The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Much truth in what you said Henry and I also think your approach to recording is a good one. Especially if it's jazz recording.

    I work all day in my studio and I've lost count of how many songs I've programmed over the years BUT I would not attempt to record my jazz ideas here. Jazz needs people. Interaction. VIBE.


    There are so many musicians who want complete control over what they write. This is a natural tendency for us muso types.

    But it's teams that make great records. Each person, musician or engineer or producer adding their own talent and making something together. That's when the magic happens, when people interact. Even if they fight.

    One of the worst things that has happened to modern music is the event of "one man and a computer" in a room with total control. A single vision usually ends up being quite boring.

    Sorry for the off topic.....

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  3. #27

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    No. I call them/us "cubicle musicians." It's an introverted activity. Music, for the most part, has been a social activity. Fighting with drummers and other guitar players and singers over how best to write a song, produce a song, rehearse or play a song all serves the greater purpose of learning how to best put music together. If I didn't have those exchanges and conflicts years ago, I'd be much worse for it today. I've learned so much from the various people I've worked with. Cubicle musicians suffer with themselves. They have less conflict but possibly less rewards too!

  4. #28

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    One other thing a lot of people get confused about: Pro Tools is a word like Kleenex. Many people use it instead of DAW. But PT has no particular sound. I've seen people brag - "Dude, I have PRO TOOLS! We can record the album in my living room!" No clue, that PT is just an engine. You need great mic pres, compressors, mics, DIs, let alone all the stands, cabling, outboard effects, headphones, cue mixers.

  5. #29

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    It all rings so true. As mama used to say, "The bigger the boys, the bigger the toys." I don't doubt a word either of have said. You both hit grand slams. Henry with getting the imagination stuck and Philco with the rabbit hole.

    One last question. Henry when you talk about singers and latency, is the issue there that they want to be able to monitor themselves? Suppose they didn't want to monitor themselves. And suppose you are using a cheap interface. What do you have to do then? Do you have to shift the track back a bit because the vocals are delayed and get recorded after the beat?

  6. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by henryrobinett
    One other thing a lot of people get confused about: Pro Tools is a word like Kleenex. Many people use it instead of DAW. But PT has no particular sound. I've seen people brag - "Dude, I have PRO TOOLS! We can record the album in my living room!" No clue, that PT is just an engine. You need great mic pres, compressors, mics, DIs, let alone all the stands, cabling, outboard effects, headphones, cue mixers.
    Very important point. Pro Tools usually comes with a few bonus VST plugins, but they are rather insignificant compared to what can be purchased.

    You could purchase high end VSTi packs and they'll sound the same in Pro Tools as they will in Cubase, FL Studio or any other alternative. Pro Tools packages usually include a powerful external soundcard though, which could be the reason for the hype.
    It's the soundcard and effect plugins(EQ, Reverb, Compressors etc) that together will determine the final sound. Having good studio monitors helps as well to create a mix that will sound good on most devices.
    So like you say, Pro Tools is merely a tool for creation and doesn't impact the end result much.

    I think the real strength of Pro Tools is the clean interface and ease of navigation, that is once you've got it up and running in the first place.

    For the short time it agreed to work on my system, I found it to be easy to use.

  7. #31

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    Quote Originally Posted by jster
    It all rings so true. As mama used to say, "The bigger the boys, the bigger the toys." I don't doubt a word either of have said. You both hit grand slams. Henry with getting the imagination stuck and Philco with the rabbit hole.

    One last question. Henry when you talk about singers and latency, is the issue there that they want to be able to monitor themselves? Suppose they didn't want to monitor themselves. And suppose you are using a cheap interface. What do you have to do then? Do you have to shift the track back a bit because the vocals are delayed and get recorded after the beat?

    It was me who mentioned latency. If you have latency then the singer hears their voice in the cans a few milliseconds after they sing. This will drive most people crazy and will destroy any performance vibe.

    The vocal will not be recorded with the delay so you won't have to slide the track, it's just that the performance will be so out of the pocket that you will be doubting the song. Pure folly really.

    An experienced singer , wearing some open type cans will be able to record without their own voice in the mix. It's not ideal but it can work if, as I said, they are experienced.

    If you don't have an experienced singer, the end result of all this is a badly recorded track with no vibe. You will be doubting yourself and the material.

    If you've ever tried to lay a guitar track that's right in the pocket whilst playing with latency then you'll know the feeling.

    Kind of like asking a sprinter to wear one track shoe and one work boot and perform his best time!

  8. #32

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    Quote Originally Posted by AmundLauritzen
    Very important point. Pro Tools usually comes with a few bonus VST plugins, but they are rather insignificant compared to what can be purchased.

    You could purchase high end VSTi packs and they'll sound the same in Pro Tools as they will in Cubase, FL Studio or any other alternative. Pro Tools packages usually include a powerful external soundcard though, which could be the reason for the hype.
    It's the soundcard and effect plugins(EQ, Reverb, Compressors etc) that together will determine the final sound. Having good studio monitors helps as well to create a mix that will sound good on most devices.
    So like you say, Pro Tools is merely a tool for creation and doesn't impact the end result much.

    I think the real strength of Pro Tools is the clean interface and ease of navigation, that is once you've got it up and running in the first place.

    For the short time it agreed to work on my system, I found it to be easy to use.

    ProTools began it's life as an audio only app....stereo. (it started out as "Sound Designer"......yes I had that version as well!)
    It was always hideously expensive.
    When it became multi track it ALWAYS used an outboard hardware card. Computers were not powerful enough to do the tasks.
    It stayed an audio only app for years before Digidesign begrudgingly added midi.

    The beauty of PT is that combined with it's own hardware it is extremely stable. Your computer is just idling while the cards do all the work. Using HD the latency is as close to zero as you can get.......and that includes monitoring with TDM or ASX plugs on the track!

    If you want a software only solution and you install it on your "home" computer.....right next to your games, word processor and cracked PhotoShop app then you may be trouble shooting for some time.

    Having said that, I have also worked with people getting great results from other platforms......almost always using
    outboard DSP of some type to overcome the latency problem.
    Last edited by Philco; 04-30-2013 at 07:22 PM.

  9. #33

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    Quote Originally Posted by Philco
    It was me who mentioned latency. If you have latency then the singer hears their voice in the cans a few milliseconds after they sing. This will drive most people crazy and will destroy any performance vibe.

    The vocal will not be recorded with the delay so you won't have to slide the track, it's just that the performance will be so out of the pocket that you will be doubting the song. Pure folly really.

    An experienced singer , wearing some open type cans will be able to record without their own voice in the mix. It's not ideal but it can work if, as I said, they are experienced.

    If you don't have an experienced singer, the end result of all this is a badly recorded track with no vibe. You will be doubting yourself and the material.

    If you've ever tried to lay a guitar track that's right in the pocket whilst playing with latency then you'll know the feeling.

    Kind of like asking a sprinter to wear one track shoe and one work boot and perform his best time!
    Thanks Philco. Do you feel that way about a guitar too? Do you need to hear it in the mix? I guess you probably do. This explains why my lo tech overdubs sound so bad. I'm listening to the track with my ear plugs, but whatever I'm singing or playing on the guitar isn't in the mix. Even if I'm just listening to the click track in the ear plugs, I'm not listening to what I'm producing. I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on. Wasn't sure if it was the fact that my computer is I won't say how old. I couldn't believe my time was that bad. But it didn't really seem like a latency problem that I could just fix with a shift. Almost every bar was weird. And of course the dynamics are pretty wack too. Everything just kind of floats around. But if I just record singing+guitar "live" everything sounds tight.

    It's strange that just listening with one ear or "can" isn't enough to keep you easily in the pocket.
    Last edited by jster; 04-30-2013 at 08:05 PM.

  10. #34

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    On a system that is not clocked correctly, and that has questionable A to D conversion, the truth is you don't know what you are listening to.
    Nasty fact.......playback will change every time....because your computer is doing other stuff.
    So there is no timing integrity between tracks depending on plug use and the amount of tracks. Your computer will do what it can but it may be different every time you hit the play button.
    Scary scenario.

    In regard to performing .....well it's like you are performing on a trampoline. Hit and miss to say the least.

    This situation improves with great clocks and converters and more powerful computers.

    I don't want to discourage in any way. If you want to go down this path then there probably has to be a small adjustment in thinking.
    Your recording rig is a creative tool and should be thought of as an investment in your career or music life. Just as important as your guitar and amp......if composing is a big part of who you are.

    You can do great work on an iMac with a quality interface. You could probably put together a monster stable rig for under $8000 or close to it.
    Less than what you would pay for a good second hand car. Less than what a carpenter would pay for all his gear.
    Then you need a decent room with some treatment, which is fairly cheap to do.
    It all comes down to how important recording is to you.
    In my situation it gave me a career but everyone is different and has different goals.

    It may be your path to just rehearse the material with your band mates and cut a deal with a good local studio. That's a whole other direction and a good one to consider.

  11. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by jster
    One last question. Henry when you talk about singers and latency, is the issue there that they want to be able to monitor themselves? Suppose they didn't want to monitor themselves. And suppose you are using a cheap interface. What do you have to do then? Do you have to shift the track back a bit because the vocals are delayed and get recorded after the beat?
    Don't shift the track! If you don't need to monitor yourself no need to worry about anything. But as soon as you want to do any overdubs, you want to hear what you did before - or you want to correct something and punch in and out. You should be able to hear pre and post punch in/out points to give you reference. There are tricks for that though. YOu can copy the track or record to a different track and cut a hole where you would have recorded on the original track. YOU can get to the point where you can do this quickly., Set up a template that has the blank tracks already there.

    IOW singer recorded on track A and made a mistake from bar 22/2/000 to 31/1/000. So you can record to track B at those locate points, between 22/2/000 to 31/1/000. Erase that area from track A. The singer can hear herself up to the punch in and out points and never know the difference. No latency whatsoever. Well I'm sorry. It depends on the interfaces and whether it allows you to monitor form the hardware, before it gets to the computer.

    If it does that, you need to set the buffer as low as possible - at least 256 samples or lower. I regularly record jazz with a KX-88 keyboard controller playing Ivory Piano samples. There's no way around having some latency. 256 is real enough for everyone who's played it. I can get lower - 128 or even 64, which would be ideals, but when recording a full band using 14 or more tracks, at 96k, two interfaces, that puts a bigger strain on the computer and is nervous making. I want to avoid crashes at all costs, so I opt to use 256.

    With a decent interface and recording less tracks you should be able to get lower. But honestly, I've had some great jazz pianists who never complained about 256.

  12. #36

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    Thanks so much for your time guys. But what I'm taking away from you guys is that even to lay down a bare click track at home and take that over to the studio might not always work right. "Uh, yeah, sorry this click track isn't clocked correctly. Did you do this at home?" lol.
    Last edited by jster; 07-18-2014 at 06:05 PM.

  13. #37

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    You can do that. You want to create a guide track. Why can't you do that? And then bring to a pro studio?

  14. #38

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    Yeah you should be able to do that. If you were trying to create complex tracks with high track counts and finished vocal and guitar tracks you could run into some of the problems I was talking about.
    But a click and some basic guide parts that you are going to replace anyway should be fine.

  15. #39

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    Coming late to this party as usual, but hoping for some input from you guys experienced with using computer DAWs.

    My recording happens in my living room with minimal sound treatment (would you believe a blanket over the couch behind the mic - actually works a little bit). My digital recorder is an all-in-one Korg D1200mkII, now a legacy recorder. I record straight into the Korg pre-amps - no standalone nice preamp here. My mic is the very humble MLX 990 for now. And although one can do some editing on the Korg and it does have EQ, compression and limiters as well as dynamic effects reverb and delay programs and the like, for the most part if I flub a note, I rerecord the track and I generally prefer to keep effects and even EQ to a minimum, excepting subtracting some bass frequencies for clarity. I don't comp tracks, and since I don't have a computer DAW for editing and other processing, it just doesn't happen. I use my legacy Sibelius G7 on my PC for composing, working on songs, orchestration, and rehearsing. I also use a Roland GR-20 with my Godin LGX-SA for laying down synth bass, strings, vibes, woodwinds... and my Yamaha keyboard synth for piano and sometimes percussion tracks.

    Despite the gear limitations, I don't have any problems that I can detect with significant latency on recordings or when tracking vocals, and I get some pretty nice sounding recordings even with the humble mic. But the things I would like to get to improve the sound and editing include a finer mic, a good interface to use with a computer DAW like Logic Pro and my extant Macbook. The only obstacle to this grand plan is...money, of course.

    I'm really jonesing for a nice mic like the Neumann TD102. I fancy myself a decent singer, and many of my recordings of jazz standards and country music include multitracked vocals along with my acoustic and electric guitar and synth tracks. Of course one needs something like an Apogee Duet as an interface with Logic Pro. But would latency be a big deal even with Logic Pro? I have thought of using my Korg for recording the tracks and then transferring the files into the Mac to use Logic Pro for more sophisticated editing and dynamics. Does that make any sense?

    Jay

  16. #40

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    A little difficult to fully answer this.
    Just be aware that you are used to recording with HARDWARE. Your Korg had zero latency.
    Any software based recorder without a good quality interface (A to D converter) will have some latency.
    I can't vouch for the Apogee as I have not used it.
    Some people can handle a bit of latency if they are playing keyboards or even guitar (drives me nuts)
    but you're a singer and any latency will be hard to deal with.

    You probably need to research this a bit more and talk to people using the system you want to purchase.

    There are loads of bells and whistles and endless soft synths and plug ins on offer BUT if the systems most fundamental criteria is bad (latency) then the most fundamental job (recording) is not fulfilled and the rig is worthless.

  17. #41

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    Thanks for trying, Philco! Here's the thing. I like the tracks as recorded on the Korg, but I can't really edit easily beyond punching in. Truth is, I almost always just redo the take. Still, the ability to fine tune the tracks and do some vocal comps here and there and better mastering tools wouldn't hurt. Btw, I do not use any form of Autotune - seems too much like cheating to me. But I'm thinking about integrating the tracks as recorded on the Korg as wav. files into a MacBook or PC (hopefully both with the same license) for editing purposes. As far as improving recording, I would think the following things might improve the quality of my recordings.

    - Mic Preamp
    - Better mic such as the over-budget Neumann TD102 or a better MXL (more realistic $ -wise at the moment)
    - Interface with the Mac. Like the Apogee.
    - computer DAW

    I thought the Logic Pro sounds like the best option for me. I record one track at a time as vocals, guitars, keyboards, and via my guitar synth. I compose (humbly). I record jazz standards and some country rock type things. I use notation software essentially for composing, transcriptions, working out orchestration (great help), and rehearsing. So I get the idea from reviews that the Logic Pro works well for notation itself. I have a strong need for better percussion options.

    BUT - I hate latency in any form! I have to deal with it a bit with the guitar synth. As an aside, I wanted so much to be able to use my Godin LGX-SA guitar for note entry in real time with Sibelius via my Roland GR-20 guitar synth. I probably should have purchased the GI - 20 instead in retrospect, as so far when I try to use the GR-20, the latency is impossible for accurate note entry.

    Sounds like the interface seems to be a key thing here as regards recording directly into the computer DAW if you work with Logic.

    Anyway, thanks for your input.

    Jay