akdahab-blog

[akdahab-blog]

The Most Important Form Of Synthesis

Subtractive Synthesis:

This is the first ever form of synth 

Subtractive Synthesis is a very simple signal chain of an oscillator (sound generator) running through a filter (EQ curve,usually a high cut ) which is to an amplifier for gain staging and ADSR (Attack,Decay,Sustain,Release) control. This method is very easy to achieve in both analog and digital. it can be used to mimic numerous instruments or come up with any desired sound, effects, and sounds.

The main principle behind Subtractive Synthesis is that any harmonic character can be constructed by an oscillator, or the combination of multiple oscillators. Then, by running these oscillators through various filters, and controlling the envelope response, the harmonics present within the oscillators tones can be whittled into harmonic structures that mirror those of actual instruments.

The analog subtractive synthesizer was initially designed for this purpose–as an alternative to hiring musicians to play on recordings, however, it quickly morphed into its own instrument, creating various sounds never before made by any acoustic instrument.

[akdahab-blog]

Down-Mixing

What is down mixing ?

Downmix is the is a technique used to reproduce sound that was originally in a 5.1surround sound format to a stereo track for play back on Left- right speakers .

How to down mix:

The LFE(sub) is usually left out of the down mixing process unless it is pivotal to the mix since it usually carries sub frequencies that are not produced by regular speakers. the centre which usually has the dialog is added to the left chanel and so is the right . Avid Protools HD offers a down mix plugin.

Why do we down mix ??

Down mixing is used to reproduce a 5.1 surround sound image on a pair of stereo speakers. if a 5.1 audio signal is not down mixed the audience will not be able to hear the dialog because it is usually ut on the centre speaker.

[akdahab-blog]

Mid Side Eq/Compression

Mid/Side is a technique that uses certain plugins that can split the signal that comes from the middle of the wave's & the one coming from the sides, and these plugins can process just the part of the sound we want or both differently; for example we can Compress just the signal that comes from the sides, or we can eq differently the signal of the sound coming from the centre from the one coming from the sides.

The Mid/Side plugins can therefore do any kind of task: the basic idea is that they translate  the signal from left-right to mid-side, and process independently these two parts; it is a kind of processing that is not only sometimes needed in mastering, but that is often crucial when we need to tweak a song that has been provided to us just as a stereo track.

[akdahab-blog]

Uses Of Stems In Post Production

What are stems ?

Stems are a group of separate audio tracks that are bussed into a stereo or 5.1 audio so that it can be processed individually.

Stems In Post:

post production sessions are divided into Dialogue ,Music & Sound effects. This means that these elements are grouped together and sent to a submix . The submixes are bounced to whats called ‘stems’. In post production these are referred to as D-M-E.

Why do we use stems???

By using stems the dialogue can easily be changed if the movie is going to be dubbed in another language. if minor adjustments like automation need to be made to any of the stems then it can be done. Having a dialogue stem can also help saving time with making a movie trailer.

[akdahab-blog]

Sampling : Creativity Or Stealing?

Innovation is the essential instigator of progress for the music business; Formats like vinyl, tape, compact disc, mp3 and Streaming each have their own particular related strategies and culture. Nearby progressive utilization antiques, advancements in music generation have been synonymous with new styles of music and subcultures. Most prominent illustrations incorporate the electric guitar and "Rock'n Roll" , and the computerized sampler with hip-hop. Sampling has existed in different structures all through the twentieth century, however it was just when sound tech brands like Akai began releasing moderate priced samplers such as the MPC60 that the subculture truly took off and became mainstream . Since they were generally accessible yet handy in room studio setups, they were taken up by both beginner and expert producers & Arrangers who repurposed the samplers use for new and unmistakable types of melodic articulation . This Makes up the beginning of the sampling culture.

Oswald (1985), a cutting edge performer working on the peripherals of copyright law portrayed the advanced sampler as "a recording, changing instrument, all the while an archiving gadget and an imaginative gadget" which through its utilization lessens a qualification showed by copyright" .

Haupt (2006) looks at the sampler's consequences for the music business to the first wave of computerised robbery or piracy , guaranteeing that "napster offered a comparable sort of test to the major record labels that music sampling in hip-hop had in prior years". The sampler was utilized widely in hip hop as it rose to the mainstream studios  all through the 1980s and 90s, with powerful Albums by De La Soul, The Beastie Boys, and Public Enemy all containing an extensive number of unlicensed samples  (Mongillo, 2009). In the wake of these fruitful yet sample heavy albums  was the primary copyright law suit claims. Grand Upright Music Ltd. vs Warner Bros. Records (1991) related to Biz Markie's tune Alone Again, which appropriated a harmony movement and three word verse from Gilbert O' Sullivan's Alone Again Naturally. The judge led in O' Sullivan's support as the sample seemed to be "instantly recognisable and constituted almost all the musical accompaniment". While this perception was precise, the court exhibited no endeavor to comprehend the social noteworthiness of it, seeing it essentially as an endeavor to capitalize of the original record. Judge Kevin Duffy opened his decision with a portion from the Book of Commandments: "Thou Shalt Not Steal" urging O'Sullivan's lawyers to declare that "sampling is a code word that was created by the music business executives to disguise what is clearly robbery. This speaks to the principal legal profession that this training is in actuality burglary" . The decision set a point of reference for inspecting in music that caused "generous changes in appropriative music driving performers and names alike to be amazingly careful about uncleared sampling . Rose (1994) recommends that "Before rap music started earning a huge number of dollars, the utilization of these melodic sections went unnoticed by distributing directors and copyright holders... Today, rap is an enormous business. With multimillion record deals... the quest for the unlawful utilization of inspected materials has turned into a convoluted and prominent lawful issue in media outlets".

[akdahab-blog]

F.A.K

[akdahab-blog]

F.A.K

[akdahab-blog]

About Eq’s

Shelving

This type of equalizer is the most basic out of the three types and is commonly found in nearly all Mixing Boards and Amps. Shelving equalizers allow for cutting or boosting of the signal at fixed frequency ranges and often have Fixed filter curves. There are two different varieties: high-pass and low-pass. Low-pass shelving filters attenuate all frequencies above a specified cutoff frequency while maintaining all the frequencies below the cutoff frequency. A high-pass filter does the opposite, by allowing all frequencies above the specified cutoff frequency to pass while attenuating everything below. The fixed frequency ranges for the low-shelf filter may begin to roll off around 80 Hz and below, while the high-shelf filter may begin to roll off around 10,000 Hz and above. Typically, shelving equalizers have ‘Low’ and ‘High’ knobs, and sometimes a sweeping ‘Mid’ knob for adjusting the midpoint frequencies that is a fixed bell shape. Analog shelving equalizers are great for adding color to mixes as they are less clinical and more open .  

Parametric

 Parametric equalizers are the most common and flexible form of eq. This equalizer has fully adjustable frequency bands that can be individually enabled or disabled to cut, boost, and filter individual frequency ranges with the highest precision. Parametric equalizers are typically available on the digital domain and offer the highest possible sound quality. This type of equalizer is often used to shape a sound precisely at each defined frequency and is recommended for doing any surgical work like cutting harsh or ringing frequencies. Common parameters found on a parametric equalizer include: Frequency: Adjusts the frequency range for each selected band. Gain: Sets the level of the selected band. This parameter is often deactivated when the low-pass or high-pass filter shape is selected. Resonance or ‘Q’: Controls the bandwidth by allowing you to widen or narrow the selected frequency band. Filter Slope: Sets the steepness of the filter when either the low-pass or high-pass filter is selected. Filter Type: Allows you to choose the filter shape for the selected frequency band.

Both These types of Eq’s can be used to correct problems or add a more to a mix , It is after all a tool that helps us mixing engineers to have elements of the song sit comfortably with in the frequency spectrum in the mix.

[akdahab-blog]

My Influences

Influential Producers

Justin 'Just blaze' Smith

Just Blaze was born January 8, 1978 and brought up in Paterson, New Jersey, currently the CEO of Fort Knocks Entertainment. He started working in studio as an intern at The Cutting Room Studios in New York City where he recalls coming into contact with a lot of top artists and built those important relationships that helped form his career, for the first time. His career as a producer kick-started around 1998, when he was introduced to the late Big Pun. The story of what happened is quite easily what set him off in terms of building himself a studio. The day he met Big Pun, Pun had just bought nearly $200'000 worth of studio equipment of which he had no idea how to properly use. That's when he asked Just Blaze for help him in setting it all up. After Just Blaze took a quick look at what he'd bought, he realized that Pun had been ripped off by who'd ever sold him the gear. The story goes that they sold him three studios worth of equipment. Meaning it was all the same gear, just in different brands. Realizing he'd already started on the wrong foot, Pun then asked Just Blaze to come back when the time was ready, after he'd renovated the house to fit the studio, to set it all up and in the meantime he told Just he could take anything he wanted. He records leaving that day with between $15'000-$20'000 worth of equipment, and that, was the beginning of Justin Smith's career.

He is however more easily recognized for his breakout as a producer when he became an in house engineer at Roc-A-Fella Records but he did other very important songs that enabled him to step up to becoming a name to be familiar with before Roc-A-Fella. One of these were a song with Mase's group, Harlem world, named, 'I Really Like It', featuring Mase himself (track 12 on cd) and Kelly Price. He did two other important records with Big Pun in the year of his passing, 'Off With His Head', featuring Prospect (track 13 on cd) and 'Wrong Ones' which featured Sunkiss who was responsible for introducing the two to each other.

Undoubtedly, Just Blaze's biggest impact as a creative force in Hip Hop or even in urban music production circles, can be observed in his Roc-a-Fella era probably up until the point where he became a DJ around the time when baseline studios closed down not too long after Roc-A-Fella disbanded. Not to say that he regressed to a lesser art, especially considering he was a DJ before a producer, but he simply wasn't producing as much material as he used to when his primary job description was in-house producer for Roc-A-Fella. In this time, alongside fellow in-house partner, Kanye West, he was able to define a sound that dictated the style of Hip Hop production from then (around 2000) and a long time after that. Both of their styles are similar in that they were sampling a lot from old records mostly originating from as far back as the 1960's, maybe even 1950's to the 80's, sometimes into the 90's. Their particular style of sampling is also something to observe as today, sampling is at it's most versatile stage due to technological advancements especially in the capabilities of DAW's such as Ableton to manipulate samples. It can vary from “micro-sampling”, which could be summed up as manipulating the most basic cycles within a complex waveform and making something new out of those very basic tones, to remixing songs. Just Blaze and Kanye's style had more to do with lifting the melodic, harmonic or rhythmic textures and qualities of an old song, sometimes chopping 8 or more bars at a time, and either working around the phrase they'd sampled as a loop or chopping it up into an entirely new and different piece. This could also be done to drums, and still is done a lot in hip hop today, where producers slice up drum breaks especially from old vinyls again and layer these texture heavy samples with cleaner, maybe even live drum samples that have been recorded with more current studio equipment and techniques.

Here is a two part video by Just Blaze demonstrating his typical process of composing a beat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRcJEDTvE1c (part 1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOIc8dghjj0 (part2)

It's interesting to note that the defining elements of this style of sampling were already developed by producers before Just Blaze like Rza and Heavy D but, below the surface, he had his unique approach to it and the more one observes it, the easier it becomes to differentiate similar producers of the time like his partner and/or close friend Kanye West or The Alchemist. Being a DJ, he would incorporate a lot of sounds and techniques that you could only pull off as a DJ like cutting and scratching. He was very well known for utilizing vocal phrases in his production through his skill as a DJ, which automatically gave his sound the grimy allure of 90's Hip Hop Boom Bap, which he carried over into the 2000's. One of my favourite details about his style though is in his choice of samples. While Kanye was known for sped up loops with sweet soulful ballad-like backdrops through his choice of samples, Just Blaze's particular bias toward genres like Blues Funk, sometimes Fusion Jazz and even Prog Rock are responsible for a unique blend of powerful drums and intense environment I grew to enjoy in his pieces. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that he purposefully sampled these genres more but from what I can see, the records he’s produced that contain samples from these genres and whatever other similar sounding music, stuck out more and are ultimately what are commonly agreed upon as his all-time classics.

On the cd are the following songs, produced by Just Blaze, to engage with that I found relevant to the descriptions I provided of his sound earlier:

1. Little Boy Blues – Seed Of Love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI4sqj7yZV8

2. Jay Z – Public Service Announcement (Prod. By Just Blaze): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCP_E5Rsawc

In this song Just Blaze even recorded the speech in the intro of the song himself and handled it in such a way to make it seem as though it wasn't of it's time and perhaps sampled from an archive of older materials.

3. Reg Tilsley Orchestra - Warlock http://www.whosampled.com/sample/15849/Cam'ron-Memphis-Bleek-Beanie-Sigel-The-ROC-(Just-Fire)-Reg-Tilsley-Orchestra-Warlock/

4. Cam’ron – The ROC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kc2rvL4GPU

5. Johnny Pate – Shaft In Africa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-sy-IjrTkM

6. Jay Z – Show Me What You Got https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS4U-HAHwps

As if by coincidence Just Blaze sampled the theme off the second installation of Shaft for Jay Z’s comeback single off his comeback from “retirement”. Although the original wasn’t written by my second influence producer and original shaft soundtrack writer, Isaac Hayes, one could that it is still in his style.

Isaac Hayes

I was struggling to choose an influential producer in my life from another genre so I decided to filter the choices down to my favourite producers and song writers from the 70’s. Weighing up the options between heavyweights like Quincy Jones, Curtis Mayfield I chose Isaac Hayes above them and others because his sound was just the most immediately memorable to me. Another major factor that made me gravitate toward Isaac Hayes’ influence was his legacy and impact on Hip Hop.

7. Isaac Hayes – The Look Of Love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IzxHKI8PJE

Isaac Lee Hayes jr. was born August 20th 1942 inside a tin shack in Cavington Tenesse and passed away after having a stroke in his Memphis home just a week and a half short of his 66th birthday. By the time he’d passed away, he was an acclaimed award winning actor, songwriter, producer and performing artist and according to imbd.com, left his legacy with 6 major awards including 3 grammys and an Oscar. (Isaac Hayes Awards [Internet] 2014 http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005002/awards [accessed 01 Sep 2014]

When you look at the pieces that won him his most critical awards, they were songs driven by more than just their own musicality. His music was big in how it was very ‘soulful’ and orchestral but as a performing artist also he was able to turn them into cinematic narratives. So there are more dimensions to be observed in Isaac Hayes than in just what he could do as a composer. As a performing artist, he embodied a character that was very present in his performance and recording. His rather large voice aided him in shaping the character of his music of course but, as an idea that once needed execution, one has to imagine that the luscious landscapes with the funky groove and intimate or powerful vocal deliveries he composed together, could only be accurately captured through deliberate and focused efforts within and throughout each process of production.

At the height of his musical career, he must have realized his potential to become a public figure as well and so aided his visual presence on stage and album arts with costumes and outfits in style and representation of the Black Struggle in America. One could say Isaac Hayes was a promoter of the freedom of all individuals of self-expression, but the political and racial dictates of the time and land meant that his charity effort would start at home. The famous hit that he wrote with Floyd Newman for Sam and Davis, “Soul Man” for instance has a revolutionary background behind it. It came a few years after the assassination of Martin Luther King jr and The Civil Rights Movement, when the term ‘soul’ had an especially revolutionary connotation in America. The story of the song as told by biography.com goes that, ‘The song was inspired television coverage of the 12 Street Detroit Riot, which indicated that African-American owned and operated institutions were marked with the word "soul" so that rioters would not destroy them.’ (Issac Lee Hayes, Jr. [Internet]. 2014. http://www.biography.com/people/isaac-hayes-343756 [Accessed 01 Sep 2014]). His next next all-time classic would be the score he did for the Gordan Parks’ film noir style movie, Shaft. I would say that this is his most famous work, more so than the movie itself. As someone wasn’t there to experience the era, the Shaft theme song definitely gives me a good idea of the funky personality of the time that influenced Isaac Hayes’ own character.

8. Sam and Dave – Soul Man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fS9-Yimdhw

9. Issac Hayes – Ellie’s Love Theme (From The Shaft OST) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL5QBpvpPvg

10. Jay Rock ft. Kendrick Lamar – Hood Gon’ Love It (Produced By The J.U.S.T.I.C.E League)

(This is just another “sample & example”, the original song being written and produced by Issac Hayes and “flipped” by modern day producers through “chopping” and replaying and bringing in a band or orchestra to layer more on it. This Jay Rock song is featured on the hugely popular Grand Theft Auto V and is a perfect example how legacy’s can be preserved through sampling)

Compared to Just Blaze, Isaac Hayes was definitely more of an influential figure in how he was pioneering a sound, maybe even as far as a sound of a genre, his role in the film industry becoming one of the first African American’s to receive an Oscar all the way to modern times where he voiced the character of Chef in the popular American cartoon, South Park. Besides from Acting, Isaac Hayes can also once again boast his vocal ability, which eventually became one of his main features, over Just Blaze. And this, in my opinion, accounts for their contrast in popularity or fame. Although it’s little known by most, it’s worth mentioning that that Just Blaze did try his hand at rapping once but then reflected that it wasn’t for him. There is mutual ground that I found however between Just Blaze and Isaac Hayes and that is their mutual support of the art of sampling. While many songwriters and rights holders of the music from the era of Isaac Hayes’ either refuse to allow music from their archives to be sampled in modern productions, or demand 100% publishing from the work, Isaac Hayes showed open support for the much disputed over art form.

The main factor of influence that these two legends happen to share is in how they owned a sound and era and developed it so much so that other creators would even start to recreate and learn from and make them live longer essentially. I don’t know if you could call either of them trendy but they had their supporters and they all have in common their belief in the bold sound of these two creative masters.

11. Isaac Hayes – Theme From Shaft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFvRvSxsW-I

*Extra material

14. Isaac Hayes – Walk On By https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl6InBgmNiw

[akdahab-blog]

Basic Study Of Acoustics

There are Many Fields Of Acoustics with the most popular being :

*Architectural Acoustics 

*Underwater Acoustics 

*Bio Acoustics 

Sound can be defined as and pressure variation thats the human ear is able to detect.When the nearest particle of air is set into motion, a wave effect is started. This motion will gradually spread to nearby particles, then to the neighbouring particles and so on, Much like a pebble dropped into a pond.

Static air pressure iss about 10/5 Pascals (Pa). Audible pressure variations can be extremely small, ranging from 20 micro Pascals to 100 Pa.

For Example here is a taco show you how dynamic or ear can be so these thresholds 

Rocket engine

20,000 Pa

Turbojet engine

2,000 Pa

Siren

632.455 Pa

Heavy truck engine or rock concert loudspeaker

200 Pa

Machine gun

63.245 Pa

Jackhammer

20 Pa

Excavator trumpet

11.246 Pa

Chain saw

6.3246 Pa

Loud speech

0.6325 Pa

Auditory threshold at 2.8 m

Perception Of Sound

The range of audible sound pressure variations, which we discussed above, corresponds to the average person’s hearing: where 20 Pa is so quiet that it is the “threshold of hearing” and 100 Pa is so loud that it is the “threshold of pain”.In dB, the ratio or thresholds can now be expressed as 0 dB while the threshold of pain is about 130 dB and over. As a general rule, each increase of 6 dB along this spectrum represents a doubling of sound pressure.

[akdahab-blog]

How The Microphone Started The Record Industry

Definition:- A Microphone Or ‘Mic’ is a device that originally originated from the telephone. By definition a microphone is a device that transformed kinetic energy into electric energy,When combined with a pr-Amplifier a microphone strengthens a weak audio signal into an audible one. History :- The first microphone was invented as a telephone transducer by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. It was a liquid device that was not very practical.In 1886,Thomas Alva Edison invented the first practical carbon microphone. The carbon microphone had a very limited frequency range, and would not reproduce music (Audio) effectively. In 1916, the condenser microphone was developed by E.E. Wente of Bell Laboratories. The condensor microphone required an amplifier built within the microphone to pick up the faint signals. Condensor microphones were used for radio broadcasting and the first generation of sound motion pictures. A major breakthrough in microphone technology would come in 1931 with the invention of the moving-coil or dynamic microphone by Wente and A. C. Thuras of Bell Laboratories. The dynamic microphone has a lower noise or distortion level than that of the carbon microphone and required no power to operate. The dynamic microphone is in extensive use today in all areas of communication and entertainment. In 1931, the ribbon microphone was introduced by RCA mainly for broadcasting, and became one of the most widely used microphones for the vocal recording and broadcasting industries. It was considered by many as the most natural sounding microphone ever made. The ribbon microphone was very heavy, 3.6 kg, and could easily be damaged by shock or blowing into it. Variations of the ribbon microphone are still use today. The ceramic or crystal microphone was invented 1933 by the Astatic Corporation when C. M.Chorpenig and F.H Woodworth found that they could make a microphone out of Rochelle salts or piezoelectric crystals. They found that when sound waves struck these crystals and as  they vibrated and created an electrical current. A carbon microphone consists of lightly packed carbon granules in an enclosure. Electrical contacts are placed on opposite sides of the enclosure and a thin metal or plastic diaphragm is mounted on one side of the enclosure. As sound waves hit the diaphragm they compress the carbon granules, changing its resistance. By running a current through the carbon, the changing resistance produced by the sound changes the amount of current that flows in proportion to the sound waves.

Types Of Microphones

Condensor Mic :- A condensor mic has a capsule with a metal backplate and a diaphragm placed close together with an electrical charge in the middle of the two plates , when sound waves hit the diaphragm it vibrates there for changing the electrical change in the metal plates.Condensor miss Are known for their relatively flat frequency range .

Dynamic Microphone:- A dynamic mic consists of a coil and a magnetic diaphragm that s attached to the coil , when the magnet is moved it creates an electrical energy , dynamic microphones are versatile for general recoding purposes , they are able to handle high SPL’s(Sound Pressure Levels) .

Ribbon Microphones : - In A Ribbon Mic capsule , A thin metal foil or ribbon is suspended in a magnetic field , when the ribbon is exposed to sound waves it creates an electrical signal.

Microphone Polar Pick Up Patterns : Omni Directional

Bi-Directional

cardioid

hyper Cardioid

supercardioid

Before the microphone there were concert halls,opera houses & clubs , people listened to more live music as there was no way to listen to recordings yet,there was no music industry besides live performances as such there were more professionally trained singers in the opera houses and such ,also certain genres as rock and electronic music would not come to existence without the amplification and the recording ability . While Microphones have been around since the mid 1920’s they have had a big impact on the music industry as a whole ,in-fact there would be no music industry as we know it today .they have allowed us to have crystal clear audio performances in the studio and in live venues , they have allowed for vocalists and musicians to play expressively as opposed to just playing loudly so that the audio can be captured or heard by the audience . Microphones have also helped artists overdub their own voice multiple times so that they can harmonise with themselves and multiple instruments and that helps artists when it comes to the live shows so its easier to focus on singing or playing the lead melodies and not having to rehears with backup vocalists & bands which also allowed us to start singing in more different styles and it showed artist that they can also stray away from the typical singing techniques which involved heavy vibrato and allowed artists to breath and add certain effects to their vocals by distorting the microphones input levels ,this is significantly heard in rock music . Microphones have helped producers dramatically by creating music with the ability of sampling ,which is capturing  a musical or audio phrase and modulating it in different ways , for example the hiphop genre of music would not exist if it was not for the emergence of sampling because it allowed the producers to take records from the should/jazz/blues era and helped turn them into a new sound with the help of sampling machines.

Microphones Role In The studio :-

Sound recording has yet to make a perfect copy of a musical performance. Advances in technology and recording strategies have striven to increase fidelity and/or improve the impression of fidelity to the audio-savy consumer. In the era of acoustic recording, when the sound inscribed on cylinder or disk was captured by a horn, the struggle for good balance and tone involved fitting reduced orchestras in small rooms, having singers roar directly into the recording devices, and trusting producers to chose carefully what sounds could be satisfactorily captured by the limited frequency range of these devices. Electric recording, including microphones, extended the frequency and loudness range of sounds recorded and added a new problem of recording sounds which is trying to capture all the instruments at a nominal level and not distort every element in the piece of music .

How Microphones Affected Us (The Listeners) :- In recordings we hear captured sound, a signal carrying the characteristics of both the sound and the capturing of it . Because of this, Chanan claims: ”Above all, the techniques of reproduction mechanical, electrical, or electronic–creates distance, both physical and psychic–between performer and audience that simply never existed before, which produces new ways for music to be heard and allows the listeners totally new ways of using it.” While the new ways of hearing and using are undeniable, one of the ongoing missions of audio research is to reduce that distance between performance and reproduction via improved fidelity. Changes from mono-microphone techniques to spot mics with live mixing and mixing for stereo each brought new levels of clarity to the sounds people could hear at home, sometimes superseding what was normally audible during a live performance .These advances gave listeners more choice of what to attend to in a complex sound waveforms. Meanwhile, the characteristic,timbres and sounds of earlier recordings are used as reference , surviving in a high quality audio world because of the times and values they evoke. The flexibility of digital recordings technologies made it easy for surround sound to move from the theatre to the home . Besides the occasional gimmick, music rarely involves sound sources behind the audience .it is usually Mono or stereo, however the sound of reflections from all sides are normally part of listeners experience of music in performance spaces. The characteristics of late reflections effect the sensation of listening to the piece in a live setting. Though influenced by other components of recording sound such as reverberation,delays and over playback level.

Reference List

Clarke,E.F.(2007).The impact of recording on listening. twentieth-century music, 4(1):47 Audio Engineering Society Conference: 24th International Conference: Multichannel Audio,The New Reality.

Bergh,A.and Denora,T.(2009). The Cambridge companion to recorded music, chapter From wind-up to iPod: Techno-cultures of listening. Cambridge University Press.

Bonds,M.(2003). A History of Music in Western Culture. Prentice Hall. 12 Chanan,M.(1995). Repeated takes: A short history of recording and its effects on music. Verso Books.

Cabera,D. and Willsallen, S. (2004). Assessment of music audio quality in a sports stadium.In Audio Engineering Society Convention 117. Bergg, J.and Rumsey,F.(2003). Systematic evaluation of perceived spatial quality. In

[akdahab-blog]

Jazz & Blues Analysis

Jazz & Blues Go Hand -in -had because both musical genres emerged from the south of the united states around the end of the 19th century although blues music emerged before jazz music and can be considered an element in jazz but jazz cannot be considered an element in blues due to major differences such as: 

Blues :-

a genre that is based on on the Blues scales,emotional lyrics and ofter relies heavily on the guitar and the singer , Blues music is characterised by its song structure,the guitar and repeating lyrics . Blues scales contain blue notes Which are notes played at a lower/higher pitch to add whats described as “color’ Those notes are what give blues its distinct sound .

Jazz:-

a genre that houses many sub-genres under it but the general foundation of jazz is improvisation , group (band) interaction & syncopated rhythms . A Jazz band will typically play a predetermined song in a specific Mode/Key but with each member adding their take on it by improvising . this is heavily dependant on how the musicians interact within the band .

Miles Davis -Blue In Green

The Songs mood is very relaxed , it features a bass guitar,piano and more noticeable trumpet by Miles Davis , the Song has a ballade feel throughout though it the harmony does take on an unusual scale towards the end .the piano is expressed softly behind the trumpet/saxophone in the mix. the song has a slow tempo that adds to the relaxed atmosphere it carries but the time signature does change in certain parts of the song .it is also Modal meaning that the use of scales that differ from the standard Major and minor scales .

Pete Rock - Petes Jazz petes jazz has a tempo of around 90BPM which is considered the norm in a hiphop song the song is heavily influenced by jazz musician Gary Burton as it features a sample of Burtons work in the main vibraphone melody although it has been pitched down in Petes work. You can also hear the jazz influence in the trumpet/Sax section of the song and the walking baseline . T-Bone Walker - Call It Stormy Monday The song is in a slow tempo and features a piano / Horn Section / Bass & an electric guitar played by T-bone Walker himself , he is considered to be one of the first blues artists to use the electric guitar in his songs . the song features melancholic lyrics with a toppling that repeats across the entire song . The guitar in 12-bar blues is the most important element after the vocals and all the other instruments cover background harmonies .

[akdahab-blog]