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Post by thegl0r on Mar 23, 2017 21:58:21 GMT -5
By now, you'll have seen all sorts of video and photos of The Tomboys' gig that I went to, what more can I add? How about some carelessly chosen words and pictures... For a variety of reasons, oversleeping so having to catch a later train, "signal problems" on the lines making the train get to London even later, then me having to eat and find my way all across town took up more time, so I got to Zigried von Underbelly, tonight’s venue rather late. I missed the first band Bahboon, they're prog rock from Japan, I'd rather liked to have caught their set, but didn't count it as a disaster. I'd arrived about ten minutes before NO CARS set was due to start, so that was cutting it very fine. At the door I was asked if I'd got a ticket, so I guess the gig was fully sold out. I got a quick glance at the tally sheet, most people were there to see The Tomboys, no surprise there. There were also a reasonable number for Bahboon, with NC coming in third. I got inside and the place was pretty full. There's a capacity of 220 in the cellar where the gig was happening. I made a very brief circuit of the room before grabbing my spot. It wasn't quite where I wanted to be, but was fine. Then the guy standing to my right offered to swap places with me as he'd noticed me getting my camera out and taking a few preliminary shots. He said it might be a better filming position for me. He was right. That was exactly where I'd hoped to be standing even before getting to the gig. The only problem is that I had the right pa speaker only about 2 feet from my right ear. But I'd got ear defenders and the guy I'd swapped places with hadn't. As I said, I missed getting to see the first band, Bahboon, and now that I've seen video of their set, I wish I hadn't missed them. Curses. NO CARS performed brilliantly as ever and really got the crowd going. I became very aware that I could see rather a lot of my cheeks - I was smiling so much. At merch time, lots of people were asking for whichever the album was of theirs that contained the most of the songs they'd played that night. Most of the set was new material that NC haven't recorded yet. Sadly this was to be the second to last gig for NC before Haruna needs to go back to Japan for family reasons and doesn't know when/if she'll be back. After a brief break between bands, The Tomboys hit the stage. This is what most people were there for. The front of the stage was packed, I'm guessing it had been that way from the start of the evening. To the right was a group of young lads brandishing Tomboys merch, to the left, older guys who looked like they'd come for the prog rock, but were happy and weren't shifting from their prime spots. As I mentioned previously, having my head stuck in one of the pa speakers wasn't the best of places sound-wise, but I had a great view of the stage and as some of you may know, I'm a lover of the bass and drums, both of which looked and sounded great from where I was standing. So I was very happy. An added bonus was that I had a great angle to see some nice finger action on the bass and got to hear GG's unamplified singing voice. That girl is loud. bass player's setlistQuickly donning their instruments and after a brief spot of noodling and tweaking it was straight into The Theme of The Tomboys accompanied by their patented Tomboys dance. Almost instantly my gaze was drawn towards the cute pixie smile of Non as she's calmly thrashing away on drums and cymbals. NonNext to grab my attention was GG Wakana on bass with an even bigger smile and all the best dance moves while busily thrumming away. She's developed the handy knack of using the microphone to push her specs back into place after they've become dislodged by hair dancing. gg wakanaThen guitars and vocals called me. madoka and hinaOMG so much to listen to! So much to look at! What to pay most attention to first? Ah, just revel in it all and grin like there's no tomorrow, The Tomboys have done away with entropy and tonight will never end. Entropy always looses at gigs, but all too briefly. By now the room was bristling with even more cameras than had been aimed at NO CARS, many of them very pro-looking stills cameras. I'm sure the net will be awash with pics of tonight's gig. Thankfully the stage area was very well lit and so after an initial flurry, the flashing died down somewhat. Photographers roamed the room like big game hunters, weaving their way through the crowd, prowling for the ideal vantage spot to hunt down that elusive perfect shot to capture the essence of The Tomboys. hair dancing too!But how can someone capture that multi-layered sound and the savagely joyous energy which the stage was awash with in just one still image, I'll never know. You've got to be lucky to be in the right place to capture a guitar wielding Madoka teetering on the edge of the stage or storming deep into the crowd. Even lots of photos strung together for video isn't enough. But its a start. As I said, the stage was brightly lit, but perhaps a little too brightly lit. Hina was under a very harsh spotlight which somewhat washed out her face. Perhaps before the gig, the spot had been set up for someone taller? hina under a slightly dimmer green lightfingershaireyescheeksbowsThe Tomboys performed a really tight, blistering set that left us happy and wanting more. The merch table did a roaring trade and I wish I'd bought more. Why oh why didn't I buy their dream box full of goodies? Idiot. Would I go and see them again? Too damn right I would. Edit, BTW, my fave part of their set? Difficult to say, but To Mr. Valentine has got to be right up there. In this song, GG's vocals made my heart melt. Especially her spoken "Hey, Mr Valentine!", and her bass made my soul melt - even with a few moments of trouble with her bass lead. Sigh...
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Post by thegl0r on Mar 23, 2017 23:22:27 GMT -5
Here's an upload of one song that I stuck up as a tester. At the very least I really should stroke a moistened finger over the audio just to balance the channels, but laziness & technology strikes again. I really gotta get round to cleaning the switches on my amp before I start... working scratch videoYou must have been wearing platforms to get that 8-foot POV. The LF is making your input clip, a rolloff below 70Hz would make life beautiful. Although this is plenty beautiful enough. Photographer Maiko creeping in the background under the big mirror... Nope, I wasn't wearing platform boots to that gig, though I had teetered towards them. I was wearing my more usual New Rock boots with the orange flames. I got stopped at the entrance, at the very top of the stairs by a photographer who wanted to take a close-up pic of my boots. For filming the gig, I was standing on the platform at the top of the stairs leading down into the room. If you know when to look in kram srednuas' video, you'll see my left hand on the railings of the stairs. Thanks for the suggestion about the sound on that vid. Suggestions are always welcome and gratefully received. I've still not done anything with it yet apart from a very quick and unsaved bash in the direction you suggested and I'd also tried tightening and brightening the top end slightly. Now where did I put that switch cleaner...
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Post by thegl0r on Mar 23, 2017 23:41:05 GMT -5
If anyone's interested, here's where I've stuck more of the stills I've sliced of The Tomboys. If you're paying attention to the timecodes on the pics, they're one hour ahead of local time (GMT). I haven't reset my camera from last year's BST (GMT+1) and it'll soon be summer again.
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Post by tangerinesun on Mar 24, 2017 13:17:26 GMT -5
Thanks for the suggestion about the sound on that vid. Suggestions are always welcome and gratefully received. I've still not done anything with it yet apart from a very quick and unsaved bash in the direction you suggested and I'd also tried tightening and brightening the top end slightly.Now where did I put that switch cleaner... Talk is cheap, which is why I'm so free with it. Also why usually perceived as valueless. The thing about mic sensitivity management is: it's processing that has to happen before the mic signal hits the input port of the microphone preamp. Post-production is too late. You can round off the harshness that sounds like a sharp pencil in the ear, but you can't fake all the sound information that didn't get in because the input was saturated. It's just not there. So the ticket is a mic that has an onboard high-pass filter, or some circuit in between the mic and the recorder that can do the function. Built-in camera mics don't have this, the usual clamp-ons don't either. If there's an actual little box in the middle, a filter or a mixer, then there are various different ways to go. Filter, peak limiter, dynamics compressor, blibbity blabbity blah. They all cure the condition, they all have their own problems. 〜〜〜 Just turning down the gain on the mic's preamp will cure some instances of clipping... in the main amplifier stage... as long you can, and as long as the microphone itself has the physical capacity to cope with the peak input — not exactly guaranteed in a rock 'n' roll condition. But even if that happens to work, when you normalize your recording you boost it so much across the whole spectrum that random electrical noise from your amp circuitry sounds like a den of angry snakes. Angry rattlesnakes with maracas. It ain't easy when you are the sound guy and the video guy all in one.
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Post by tangerinesun on Mar 24, 2017 13:19:29 GMT -5
Not to neglect: these are awesome postings for us who can't jump oceans, so thanks very much for the diligent reporting!!!
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Post by thegl0r on Mar 25, 2017 1:20:16 GMT -5
Talk is cheap, which is why I'm so free with it. Also why usually perceived as valueless. The thing about mic sensitivity management is... Post-production is too late... It ain't easy when you are the sound guy and the video guy all in one. Talk is never valueless, it helps to fill all of the gaps between silences. Decent audio recordings of gigs from the depths of the audience is never easy. Things would be so much easier if you could get your kit set up in the perfect spot and have the band to do a sound-check especially for you and then make sure that nobody gets within a yard of any microphone that you're using. If only. But then this is a live audience recording, rather than a studio one. I prefer to not use filters, limiters etc on recordings which isn't necessarily the best thing for all situations, but that's me and sometimes it goes horribly wrong. The audio on that test upload was from the camera's on-board directional mics and thanks to the direction I was aiming the camera in relation to the pa speakers, the sound came out surprisingly well. I've got some other audio from a rather closely mic'ed pa speaker and that recording has its own issues... Apart from being too close to a speaker with one channel and getting the room sound and the audience in the other, there were the drums nearby and also GG was very close so sometimes you get hear her unamplified voice and her angelic bass comes out particularly nicely at times. Sure the camera's audio on that one song was an interesting toy, how about this? If you're willing to have some fun, or are just curious, try having a play with this completely untouched, untrimmed and not zipped WAV file and see what you can come up with www.mediafire.com/file/ob5df6ndgkly9d3/THE_TOMBOYS-UNDERBELLY-0319_231247_1.WAV and if could see your way to sharing your results on the forum, that'd be well cool. BTW, the timestamp from my recording is well off, but at least the date was right - the 0319 part of the filename. As far as I can tell, this is an accurate recording of what I was hearing from where I was standing. If anyone else wants to join in with the fun, please feel free to do so. Should anyone feel like sharing this audio that's OK, just leave it as a WAV file and please don't turn it into one of those evil MP3 thingies. 'Cos that way leads to damnation and even if you don't believe in an afterlife, you'll still spend eternity trapped in your own private lift (elevator) listening to non-stop muzak.
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Post by tangerinesun on Mar 25, 2017 18:35:39 GMT -5
Bahboon, oh man — some heavy dudest's 1968 and "Sunshine of Your Love" is thundering out of the University dining commons where all the chairs have been pushed back to the walls to make room for the incoming freshman mixer. They're doing grand-dad's underground radio Top 20. This so Sixties that until it's over you're never sure if the lead-in jam is an introduction or if this song is all instrumental. And that's not stage fog, it's reefer. Their camera op was standing in your spot. It must still have been warm. Being themselves when they're home: Bahboon LIVE in CLUB TOP'S - HD2014 APR 17 by Bahboon (17:59) LIVE in TOKYO CLUB TOP'S 17 April 2014 Full HDHP : www.bahboon.com/Facebook : www.facebook.com/bahboon.ukSoundCloud : soundcloud.com/bahboonReverb Nation : www.reverbnation.com/bahboonGuitar & Vocals : Shohey Suyama Bass : Yasuhiro Shimizu Drums : Chihiro Takahashi
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Post by thegl0r on Mar 25, 2017 22:06:26 GMT -5
Oh dear, this evening I finally got round to looking at that recording of The Tomboys after I'd already uploaded it... So there I was, I'd got my audio loaded into the computer. I selected some nice software to begin messing around and then started looking for peaks and any clipping 'cos I was sure I could hear some. First glance was "Um...!" So I normalised it, raising the signal level up to something like -2db. Looked again, "UMMM...!!! Zoom in, zoom in and look again... WTF!Here's where I'll say it was my NO CARS recording that I was looking at first. With no chance of using the previous band who'd been playing to figure out a likely recording level and to possibly make mistakes with, I resorted to dialling in a setting that usually works as a starting point for me at the majority of gigs. Then I nudged it down just a tad for what I thought would be more than ample headroom for where I was recording from. NO CARS did Line Check and while they were playing I kept an eye on the meter. A little high perhaps, and this is them being quiet and its still nearly clipping. Pesky loudspeaker that I've almost got my head inside, and as I didn't want to risk clipping, I trimmed it down a bit. From past experience, I know that my mics are more that capable of whatever the night will bring. So they won't be a problem. After NC got introduced to the assembled throng, as they started their first song I was watching the meter. Now that they were playing at normal volume, the meter was close to constantly peaking on my recorder and there was a good chance they'd be louder at times, particularly at the end of the set. So, during the song, I dropped the recording level right down to where there'd surely be no chance of clips or anything. I wasn't happy about having to do that while they were playing, but rather mess up with the first song than have to do it during the second song, or later, or even forget to do altogether. At least I didn't need to worry about tape hiss. Throughout their set I kept glancing at the meter and going "Hmm". So for The Tomboys set, I had a good idea of the recording setting I'd likely be needing to use. So cue up and get ready to hit record. Kept looking at the meter and going "Hmm...". I know I'm giving loads of headroom but even so, don't know if I needed to... What is going on? Should I creep up? With no tape hiss to worry about, try to forget about it and just enjoy the gig... Throughout both band's sets from time to time I found myself slightly puzzled about the sound and found myself glancing around in a "What?" sort of way, but just put it all down to me getting picked on by the speaker. I tried turning my head to alter the speaker's angle of attack on my poor lughole, but to no avail. Another thing that somewhat puzzled me was why weren't my ears bleeding? They should have been. Sure, seeing all those lovely Japanese female musicians on-stage and seeing them from so close up gave me an animé nosebleed. Just kidding, but even so, Takaco did say that she wants to get married. Haruna said that Takaco just wanted a British visa... (Damn, why haven't I got a job where I'd be earning more that £18,500 a year? I think that figures somewhere near right for the pesky government's regulations for that sort of visa. Otherwise I'd have been willing to sacrifice myself and offer her my services just to help her out if she really needs help. ) But no bleeding ears? What's with that? The volume curves on those recordings look more like CD rips rather than live recordings. I guess both bands were bouncing off a noise limiter or something on the in-house pa system. WDYT? It feels like The Tomboys seemed to to suffer the worst from it. It seems to explain a few things I'd been wondering about at the time, but none of which detracted from the amount of fun I was having at the gig. Playing with this audio isn't going to be easy, and I'd been so hopeful. It almost makes me think of playing with the camera's audio from its directional mics instead 'cos they were often aimed in the general direction of the stage monitors. Or even... Oh, I enjoy a good rant about recordings.
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Post by tangerinesun on Mar 26, 2017 2:56:17 GMT -5
Oh dear, this evening I finally got round to looking at that recording of The Tomboys after I'd already uploaded it... So there I was, I'd got my audio loaded into the computer. I selected some nice software to begin messing around and then started looking for peaks and any clipping 'cos I was sure I could hear some. First glance was "Um...!" So I normalised it, raising the signal level up to something like -2db. Looked again, "UMMM...!!! Zoom in, zoom in and look again... WTF!Here's where I'll say it was my NO CARS recording that I was looking at first. With no chance of using the previous band who'd been playing to figure out a likely recording level and to possibly make mistakes with, I resorted to dialling in a setting that usually works as a starting point for me at the majority of gigs. Then I nudged it down just a tad for what I thought would be more than ample headroom for where I was recording from. NO CARS did Line Check and while they were playing I kept an eye on the meter. A little high perhaps, and this is them being quiet and its still nearly clipping. Pesky loudspeaker that I've almost got my head inside, and as I didn't want to risk clipping, I trimmed it down a bit. From past experience, I know that my mics are more that capable of whatever the night will bring. So they won't be a problem. After NC got introduced to the assembled throng, as they started their first song I was watching the meter. Now that they were playing at normal volume, the meter was close to constantly peaking on my recorder and there was a good chance they'd be louder at times, particularly at the end of the set. So, during the song, I dropped the recording level right down to where there'd surely be no chance of clips or anything. I wasn't happy about having to do that while they were playing, but rather mess up with the first song than have to do it during the second song, or later, or even forget to do altogether. At least I didn't need to worry about tape hiss. Throughout their set I kept glancing at the meter and going "Hmm". So for The Tomboys set, I had a good idea of the recording setting I'd likely be needing to use. So cue up and get ready to hit record. Kept looking at the meter and going "Hmm...". I know I'm giving loads of headroom but even so, don't know if I needed to... What is going on? Should I creep up? With no tape hiss to worry about, try to forget about it and just enjoy the gig... Throughout both band's sets from time to time I found myself slightly puzzled about the sound and found myself glancing around in a "What?" sort of way, but just put it all down to me getting picked on by the speaker. I tried turning my head to alter the speaker's angle of attack on my poor lughole, but to no avail. Another thing that somewhat puzzled me was why weren't my ears bleeding? They should have been. Sure, seeing all those lovely Japanese female musicians on-stage and seeing them from so close up gave me an animé nosebleed. Just kidding, but even so, Takaco did say that she wants to get married. Haruna said that Takaco just wanted a British visa... (Damn, why haven't I got a job where I'd be earning more that £18,500 a year? I think that figures somewhere near right for the pesky government's regulations for that sort of visa. Otherwise I'd have been willing to sacrifice myself and offer her my services just to help her out if she really needs help. ) But no bleeding ears? What's with that? The volume curves on those recordings look more like CD rips rather than live recordings. I guess both bands were bouncing off a noise limiter or something on the in-house pa system. WDYT? It feels like The Tomboys seemed to to suffer the worst from it. It seems to explain a few things I'd been wondering about at the time, but none of which detracted from the amount of fun I was having at the gig. Playing with this audio isn't going to be easy, and I'd been so hopeful. It almost makes me think of playing with the camera's audio from its directional mics instead 'cos they were often aimed in the general direction of the stage monitors. Or even... Oh, I enjoy a good rant about recordings. Welp, I'm seeing what you're seeing. Leaving the recording hardware out of it, just the numeric values of the samples never get within 9dB of the top, which is short of ideal by 6 or 8 decibels depending on your philosophies. I only see -9dB toward the end, when Non is trying to put her foot through the floor. Also, that stuff is compressed like a brick of Chinese tea. It does look exactly like a drastic CD mastering job, but with its perceived loudness reduced by 50%. Assuming the usual scenario for a penniless band far from home, most of the sound in the room is coming out of the PA and in that case, if you didn't have compression turned on then the house must be trying for the steady roar of an avalanche. I think that's an awful choice, if that's what's going on. There's a curious muffled quality, like being inside a small box of wool felt. Only the vocals sound life-like, and actually Hina sounds quite like she's there with you. Mostly. Somebody's getting occasional parking garage reverb. In spite of all, there's audible clipping especially in the right channel. Not all at quite the same level, but closeSo the peak numbers may be low, but something digital scalped your wave regardless. When it's happening, you have the sensation that the sound is breaking up or being interrupted by gaps and pops. That all sounds pretty bad, but we've heard worse, and I'm happy to hear them play at all. It's not like my odds of attending in person are getting any better. You've got a choice of evils. Maybe the camera mounted mic had something to offer after all. You should hear the story of me videoing THE LET'S GO's from arms-length. It'd make you feel better, although I'd probably feel worse.
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Post by thegl0r on Mar 27, 2017 22:02:25 GMT -5
This type of recording is something I've not experienced before and it somewhat caught me out. I've had a few more sleeps on it and still the only thing I can think of is that the sound engineer tried to overcompensate for the fact that the pa in this venue isn't normally all that loud. I've been there a couple of times before and was always struck by how it was relatively quiet in there compared to some other venues. I'm guessing this is an issue with planning permission and may mean they've got noise limiters set on the low side. Perhaps the engineer thought it wasn't loud enough for a Rock Gig and reached for the loudness button and hoped than nobody would notice. Just guessing on that. Then, when NO CARS started their set, I overcompensated by thinking there'd be the usual variation in sound levels and lots of loud transient peaks which I didn't want to have clipping. If what was happening had managed to penetrate my thick skull, I would have left it recording at the original level that I'd set. At the time, I just couldn't believe what seemed to be happening. Even worse is that I still couldn't believe my ears and eyes when The Tomboys were playing. Doh! As for which recording to start playing with, I'm leaning towards the camera's audio as I feel that one may be relatively easier to squeeze something acceptable from. But I'll have to listen to it a few million more times before I start.
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Post by thegl0r on Apr 13, 2017 11:04:54 GMT -5
Oh, I've been having so much frustrating fun that I nearly exploded. I manage to resist using the full drums and bass version that I came up with, and after giving this one a bit of a rest and then coming back to it, this seems passable. Not all of it works well, and some parts will never sound decent, but some bits I really like. For inspiration I listened to their "Come Back To 19" CD. Not just what was on the CD, but also paying attention to what wasn't on the CD - if that makes any sense. I'm still slightly uncertain about the sound. Too many cymbals? Nah! But shaky cam really irritates me in a few parts, perhaps I should have fixed that. But... I mostly managed to evade filming the monster camera lenses that kept getting squeezed past my shoulders, and luckily none of lenses squeezing past my legs got into shot. But at times it felt like I was bristling with cameras in a "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" kind of way. Try and enjoy.
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Post by tangerinesun on Apr 14, 2017 17:02:57 GMT -5
Oh, I've been having so much frustrating fun that I nearly exploded. I manage to resist using the full drums and bass version that I came up with, and after giving this one a bit of a rest and then coming back to it, this seems passable. Not all of it works well, and some parts will never sound decent, but some bits I really like. For inspiration I listened to their "Come Back To 19" CD. Not just what was on the CD, but also paying attention to what wasn't on the CD - if that makes any sense. I'm still slightly uncertain about the sound. Too many cymbals? Nah! But shaky cam really irritates me in a few parts, perhaps I should have fixed that. But... Unlisted TOMBOYS at Underbelly on YouTubeI mostly managed to evade filming the monster camera lenses that kept getting squeezed past my shoulders, and luckily none of lenses squeezing past my legs got into shot. But at times it felt like I was bristling with cameras in a "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" kind of way. Try and enjoy. I did enjoy! This is sure worth suffering over. When you gonna publish? Do The Tomboys have to OK? I tried to time out a setlist, which is when I found I just don't know the songbook. You sure took advantage of your chance to shoot dancing boot-soled Mary Janes, and everybody gets their closeup. I don't believe in shaky-cam de-shaking. What a filter can accomplish is not worth the damage to the movie. Somebody should tell the light guy that constant emerald-green is good for zombie movies, not living people in bright red one-pieces. What'd you do to the sound, perzactly? There is an awful lot of snare and cymbals, but if you cut that I'm afraid the liveness will go away. It's the inevitable lack of a bottom that I notice. It's pretty respectable, considering what you are up against. Non knocking her tom-tom around like a tetherball. Geez, what a band they've got. Born to win. 00:00 {Pre-recorded intro} 00:11 The Tomboys Theme 03:09 <Song UID> 06:47 <Song UID> →→→ 08:42 <Song UID> 10:10 "We are The Tomboys from Japan" 10:30 Dream Box 14:55 To Mr.Valentine 18:12 <Song UID> 21:41 "Thank you for coming" 22:26 Sha-La-La 26:38 Please Remember Me 30:44 {Exit/return} 31:46 ENC1: GO MERRY GO! 〜〜〜〜 You must have seen this fixed-focal-length wide angle video. In fact, I think you were standing on top of this guy. Not a real concert video, just a scene documentary. The Tomboys @ Underbelly 19/03/172017 MAR 20 by kram srednuas (34:36) The Tomboys Underbelly Hoxton - London Sunday 19th March
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Post by tangerinesun on Apr 14, 2017 17:20:43 GMT -5
Benchmark for what TOMBOYS thought was an album mix:
NoName 『1st mini album 「in my mind」trailer』 2015 SEP 04 by THE TOMBOYS_BAND (02:59) THE TOMBOYS_BAND
And this is an official festival channel with nothing happening below 200Hz and they still clipped madly.
ハイコーフェス7「THE TOMBOYS / Dream Box」 2016 DEC 25 by akita_haikou_fes
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Post by tangerinesun on Apr 15, 2017 16:14:16 GMT -5
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Post by thegl0r on Apr 15, 2017 18:28:04 GMT -5
I did enjoy! This is sure worth suffering over. When you gonna publish? Do The Tomboys have to OK?... Thanks Tan, I'm still undecided if this will be the finished version, really this was another tester. I'm still toying with the idea of stroking the sound a touch more and thinking about including the full pre-recorded intro which was slightly corny, but fun. In the past, I have seen them say that its OK to post stuff, but annoyingly, 'cos it's me, I completely forgot to say anything to the band at the gig about posting my vid of them, and I also managed to not get any post-gig pics of them signing my merch. I'll fire them a copy once I've decided I'm finished playing with it, but thought I'd leak this one to the forum as I don't remember any specific "No uploads please!". I just had to capture some of that lovely Mary Jane action, partly 'cos it was The Tomboys and I needed to get some of their trademark dance moves, and partly 'cos of their nice shoes and cute ankle socks. Unfortunately one or two of the other closeups that I got were unintended. The most annoying one for me is where it seems like I deliberately zoomed in on GG's breasts and then lingered there for a moment too long. I'd been intending to shoot her fingers dancing on the neck of her bass and aimed the camera without looking at the screen, then I noticed - whoops! That shot still makes me cringe. I agree that green light was horrible and too much, but at least they didn't spend the whole evening basking under an orange glow. That's a pet hate of mine. I'm not a big fan of using anti-shake software to tweak stuff unless it is really desperately needed, picture quality suffers and horrible artefacts can get produced if you go too far. It is just that the bits of the vid which particularly annoy me are some of the panning shots which show up how notchy my wrist action is and so that reminds me of how knackered-up I am. For the sound, I used the camera's audio, it was slightly the easier of the two sound recordings to deal with. Using a Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium soundcard and Sonar LE software (just the most basic version), I rolled off the bottom end below about 100Hz, rolled off the very top end from something like 17kHz, pushed the rest up with the bottom and top ends of that chunk being raised slightly more than the mid-range, I haven't got the access to the curve just now, so can't be more exact. I did two different stereo versions. I did one version just listening to the left channel and then one by just listening to the right channel and then mixed them together. Alone neither was great, but they're not so bad together. Perhaps not the nicest way to achieve things, but it worked. Sort of. But do I add a third version to the mix - I'm considering just using the right channel from my separate audio and mixing it with the other two channels, or do I give what I've already done a tweak to shine the bottom end a bit? Perhaps add a really narrow envelope to boost (put back) some of the low bass, it had originally started out too boomy but it still isn't right. I'm still undecided. As you said, lots of cymbals and toms, I paid particular attention to tom's talking. Too much of a cut of the cymbals really kills the live sound, buries the guitars and makes the band sound like they're in a box. At least that's the way I hear it. Perhaps it could do with a narrow notch somewhere in the high treble. I'll probably get round to trying all these musings and more at some stage, but I'll let the sound have a bit of a rest before I start assaulting it again and I'll have to give it some more pondering over. I like pondering, it has the most exquisite shades of procrastination and tastes good with some fava beans and a nice bottle of Chianti. And lashings of cups of tea. My fingers are itching to have a play with my NO CARS recordings, they're a similar type of recording to that of The Tomboys, but their sound is somewhat different. Amusingly, when NC come on stage and picked up their instruments then spend a few moments noodling away on them, Haruna looked down at her guitar and muttered, "Why has it suddenly got so loud?" Then she walked over to the guitar amp and turned it down a bit before the band breaks into "Line Check". p.s. Yeh, I've seen kram srednuas' nice vid of The Tomboys @ Underbelly 19/03/17. He was just to my left and was standing two or three steps down the stairs from me.
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