Allow me to introduce myself, this is my first post on this forum. My name is Mick ó Caoindealbhain (or Quinlan in the English) and I recently posted a couple of reels recorded using electronic instruments on this site.
Tony asked me to explain how I put them together.
Well here goes…(just hope i’m in the right part of the forum here)
First off everything I used is sone class of a sample, mainly from the Garritan Personal Orchestra library. And a few other bits and pieces I’ve collected myself.
The sample playback engine was Native Instruments Kontakt.
My modus operandi for these two particular tracks was pretty similar to how I usually put a piece together that’s emulating real instruments.
First off I made a click track of the tunes – straight eighths no ornamentation and on the beat - a sort of metronome. I converted this into a midi track loaded it into Cubase SX and used it as the guide track.
The midi tracks for the fiddle parts and the lead accordion part I then played into Cubase using a midi guitar. One at a time of course.
The disadvantage of recording midi from a guitar is that you quite often get extra unwanted midi notes from fret noise harmonics and that sort of thing. So these had to be got rid of.
Then I tidied up the midi tracks until all three of them sounded as though they were at least playing the same tune.
The accordion bass I played in on a keyboard. Perversely the guitar part was also played on the keyboard. And finally the bodhrán part was me bashing away on the keyboards as well.
This was all recorded to audio in Cubase with a wee bit of reverb and an even wee-er bit of processing.
I hope I haven’t bored ye too much with all this. Or alternatively if anyone wants me to explain anything….
Now I’d be really grateful to hear your opinions of the two reels. But go easy on me, I’m new.
This will, no doubt, be the beginning of a raging debate.
Because I have a Kurzweil PC2-88, I found your explanation interesting. This instrument allows me to synthesize various instruments and layer them, or multi-track according to the arrangement desired. All instruments are original performance, with me playing each layer/track, although a midi file could be imported – I believe (never tried it).
I have to be honest and confess that I have a foot in each camp: the purist and electronic performance. When it comes to Irish trad, the purist foot says it must be acoustic, pure drop, etc. There are far too many nuances that a midi or synthesizer will never be able to capture or replicate. The soul of the music is lost. Yet, I’m using my Kurzweil to put together early music pieces. Is that being a hypocrite? No doubt. The fight to simulate the slightest nuance has been enormous. In working on a 16th century piece by Diego Ortiz http://www.nwparalegal.com/music/Recercada.mp3 the struggle to get something that sounds like reasonable bowing and vibrato on the cello has resulted in me banging on the keyboard in an unnatural style to get some effect. I’ll never get it, no matter how hard I try.
I admire your hard work in putting the music together and have to say it’s one of the better electronic versions I’ve heard. It’s no easy task, and considering you’re playing all the parts, can be as difficult as sitting down with the acoustic instrument.
Is there an audience or appreciation for electronic renditions of traditional or early music? Who knows?
If your sound clip was put up on the Clips n Snips Tune Archive, then the place for this post is on the associated Clips n Snips discussion board.
There may be a market for synthesized “Celtic” recordings under the generalized New Age “mood” music category. That stuff’s so full of synth patches under real instruments that anyone who listens to it probably won’t notice that yours is all synths.
ach if this post is in the wrong place perhaps one of the admin can move it to the right section.
anyways there isn’t a synth on it. it’s all samples, dj
and as for the “celtic new age crowd” sure they wouldn’t know a piece of irish music if it was wearing a kilt and hit 'em over the head with a blackthorn.
and why would i be looking for a market?
aye it’s a problem with the traditional music terri, and i tend to agree with you there’s no way that you can get near the feel of someone playing an instrument live
but having said that, up till a few years ago a guitar was frowned upon in a session (and qute rightly so in some cases if you ask me.) but now it’s very difficult to find a pub session that doesn’t featire a guitarist or at least a bouzouki player.
i don’t think synths will ever replace the trad instruments pipes fiddles whistles but if they are played with a bit of feeling they can perhaps expand the music. but will they expand it in the right direction?
i don’t think my wee offering will ever replace live musicians but it was an exercise in seeing how close i could get to copying the basic style.
anyway thanks to both of you for taking the time to listen.
I don’t know a thing about electronic music…what do you mean when you say it’s all “samples?”
(As far as liking it, I enjoy listening to it for what it is, and it sounds like you’ve done a really good job of it, but electronic music is not my particular cup of tea. I can say I’d rather listen to it than a lot of stuff put up on Clips and Snips. )
hi susan
thanks for listening.
samples are recordings of individual notes played on a specified instrument which are then processed so that each sampled note can be assigned to an individual key on a keyboard for example and they can be played back hopefully sounding like the real instrument. it’s a cheap way to have an orchestra in your bedroom computer or wherever you want to keep it.
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