Archive for the ‘Shure Beta 58 A’ Category
Feb
2009
Your Skin Is A Perfect Ossuary;Producers Are Important
…..your skin is a perfect ossuary…
I wish I believed this. But skin often fails, ripples, distorts and is prone to scarring And those lovely chemicals zapping inside your tired, ancient brain, they misfire too.In the last four months, since this last post I have created a few pieces, whose themes dealt with the following:
1) Suffering
2) Osculation, Otters, & Utter Disengagement
3) December, Goodbyes
4) Water Recession in the late Jurassic Era
5)Deflation and Loneliness
photo credit: carolyn.will
There may be a theme emerging.
I still cannot decide whether this move to the suburbs feels like a safe and good sanctuary, or an enclave of complete suffocation. We don’t lock the doors. My new view (and yes I would love to post photos, but the little adapter that takes the memory card from camera to computer, all 5 of them have come up missing) is backyards, over-crowded with the demands of garages, and bicycles revealing themselves as the snow melts down in early early spring.
photo credit: Dominic Hargreaves
…producers are important…
I have been working with a producer in the Netherlands, although he is actually English. Scott Altham, who is easy-going and very talented. He had re-mixed a few of my a cappellas, and then started sending me ’shells’, or unsung mixes he created. His stuff is so different from mine, but it is cool, and he takes great care when I send him flat, naked, un-eq’d me singing, he makes is sound rich and perfect. I trust him.
Deflated & Alone (ft Mart 1001 & shagrugge)
Suffering (ft Bill Ray on drums)
Salty, Nascent, Just For Me [Music written & Produced by Scott Altham, Lyrics and Voice Kaer Trouz)
Nov
2007
More Shure Beta 58 A News, and A Sad Little Song Sans Drums
Rain Lament (Jaspertine Triste Mix)
If there was been one complaint about my music, across the boards, it had been about the drum choices. I happen to love a noisy, white wall cacaphony, but apparently it is not for everyone. I must now need to mention here, ditto ditto (aka Philippe) from just outside of Paris, with his fine ear and sensitivity for subtle sounds. We have been working globally together, on a few projects. The piece is called “Tell us your secret Kaer Trouz” you can listen by following this link , and if you want to download the acapella, you can by creating an account with CCmixter. I have been working hard to understand my new microphone, which like a new friend,must be worked out. Here is a screen shot of all the lines I must draw around my voice, in order to make it. The pink lines represent the manual drawing I did, which , on this particular piece, took 25 minutes. The black lines are my voice.
November sometimes hits me like a locomotive, I love autumn, the chilly hubris, damp smoke and fresh rot, the ways the trees look like stark brooms, jutting into the sky. I have been wanting for a while to do a piece without drums, and found some brilliant guitar samples from Jaspertine on CCmixter, as well as a realistically recorded thunderstorm from RHumphries, and another spare ambient industrial loop from dropthedyle, who may be my favorite Belgian scary noise maker of all time (if one were to have such a favorite).
Lastly, SAM is packing up a truck in Washington DC, and will be in Chicago on Sunday, and after a month of many email & file exchanges, plus a disturbing amount of IM exchanges, we will finally start our project, which I am over the moon about. Stay tuned….
Nov
2007
My Shure Died.
Yes, the old Shure SM 58, from 1992, died yesterday. RIP. I felt sad for a moment, but luckily, because it is a commodity, I was able to replace it with a better more reliable microphone. A Shure Beta 58 A.
Microphones are important for singers. I actually do not know much about them. I was talked into buying a FET microphone last year, a Groove Tube 55, which was a terrible mistake. I am not technically adept to know why this Fet microphone was so wrong for me, other than in the higher registers, this mic made my voice sound thin & weedy, and rank, and was not able to pick up lower registers, or nuances in vibrato. When Randy, our turtle, arranged her rocks in her tank- that you could hear perfectly!
This time, I made the skanky dude at the Music shop take all the mics out of the case so I could try them. I loved how this Shure sounded, organic, gooey and crisp, all at once!
I did a little remix/new composition today, featuring my new dulcet tones, culling a piano sample from Klaus Neumaier courtesy of ccmixter, and a crackly ambient loop from Drop The Dyle, courtesy of the freesound project.
Winter Comes
