From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V12 #59 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Monday, April 9 2007 Volume 12 : Number 059 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Alloy: OT [a bit]: technical music stuff :^) ["J. Kara Laidlaw" Subject: Alloy: OT [a bit]: technical music stuff :^) John made me think, "Oh, WOW!" when he replied, :^) > > From: John McJunkin > Date: 2007/03/31 Sat PM 06:10:11 CDT > To: alloy@smoe.org > Subject: Re: Alloy: So quiet...whisper... ;^) > > > Hey Kara, > > Harold Budd and Brian Eno gained notoriety for utilizing "treated" > piano, which was sometimes accomplished mechanically (for instance > pushing thumbtacks into the felt of the hammers to arrive at a "honky- > tonk" or "old-west saloon" style sound, or de-tuning the thing a > bit. Sometimes it was accomplished electronically after the fact > with chorusing or other modulated delay effects. I keep saying "was" > as though treated piano is not used anymore. I'm sure there are > still more than a few experimenters out there who are coloring > outside the lines with piano. And what an excellent description of > the chorusing effect Budd used in this case--it does actually "blur" > or double the original signal, like the two distinct images of a 3D > film. Nicely put! > > jm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'll be darned--amateur that I am, I was actually right! :^D I appreciate your knowledge, John...you know about this stuff, the technical side of it, I mean, so you know all the tricks, and are willing to tell a talented amateur like me about them. :^) So the piano on the track *was* doubled, I guess with the same part being played twice, with two different messed-with 'tunings', and then the two tracks were layered over top of each other??? I can usually 'see' such layering in my head. Isn't that technique known as double-tracking? Usually used to achieve a fuller, richer sound, I think; in my head it looks the way hammers do inside a piano: multiple copies of the same thing, side by side. Yeah, I could Google this stuff, but I'd rather get the perspective of a living, breathing music expert like yourself, Mr. McJunkin. :^D Sigh...my ambition when I was younger was to be a recording engineer, but I never had the guts or the money to go for it. Some day, though... :^) I never hear songs as audial wallpaper, by the way: I hear every track separ- ately, so if somebody does a remix, I notice it right away, and I know just what's been changed--to me, it's like a speed bump! It's like, same, same, same, same, DIFFERENT! And "radio edits" of songs I like are equivalent to riding a bike along a badly potholed road...I will never forgive whoever did the radio edit of Chicago's "Beginnings"! All chopped up...arrghhh! I'd like to ask that person, "How COULD you?!?!??" Oh well, I'll shut up now. ;^P Peace and hopes for the future, Kara It's All About the Music. :^) ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V12 #59 ***************************