a bit early with respect to the karaoke track. Oddly, I don’t seem to have to misalign the _other_ MP3s I added to the project…

Anyway, Caleb, the bells and mandolin sound much better, so I made a new mix. http://www.box.net/shared/5td1cngfco

Rob, a uke part would be great! FWIW, I have already transcribed Kirsten’s uke part from JoCo’s DVD, because that’s the version I played for my Halloween party. ff it would save you any time or effort on working out her chords, you are welcome to my tab. you can hear my practicing it (very roughly) here complete with screaming baby in the background.

I will also upload my MIDI track for anyone who wants to play with it. Got to wind up for tonight and get onto some diapers and dishes (ah, the glamourous lifestyle of the parent geek amateur musician!)

[robgonzo]

thanks Paul but I’ve got it. It’s the same as the tab we’ve already got, just up the neck.

[Caleb]

Just listened to cand 6, and I like it — a lot! Timing-wise, everything lines up much better, and it sounds really transparent.

Just a few very minor comments:
– Still could use a few more collaborators (but that shouldn’t be a problem now)
– Needs harmony vox for the chorus & bridge (which I still haven’t recorded, but if someone else wants to beat me to the punch, go right ahead)
– I really like what you did with the repeated parts in the chorus, heavily EQ’d, phasered, and with the treble hard panned R, and the bass vox hard panned L. However, (and this is just my guess about what’s happening from the way it sounds) I think the dynamically sweeping EQ (phaser fx?) on the treble repeated VOX might be covering too large a range of frequencies (going too high or too low), or else it might just be a bit too pronounced for my taste. At least that was my first impression the first time through, when the voice became too difficult to hear. If that’s the effect your after, I guess it’s fine.
– Arrangement-wise, it’s sounds great as it is, although I would probably still try to (over-)complicate it by dropping some parts at different times, (e.g. maybe drop the bass up until “Then at night”). But maybe that’s just me. Not everything should be that complex. OTOH, you may be doing something like this in other places that I’m not noticing — I just realized the picking (which I love, BTW) is coming in and out at different points, for example.
– It’s also possible that my ears have become contaminated now to the point where I’m no longer useful. 🙂

I’ve recorded some percussion parts, mostly for the chorus and bridge (shaker, triangle, and tambourine) but I won’t be offended if you don’t want to use them. If you do, I’d recommend hard panning the triangle to one side, and the tambourine to the other. I’ll upload them shortly.

BTW, I haven’t looked at the midi part yet.

[JoAnn in VA]

You know, this all reminds me of listening to my husband on the phone troubleshoot some communications system that is having problems. It all SOUNDS like English, but I am only understanding one word in five at best. Still I read everything, in the hope that someday your collective uber music geek abilities will transfer to me. Makes me feel smart, having such intelligent friends to look up to!

[Caleb]

I took a look at the midi file last night, and I was able to get it to align. Just temporarily — in order for me to clearly hear the chords that were being played and the voice leading — I tried transposing it up two octaves (which puts it into the mid-treble clef range), and assigning it to an instrument with a sharp attack and a long sustain (I’ve used both string pad and organ).

To be honest, I’m really not seeing how this part helps to strengthen the harmonic progressions (music theory alert). It frequently seems to be playing dissonant notes, or a different chord altogether. For example, at the beginning of the chorus, the chord structure is indicated below in [square brackets] and the midi notes in {curly braces}.

[Am] {A, E} – OK
[FM7] {G, D} – Aside from making parallel 5ths with the last measure, these clash with the harmony.
[G] {E, C} – These also clash with the harmony.
[D,G; E,Am] {E, E} – These start off clashing, but then the harmony resolves.

If you still want a synth part, I can work out something that fits the chords better, but I’m really not sure we need one. Especially if we get some harmony vocals.

[Author]

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