Spending my Christmas vacation becoming reacquainted with my multitrack software and DADGAD guitar backup.
I’ve posted an .MP3 of a short multitrack experiment from this morning, just looking for feedback…
The tune is one time through “Banish Misfortune” on Copeland high-D whistle, backup on a Martin guitar tuned in DADGAD, along with bodhran. I’m playing all the tracks.
Very enjoyable recording Michael,‘Banish misfortune’ is one of my favourite jigs.I must admit,when people mention multi-tracking,i’m always worried that the music will suffer at the expense of ‘technical wizardry’ I’m pleased to say that this isn’t the case with your recording.I enjoy your playing that i’ve heard on your own site,and i would indeed like to hear more(your playing is the main reason that caused me to recently order a Copeland low D!).One tune that i am currently listening to a lot is another jig-‘Na Ceannabhain bana’,which appears on Sean og Potts’album,and also Gavin Whelan’s album, i’d love to hear your rendition on any future c.d. Keep up the good work!
Fantastic Michael. I truly enjoyed your track and would love to know when your CD is ready! I do not know if it is just my computer or Windows media player but I had to put the volume way down and it still sounded a little fuzzy. I’m no expert but perhaps the recording levels are too high?
Looking forward to the CD!
As for requests - do you do Lord of the Dance?
Out of curiousity, did you pan the guitar track back and forth from center to slightly right in time with the down beat or was that just my imagination? Sounded like you were panning and it gave a real nice “bouncy” dancing feel to the piece. A trick I’m going to have to remember!
One thing I found out the hard way was that if you have the Microsoft Media Player “SRS WOW” effects turned on for audio when you play back your carefully mixed recordings, they sound like junk, really overdrives the bass and messes up the imaging. I’d recommend turning it off unless you really like that kind of effect.
As far as effects, I’ve got a little chorus on the guitar to spread out the image, and a little reverb on both the bodhran and whistle. Final mix was run through some light compression to even out the levels a bit.
You are absolutely right Michael! It was my Media player! I got into the EQ and made some adjustments and a GREAT tune sounds even better now!! Thanks!
Glad the Media Player tip worked for you! It was driving me crazy for a few hours, I’d do a mix down, sounded great in the multitrack software, but the resulting file played in Media Player didn’t resemble what I had mixed… finally figured out what was going on…
Michael, I always look forward to hearing your playing, and I’ve never been disappointed. Not really concerned about the guitar, but your whistle playing is always wonderful, and I enjoyed the bodhran, too.
Have you heard of Pat MacSwyney? He’s from up Santa Barbara way, and he does a lot of multitracking – cittern, bodhran, whistle, etc. It took me awhile to get used to it, but he’s worth a listen.
