john

Hey I agree to a point in terms of pitch, but it can take training to fix ussues with tonality. With pitch the singer has a unique problem which causes pitch confusion, making it difficult for the singer to hit the correct pitch. Sound produced by the mouth reaches the ear in two ways: From the mouth, through the air, to the ear. From the mouth, through bone (especially the jaw bone), to the ear. If any of you know any physics, the waves that make up a sound alter when travelling through different mediums. The result? You hear 2 pitches, and the variance can be up to 3 semi-tones! This is one of the reasons why you sometimes see singers with the fingers of one hand cupped behind their ear, and the heal of their hand towards the mouth. This amplifies the sound coming through the air (just try it). It's also partly why it is recommended to practice singing at performance volume regularly. That' is not the same as full volume. This helps the singer compensate for the pitch difference, and then eventually through practice rarely if at all need to use it. This is part of "training your ear". Practice also brings control. At least correct practice does. One of the main problems singers have is breathing. This is very important as you need to have enough breath to make a particular pitch, and hold it. So most people can with training become reasonable, if not pretty good singers. But some others will never be singers due to lack of concentration, control, or that fundamental feedback mechanism - awareness. Cheers John Cheers John

I have to say, in most cases when you compare originals to copies, the original wins hands down in every time.

Gotcha. I just wasn't sure whether you mean conceptual in artistic or business terms.

Ah! You mean purpose...

You mean a theme for the album?

Hmm. Born in the USA. nuff said.

What do you mean by a vision? What was your concept for Serendipity (Is that the right title?

Hey Who is your favourite lyricist and why? I went through a few I really like from Roy Harper and Ian Anderson to Thom York, but I settled on David Bowie. He's written some fantastic songs. His lyrics are creative and can be pretty thought provoking. Cheers John

Ah young grasshopper, your question was answered. Just not the way you wanted. Still hopefully it was some help.

Hey I'd like to put out a CD. I've got a reasonable idea about what is involved. Assume I know nothing (not a huge leap, I know) when you offer advice though. What do I need to do? Business, CD covers, online promotion, agents... Cheers John

Poor tech nurds call that stuff fun... Ok,I found this on another forum: Under the RECORD FUNCTION buttons are two more push-on-push-off buttons. One is called CUE/PGM, and the other is INSERT. Here is how to use them: In normal recording, you keep both buttons UP. This is tracking mode. Then the RECORD FUNCTION buttons control whether the monitor output of each track comes from the track playback cue line or from the mixing bus. ARMED tracks play the mixing bus, SAFE tracks play the tape cue. Returning all tracks to SAFE sets the monitor for full playback. When mixing down, you depress the CUE/PGM button. This is mixdown mode. Now you always hear the mixing busses, and never the track playback cue lines. Move your INPUT switches to the tape tracks and mix down through the channel strips. If you are punching in, you depress just the INSERT button. This is punch-in mode. Now you hear the track playback cue line UNTIL the deck actually goes into record. Then the armed tracks switch to the mixing bus. Use the green knobs at the top to control the monitor levels. You can also use Effect Send 2 as a mono after-fader solo. Set the pots to unity gain, and use the enable switches as your solo buttons. Move the headphone contrtol to EFF-2 to hear the solo selected. This is an undocumented function I discovered (which also works on 414 and 424). Also, make sure your monitoring system is playing through the monitor jacks, not the PGM jacks. The PGM jacks are for your mastering recorder send (Yes, it can do surround sound using all 4). Here's the link: http://tascamforums.com/index.php?showtopic=7852 I hope this helps...

Hey marc I obviously check this post regularly... Thanks for the recommendation, and the link! Cheers John

Hey I have to agree with Prometheus. This is definately the most flexible way to go, and it would be a good intro to PC based recording while making the most of your existing gear. If you can't Nightwolfs suggestion is a pretty good approach. Depending how many track bounces you use you'll need to be very aware of any noise, and optimise the gain carefully on each bounce, otherwise the Signal to Noise Ratio will go through the floor and you are likely to get unwanted hiss. Cheers John

What was the balance between online and real world? If you don't mind me asking...

Finn What percentage of your overall budget have you assigned to promotion? Cheers John

Well not so much now, but during experiments with electronica and synthy stuff I went through a phase of using filter sweeps. When I listen to the tracks now they do my head in.

Just to alter your theory: The record companies could be a type of fertilizer, the artist the seed which grows into a beautiful plant, the manager and agent are the gardener, music the fruit, and money is what you get when you take your fruit to market. Flies are pluggers, and fans buy the fruit in the shop. The fans then get to decide what fruit they like, and they, not the media, decide on just how tasty it is. The shop keepers of course get to not place orders with suppliers who supply bruised fruit. Cheers John

Hi Interesting analogy. Following that stream of thought: At the moment I'd say that the artist is the seed, the record company is the gardener, money is the fruit and flowers, and music is the leaves. The artist gets by on the shit given it by the record company, and the fans must there for be flies and insects. Unfortunately indie artists are regarded as weeds. Cheers John

Hi If you could re-make the music industry, how would you mould it? What shape would it take? Cheers John

Hari What have you done to me? I'm blind... You should change your board name to El Bandito. Scary man Cheers John

You need to add this to the head content of your files... <style type="text/css"> <!-- a:link { text-decoration: none; } a:visited { text-decoration: none; } a:hover { text-decoration: underline; } a:active { text-decoration: none; } --> </style> Just set to either underline, blink or none Cheers John

Hey Hari Very nice... CSS - Cascading Style Sheets Normally in html fonts and styles are all defined locally to the bit of text etc. you want it to apply to. The Style Sheets part means that you can define a style, say MyBodyText, in one place (either within the html file, or within a separate css file). You would then locally apply that style. If you want to change all the locally applied styles, no need, just change the style definition. The cascading element refers to the fact that styles are hierarchical, and can be overridden locally. Cheers John

Nah. I think the record companies are simply spread-betting. To really push something, and support artists long term means investment. They do this only for the very limited "A" list. The rest fight over the scraps. Lacking promo, there is a high turn over of both artists and songs. The fact that the press, and promo companies turn artists into commodities on the celebrity version NASDAQ, and the overall meaning of celebrity has been diminished, there is naturally also an increased turn over of stars. This of course achieves exactly your suggestion for celebrities. It reduces their power over the companies. Combine this with the air of reduced investment and being a star becomes a very fragile state. Where upon they live their life in the tabloids, hawking their ass to the nearest journo, just for a mention. Self promo to increase your value as a commodity. Not pretty. I think I must be a bit jaded...

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