Real recordings of real musicians are rare things. And here’s one more of my contributions to this tiny pool. I am an unabashed fan of Lee Barber, a singer/songwriter who is something of a legend in the Austin musician community, but for whatever reason, not well-known outside that. He’s got a haunting voice, his lyrics and tunes speak of ache and longing, and… well… he’s the number one thing I miss about Austin. Here he is doing a fun little song in my living room for a group of about 20-25 music lovers, All Night Long, from his wonderful album Thief and Rescue. Single point miking with crossed figure 8 ribbons, no EQ or compression, just the sound you would have heard if you’d been there that night. 24/96 WAV format.
Special thanks to Audio Science Forum members BE718 and Blumlein88, who were incredibly helpful to me in processing an experimental way of doing the mike array (long story, I’ll write more about this in the future).
Oh, and if you like this song, buy Lee’s albums. We need to support artists.
Thanks SY, I’ll give it a listen this week-end.
I’ll welcome your honest feedback.
Nice recording. Thanks for sharing this shiny piece of quality.
You say, ” Single point miking…. just the sound you would have heard if you’d been there that night. ”
But wouldn’t it be more precise to say, “… if you stuck your head right where the mikes were…”?
Were were the mikes?
The guitar sound was just what we expect a guitar to sound like on recordings. That is a “social construct” like the horses in ancient cave paintings.
Thanks for the compliment! The mike was about 1.5-2 meters back, elevated about 8-12″ above his head (seated) and tilted slightly forward to equalize the distances to the two ribbons.
The captured tone of the Martin that Lee was playing is quite natural, especially compared to the usual practice of close-miking to the hole and sometimes mixing in a close pickup near the neck.
Sy – you can’t logically say, “The captured tone (at THAT mic spot) of the Martin that Lee was playing is quite natural, …”. It implies the sound elsewhere (like close-miking or anywhere else in the room where you were sitting) is not the natural sound of that guitar.
A bit fairer to say you found a place for your mikes that when played back on a stereo in my living room will make me say, “Sounds natural”.
Even more fair for me to say, “Yes, that is what we all always think of as the sound of a Martin guitar recording played on my living room stereo complete with those delightful up-close string noises”.
That’s what I mean by social construct or social consensus.
I’ll just say that I know that guitar and voice very well from lots of shows and locations, and I’d recognize either instantly from that recording. That’s what his guitar sounds like, that’s what his voice sounds like. I leave things like “social constructs” or whatever to others to philosophize about; for me, it’s just not a useful weltanschauung.
Really nice recording! Although some light polishing was needed, there is some ~15-20 Hz rumble now and then, probably from the mic stand. Some high pass filtering below 25 Hz did the trick though.
Thanks for the kind words and feedback!