Cathy Davey

stepbar

Isn't she just the best thing since sliced bread? My god can she sing. Reuben is one of the best song I've heard in a while.

JustCoz

Yeah I love her, her album is deadly. Went to see her before Christmas and going to see her again in Feb

JustCoz

Ooh I just got my third star!!!:D

Dudess

She's very good indeed. Now if she could just get rid of the annoying posh accent and the pronouncing "s" as "sh" she'd be even better.

BaZmO*

She done a cracking version of "I Feel Love" on the Ray D'Arcy show before Christmas. Although it was a bit annoying the way you could hear her taking really deep breaths between lines throughout the song, but that's just nitpicking!

Her latest album got Album of the Week on the Alt & Indie Forum.

cormie

She's pretty good alright

I brought her and her band down to Cork in my banger of a van, it was my very first VanTasks.ie job, before I had my current van

Gavin Glass was on before her and he's great too. All really nice people and when the van wouldn't start the next morning for the trip back, and because it was a bank holiday there was nowhere to get jump leads, they went off to a Carnival and borrowed jump leads off a carnie to start my van! haha.

fricatus

Saw her in Waterford tonight. She was absolutely amazing. One of the best gigs I've seen in a long time.

lordgoat

Going to see her on monday with ladyfriend can't wait!

Yap Stam

In the world of recording theres a thing called 'EQ' (it stands for 'equalization'). If you have a singer that has a weak voice what a producer will do is put the EQ up really high, this brings out their voice alot more and makes them sound alot better and strenghtens the voice. The problem is that in order to make the voice seem stronger everything has to picked up, thats why you hear all the inhalations of breath and when the letter 's' is pronounced it gets smudged -a bit like the way a radio presenter sounds when you can't get good reception. I watched Ms. Davey's performance at the Irish music awards thing, i expected her not to sound as good as her recordings but she was much worse than I thought. She kept being drowned out by the musicians behind her (even though they were struggling to keep it down) and on top of that I noticed that she can't hold a note for a very long time, because her voice is just too weak. These days they use special microphones in stadiums which can project otherwise weak voices at very loud volumes- but you've still got the problem relating to the general quality of the vocals. The songs are catchy and they are proving a hit, but lets call a spade a spade here and acknowledge the fact that her singing is more a result of studio trickery rather than any kind of training or perfection, she has alot to thank her producer for.

If she wrote those songs than maybe she has a future as a songwriter, but whatshe's doing is not good singing.

Ella Fitzgerald- Now there was a voice, and she didn't need no special microphone or canny producer either.

Driver 8

Weird, weird situation last night, in...a venue . The gig was really good, but the crowd was DEAD during the songs, and I was in the front row! People looked like there were at a funeral. Bloody depressing posers, i guess moving to the music would've shaken their symmetrical haircuts too much Rant over.

innisfree

Yap Stam wrote: »

In the world of recording theres a thing called 'EQ' (it stands for 'equalization'). If you have a singer that has a weak voice what a producer will do is put the EQ up really high, this brings out their voice alot more and makes them sound alot better and strenghtens the voice. The problem is that in order to make the voice seem stronger everything has to picked up, thats why you hear all the inhalations of breath and when the letter 's' is pronounced it gets smudged -a bit like the way a radio presenter sounds when you can't get good reception. I watched Ms. Davey's performance at the Irish music awards thing, i expected her not to sound as good as her recordings but she was much worse than I thought. She kept being drowned out by the musicians behind her (even though they were struggling to keep it down) and on top of that I noticed that she can't hold a note for a very long time, because her voice is just too weak. These days they use special microphones in stadiums which can project otherwise weak voices at very loud volumes- but you've still got the problem relating to the general quality of the vocals. The songs are catchy and they are proving a hit, but lets call a spade a spade here and acknowledge the fact that her singing is more a result of studio trickery rather than any kind of training or perfection, she has alot to thank her producer for.

If she wrote those songs than maybe she has a future as a songwriter, but whatshe's doing is not good singing.

Ella Fitzgerald- Now there was a voice, and she didn't need no special microphone or canny producer either.

'Special microphones for stadiums'? There's microphones of various sensitives in condenser and dynamic form, and patterns like cardioid and omnidirectional, etc. Surely the aim of of mic-ing up at a stadium is to avoid the added likelihood of bounced feedback and provide a very large amount of amplitude to the final mix of all the performers. Could you reference what you're talking about? I'm curious and want to be surprised. She certainly projects quieter than average (which isn't unusual) and I find that quite pleasant, I'm a fan of her singing and think she can hold notes just fine. I've heard Cathy sing live many times and she must have access to some incredible gear to get all that studio trickery to fix her voice each time. I haven't seen the meteor performance so I can't comment on that.

iamnothim

Haha, i wont bother requoting - but the post above about EQ is the biggest pile of utter ****e I've ever read. 'Putting EQ up high' makes no sense at all. Equalisization is the process of adjusting the gains of one or more frequencies of an audio stream. You can boost or cut your highs mids and/or lows. Compression and gating can and are used to remove breaths from recordings, but often it's not neccessary.

Also - hate to burst your bubble on this, but the performance at the meteor awards was a mime. So the band were struggling with nothing at all. Every act at the meteors bar the last act were mimed backing track and a live vocal. On top of that, the backing tracks were mixed ridiculously low (or at least they were at the event, I didn't watch on TV) and I had no difficulty at all hearing the vocal tracks. The mics they use in Stadiums are the same as the ones they use in any live venue. No trickery there, the post above this has already called you on this fact so I wont bother

lordgoat

iamnothim wrote: »

Haha, i wont bother requoting - but the post above about EQ is the biggest pile of utter ****e I've ever read. 'Putting EQ up high' makes no sense at all. Equalisization is the process of adjusting the gains of one or more frequencies of an audio stream. You can boost or cut your highs mids and/or lows. Compression and gating can and are used to remove breaths from recordings, but often it's not neccessary.

Also - hate to burst your bubble on this, but the performance at the meteor awards was a mime. So the band were struggling with nothing at all. Every act at the meteors bar the last act were mimed backing track and a live vocal. On top of that, the backing tracks were mixed ridiculously low (or at least they were at the event, I didn't watch on TV) and I had no difficulty at all hearing the vocal tracks. The mics they use in Stadiums are the same as the ones they use in any live venue. No trickery there, the post above this has already called you on this fact so I wont bother

What a great post! I love it when you read something by someone that knows what they are talking about!

iamnothim

Why thank you. I thought I may have been getting a little flame-ish, but it's always good to call someone who's talking out there ass. I just did a similar one in the other meteor awards thread. Poor kid walked into it!

Yap Stam

Next time you see a nature programme on insects pay extra attention to the audio when they're playing a slow motion or close up of the insects; usually they play a recording of the insects wings making their beating noise, now if you go and stand close to a small insect thats taking off you won't hear any such thing- this is because the t.v. crew are using an extra-sensitive microphone to record the insect, this microphone picks up noises that are too low in volume for us to hear (but they're not out of our range of frequency, they're just not loud enough for us to hear). This is what producers do when someone's voice isn't very loud.
Someone said that the same microphone is used in stadiums as is used in studios. This isn't true, microphones used in stadiums are heavy duty (so they don't get damaged in transportation) and are supposed to project the sound as far as possible- thats their main purpose. Microphones in studios don't need to do this, all they need to do is make the singer sound good, thats it.

Why would it be necessary to mime those songs?

Look, she's sh1t- get over it.

mike65

Miming is done for the sake of convenience and a level of consistancy, producers of "live" events are funny like that.

Mike.

iamnothim

Yap Stam wrote: »

Next time you see a nature programme on insects pay extra attention to the audio when they're playing a slow motion or close up of the insects; usually they play a recording of the insects wings making their beating noise, now if you go and stand close to a small insect thats taking off you won't hear any such thing- this is because the t.v. crew are using an extra-sensitive microphone to record the insect, this microphone picks up noises that are too low in volume for us to hear (but they're not out of our range of frequency, they're just not loud enough for us to hear). This is what producers do when someone's voice isn't very loud.
Someone said that the same microphone is used in stadiums as is used in studios. This isn't true, microphones used in stadiums are heavy duty (so they don't get damaged in transportation) and are supposed to project the sound as far as possible- thats their main purpose. Microphones in studios don't need to do this, all they need to do is make the singer sound good, thats it.

Why would it be necessary to mime those songs?

Look, she's sh1t- get over it.

Quit talking ****e. You haven't a clue what you're on about.

BaZmO*

Yap Stam wrote: »

Next time you see a nature programme on insects pay extra attention to the audio when they're playing a slow motion or close up of the insects; usually they play a recording of the insects wings making their beating noise, now if you go and stand close to a small insect thats taking off you won't hear any such thing- this is because the t.v. crew are using an extra-sensitive microphone to record the insect, this microphone picks up noises that are too low in volume for us to hear (but they're not out of our range of frequency, they're just not loud enough for us to hear). This is what producers do when someone's voice isn't very loud.

Are you just pulling these facts out of your áss?

A lot of nature programmes just use sound effects as over dubs. What you're talking about just doesn't make sense.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

it doesn't have to make sense, he believes it.

BaZmO*

True

Also, why does your name keep on changing? Am I missing something??

Nailz

Duffy, now she can sing! I don't know of this Cathy Davey you speak of??

mike65

How does one change a username?

Mike

deecom

Haha, as someone who works as a sound engineer for the past 15 years, on both small and large shows, have toured as a system engineer for some very well known acts, the last few posts made me laugh!! I must find one of these special mics you talk of! On a side note, or what this thread is about! She is very good live, there is not that much eq on her voice, and only some effects. Hope she has a busy year, because she is a great artist. First album is worth a look too.

Dudess

Yap Stam: "Sorry but it's time for the truth". Jebus, no need to apologise! It's not that massive a scandal! That line is like something you'd use in the Conspiracy Theories forum...

BaZmO*

mike65 wrote: »

How does one change a username?

Mike

You need to have over 30,000 posts first.......oh wait!

mike65

There are so many going on right now I wuz wondering...

Mike.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

mike, see the mod forum

Yap Stam

BaZmO* wrote: »

Are you just pulling these facts out of your áss?

A lot of nature programmes just use sound effects as over dubs. What you're talking about just doesn't make sense.

On one of david attenborough's dvd's they have a special disk that tells you how they filmed all the stuff- on that the audio/boom man goes into detail about the special microphones they use and how they hide them.

BaZmO*

Yap Stam wrote: »

....a special disk that tells you how they filmed all the stuff....

Is this "special disk" like your "special posts"??

Batesy

Did they actually make Cathy Davey sing in slow motion at the awards the other night and just use one of these 'special' mics?!? Jaysus.......fair play to them.

lordgoat

BaZmO* wrote: »

Is this "special disk" like your "special posts"??

Zing!

Seriously Yap are you honestly comparing a concert to a bird or insect? Do you need someone to point out the massive difference to you? It's like saying you'd use the same equipment to climb Everest as you would go hiking in the wicklow mountains. Just give it up.

Oh and Cathy Davey in maynooth students union bar, one of the worst crods ever for a gig, was still awesome, no miming here and she has a great voice. And i can also safely say there was no "special mic" there!

Shoo

Yap Stam

lordgoat wrote: »

Zing!

Seriously Yap are you honestly comparing a concert to a bird or insect? Do you need someone to point out the massive difference to you? It's like saying you'd use the same equipment to climb Everest as you would go hiking in the wicklow mountains. Just give it up.

Thats exactly what I'm saying- you've ended up supporting my point, thanks. When Pope John Paul II spoke in St. Peter's square they had to use a special microphone to pick up his ailing voice because normal microphones didn't work.

I don't see whats so crazy about using different microphones for different singers- guitarists use different types of strings depending on what style they play.

Why don't you actually go and record and produce some music, you might see how all of this stuff works- although I've a feeling you lot are the type who know the exact model no. and purpose of everything inside a studio; but have never actually done anything.

I've met your type before.

iamnothim

okay - to end all this. Yap Stam - you are wrong. Very wrong. I'm a professional, I know makes, model numbers, all that ****, and I use them all. Frequently. There's no such thing as a 'special' mic to boost a weak sound. There's different types of mics for different purposes, there's also a lot of variety of mic with different frequency ranges, sensitivities, directionality, quality, durability and tone etc. Judging from photos like this (which I took)



It would appear cathy davey uses a neumann KMS105 condenser mic live. This is a very good live mic and very expensive. In my opinion, it's a better vocal mic than the industry standard shure SM58 dynamic mic used at 99% of shows worldwide - but it's also far more delicate and far more expensive. It's very likely Cathy owns this mic herself and brings it with her for live shows. It is very unlikely she uses it in studio. Studio mics are a whole different ballgame.

Yap Stam

iamnothim wrote: »

There's different types of mics for different purposes, there's also a lot of variety of mic with different frequency ranges, sensitivities, directionality, quality, durability and tone etc.
Studio mics are a whole different ballgame.

Thats what I said, I used 'special' as a way of distinguishing from the rest.
Whats funny is you even mentioned 'sensitivities'- exactly the point I was making, some microphones are more sensitive than others.

Its getting ridiculous now.

cornbb

Why don't you actually go and record and produce some music, you might see how all of this stuff works- although I've a feeling you lot are the type who know the exact model no. and purpose of everything inside a studio; but have never actually done anything.

Yap Stam, with respect, its obvious you don't have a clue what you're talking about. This isn't coming from an elitist, its coming from a guy who's still learning about this stuff himself. There's no such thing as "special" microphones or "normal" microphones, there are just different types which are useful for different things. Try reading up on different basic mic types (condenser, dynamic, ribbon), on different pickup patterns (cardioid, hypercardioid, omnidirectional, figure of 8) and on other techniques used to capture quiet or difficult sounds (compression, gating, EQing).

EQing is also a different ballgame, it is the process of filtering an audio signal in order to boost or cut certain frequency ranges. There's no turning it "up" or down.

yo boy

Yap Stam wrote: »

In the world of recording theres a thing called 'EQ' (it stands for 'equalization'). If you have a singer that has a weak voice what a producer will do is put the EQ up really high, this brings out their voice alot more and makes them sound alot better and strenghtens the voice. The problem is that in order to make the voice seem stronger everything has to picked up, thats why you hear all the inhalations of breath and when the letter 's' is pronounced it gets smudged -a bit like the way a radio presenter sounds when you can't get good reception. I watched Ms. Davey's performance at the Irish music awards thing, i expected her not to sound as good as her recordings but she was much worse than I thought. She kept being drowned out by the musicians behind her (even though they were struggling to keep it down) and on top of that I noticed that she can't hold a note for a very long time, because her voice is just too weak. These days they use special microphones in stadiums which can project otherwise weak voices at very loud volumes- but you've still got the problem relating to the general quality of the vocals. The songs are catchy and they are proving a hit, but lets call a spade a spade here and acknowledge the fact that her singing is more a result of studio trickery rather than any kind of training or perfection, she has alot to thank her producer for.

If she wrote those songs than maybe she has a future as a songwriter, but whatshe's doing is not good singing.

Ella Fitzgerald- Now there was a voice, and she didn't need no special microphone or canny producer either.

actually dude its called compression....

yo boy

haha..hadnt read the entire post....nice try!!!!!!!!!

lordgoat

Yap Stam wrote: »

lordgoat wrote: »

Zing!

Seriously Yap are you honestly comparing a concert to a bird or insect? Do you need someone to point out the massive difference to you? It's like saying you'd use the same equipment to climb Everest as you would go hiking in the wicklow mountains. Just give it up.

Thats exactly what I'm saying- you've ended up supporting my point, thanks. When Pope John Paul II spoke in St. Peter's square they had to use a special microphone to pick up his ailing voice because normal microphones didn't work.

I don't see whats so crazy about using different microphones for different singers- guitarists use different types of strings depending on what style they play.

Why don't you actually go and record and produce some music, you might see how all of this stuff works- although I've a feeling you lot are the type who know the exact model no. and purpose of everything inside a studio; but have never actually done anything.

I've met your type before.

No i'm not supporting your point you word twisitng little sh-it.

I've met your type before too, a last word freak knowitall wannabe.

The only thing more annoying than your lack of correct inforamtion is the fact that you still think you're right.

unclebill98

I found this tread from about 10 miles away....the bull**** is really stinky!!!

This is the funniest tread I've ever read.....

Cathy has a great voice, something diff. She was not sure herself her voice would work singing as the main vocal. Until she heard...ah balls I can't remember...!! Anyway, someone else with a nice soft vocal.

Anyway...tread of the year...so far

madtheory

Yap stam, sorry, but you're a perfect example of how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

If you need to record a quiet sound, you just turn up the volume (correct term is gain) on the mic! Don't confuse that with sensitivity. But this means that you will end up with all the background sound louder too. So if one were to do this with Cathy Davy's allegedly quiet voice, you'd just hear more of the rest of the band too! It's a little bit more complicated than you think, because mics have different pickup patterns, and are sensitive to different frequencies depending on where a sound source is within that pattern... it would take about 3 1 hour classes to explain the technicalities properly, so I suggest you sign up for a course!!

You seem to think that eq can make someone sound like they're in tune, but you're wrong. There is a "computer progam" called auto tune that can do this, but it's impossible to use in a live situation without causing other problems, so not many people do. Cathy certainly doesn't!

I respectfully suggest that you go to an actual Cathy Davy gig, and hear and see for yourself- she does sing in a soft style, but she doesn't need any trickery. She has talent, and there's no such thing as a talent button on the mixing desk. If there was, everyone would be doing it!

You do have a gift for entertainment, I'll give you that

buckfast4me

Whatever about her voice, I think her 2 main songs are very unoriginal with "borrowed" elements from other less well-known songs - examples

1) ruben - (elvis - his latest flame) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU18Uaz0jtY

2) and moving is basically supergrass-moving with the tempo increased- (around 1:35 you'll see what I mean) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di2WFaEBp5I

buckfast4me

Also certain parts of ruben sound a lot like - flaming lips - yeah yeah yeah song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNLJfb6jQVk

I knew from the moment I first start hearing her on the radio that it was very familiar and I'd heard it all before, fair enough if that's what your into - not my cup of tea though.

IanCurtis

buckfast4me wrote: »

Whatever about her voice, I think her 2 main songs are very unoriginal with "borrowed" elements from other less well-known songs - examples

1) ruben - (elvis - his latest flame) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU18Uaz0jtY

2) and moving is basically supergrass-moving with the tempo increased- (around 1:35 you'll see what I mean) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di2WFaEBp5I

Reuben is a total rip-off of the Elvis song, the least she could do is acknowledge the fact.

I've never heard her mention it once.