Name a Good Irish Recording

krd · 23-06-2010 6:45pm

Rockshamrover wrote: »

Most of the songs we connect with come from a shared emotion or feeling.
If the performer doesn't feel it the audience definitely wont.

There's the song, the listener and the bit in the middle that connects them.

The bit in the middle is where it's at;)

Well this something I believe, especially singers, have to do to make their thing work.

It's like method acting. And you'll notice all interesting singers do it. The better ones do it in a way you don't even notice they're doing it. Bad ones, it sounds really hammy and fake - and that could be the person too - assholes will always sound like assholes - very boring people will always sound very boring. Everyone "knows" when they hear a singer layering on the "emotion" if it's real or not.

There's a story about Sinead O'Connor's video shoot for nothing compares to you. That on camera she had the tears rolling. But between takes she had dub reggae booming, smoking spliffs and messing around with her girlfriends who were along for the shoot.

As George Burns famously said
"Sincerity - If you can fake that, you've got it made."

I've also heard it said - that real emotion in a singers voice is virtually impossible to fake - that the singer is really drawing on something real - but that they also have the ability to turn it on and off like a tap.

And if you feel cheated - welcome to showbuisness kid.

But for a singer - to get it to work, you really have to learn not just how to hit the notes but how to make it feel. In method acting, the actor thinks of situation in their life, that has the right emotion for the piece they're acting. They then let it naturally come into their performance - so the performance looks natural and believable. It's so subtle, they wouldn't be able to consciously replicate it. People have an instinctive reflex for scanning voices and faces for lying. A voice or face will feel wrong, long before you know what's wrong.

All kinds of emotions.

Like Crystal Swing can get that twisted creepy incest feeling into their music. Maybe they've all done it together - maybe they haven't. Either way, it's a very convincing performance.

A producer has two choices when trying to get an "emotional" performance from a singer. One, they can ask the singer to think of a painful childhood memory, to get in side the feeling and put that pain in the performance....Or two...they can give the singer a dig in the nuts, just before the take.

Rockshamrover · 23-06-2010 7:44pm

All very true KRD.

Then again, it can just be the music that you connect with. Ravelle's Bolero (spelling?) Gabriel's Oboe "The Mission". Even Riverdance
:rolleyes:

Tomohawk · 23-06-2010 10:12pm

Interesting thread, here's my 2 cents : Indie favourites A-house recorded the album "I Want Too Much" in 1988 on the small Irish island of Inishboffin. I think they hauled one of the desks from Abbey road out to the island to record on it. That was the rumour back then anyway. The sound is very clear on the album, very bright and upfront. Lots of accoustic instruments also.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned My Bloody Valentine and their Loveless albumm, which is a surprising result given the list of studios used and techniques employed. I heard at the time 1991 that Kevin Shields erected a marqee inside the studio control room. Anyway it costs loads of money, quarter of a million at the time.

Another rumour at the time was that InTuaNua have the honour of recording the most expensive Irish album never to be released. Their big record company sat on it or so the story goes.

ebaysellerrob · 23-06-2010 10:16pm

muses second album was recorded over here recorded

dasdog · 23-06-2010 10:32pm

Planxty - After The Break (1979)

On the "band" front I thought Fatima Mansions did some interesting stuff.

Robin Ball · 23-06-2010 10:52pm

How about Kopek?? Recorded by me, gotta be good!! :-)

http://www.myspace.com/kopek

PaulBrewer · 24-06-2010 9:10am

Tomohawk wrote: »

Interesting thread, here's my 2 cents : Indie favourites A-house recorded the album "I Want Too Much" in 1988 on the small Irish island of Inishboffin. I think they hauled one of the desks from Abbey road out to the island to record on it. That was the rumour back then anyway. The sound is very clear on the album, very bright and upfront. Lots of accoustic instruments also.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned My Bloody Valentine and their Loveless albumm, which is a surprising result given the list of studios used and techniques employed. I heard at the time 1991 that Kevin Shields erected a marqee inside the studio control room. Anyway it costs loads of money, quarter of a million at the time.

Another rumour at the time was that InTuaNua have the honour of recording the most expensive Irish album never to be released. Their big record company sat on it or so the story goes.

Tomo, the point of the thread is recent Irish recording.

MBV recorded in London.

krd · 24-06-2010 9:17am

Robin Ball wrote: »

How about Kopek?? Recorded by me, gotta be good!! :-)

http://www.myspace.com/kopek

The guy's got a really great voice and really knows what to do with it. He really pulls out all the stops; growls, howls and falsettos. Keeps it interesting the whole way through.

They're doing pretty well; 418503 plays on myspace, and counting.

How did the singer get that performance? Did he just turn up at the mike and do it? Hundreds of overdubs or a single take, then have his voice shot out for weeks?

novarock · 24-06-2010 9:41am

krd wrote: »

The guy's got a really great voice and really knows what to do with it. He really pulls out all the stops; growls, howls and falsettos. Keeps it interesting the whole way through.

They're doing pretty well; 418503 plays on myspace, and counting.

How did the singer get that performance? Did he just turn up at the mike and do it? Hundreds of overdubs or a single take, then have his voice shot out for weeks?

I know this guy, I reckon its a one take type job, absolutely fantastic singer..

Robin Ball · 24-06-2010 9:51am

He did it pretty much as you hear it, we tracked the entire song a few times.. make sure he had the vibe going. We took plenty of rests 'cause it's pretty rough on his voice. We comped it together, generally he had everything spot on, any little tweaks were just quickly sung in.

On most of the album he sang into a SM7b, on the slower tunes I put up a Brauner Valvet always into a Neve 8801 and 1073.

He's a fantastic singer...

Robin Ball · 24-06-2010 9:52am

His voice never got shot, generally he had a day on and a day off, when he's on he can nail it all day long!

ebaysellerrob · 24-06-2010 2:50pm

actually was mbv first album not recored in amsterdam they were signed to tiger records over there then

krd · 24-06-2010 6:31pm

Robin Ball wrote: »

He did it pretty much as you hear it, we tracked the entire song a few times.. make sure he had the vibe going. We took plenty of rests 'cause it's pretty rough on his voice. We comped it together, generally he had everything spot on, any little tweaks were just quickly sung in.

On most of the album he sang into a SM7b, on the slower tunes I put up a Brauner Valvet always into a Neve 8801 and 1073.

He's a fantastic singer...

That's pretty amazing. He does lots of tricky sounding stuff, he sounds really fluid.

I've heard of singers taking months to have enough to comp.

Vibe is the thing. I think it's what's wrong with many vocal recordings - they sound really stiff, like the singer is trying too hard to stay in tune.

Anything else about the session?

I hope it's a real success for the guys.

jtsuited · 24-06-2010 8:06pm

Another vote here for heartworm by whipping boy. one of the first albums I owned as a kid (think I was about 11 when it came out).

Robin Ball · 24-06-2010 9:00pm

Well,

he had a special booth that we made from rockwool and cotton linings, had some mood lighting, water and things to make him comfortable. Tracks were done 2 a day when he was 'on', he is a great singer. There was a small amount of tuning, I mean very small, what you hear on the record is what you get in the show. We comped to make sure the 'soul' was captured properly, getting the right delivery was more important than getting it perfectly in tune. It was a good working experience. I put a lot of time into getting the performance from artists, making sure they are comfortable and confident, the ego is a fragile thing!

krd wrote: »

That's pretty amazing. He does lots of tricky sounding stuff, he sounds really fluid.

I've heard of singers taking months to have enough to comp.

Vibe is the thing. I think it's what's wrong with many vocal recordings - they sound really stiff, like the singer is trying too hard to stay in tune.

Anything else about the session?

i57dwun4yb1pt8 · 24-06-2010 10:41pm

thats a great band , and voice .

what does COMP mean in terms of vocals ?

krd · 24-06-2010 11:32pm

DaDumTish wrote: »

thats a great band , and voice .

what does COMP mean in terms of vocals ?

It's short for compile - you record a bunch of vocal takes - then you compile the best bits onto a single track -as a single performance.

The same technique can be applied to all other musicians. That way, they can play or sing, screw up and fluff in the middle of a take and don't have to go back to the beginning to stressfully restart the take. You comp the best of say three takes ( or 20 or 48)- that way you don't have to go "all right let's stop everything - Mr. Guitar hero just blew another 50 quid of your studio time - let's go back to the beginning and start all over again. Right, Mr. 2€Shop Jimmy Page, just relax, and let's try and do it again without the **** ups - without the costly **** ups - you **** up - bet your mother's proud of you"

krd · 25-06-2010 12:14am

Robin Ball wrote: »

Well,

he had a special booth that we made from rockwool and cotton linings, had some mood lighting, water and things to make him comfortable. Tracks were done 2 a day when he was 'on', he is a great singer. There was a small amount of tuning, I mean very small, what you hear on the record is what you get in the show. We comped to make sure the 'soul' was captured properly, getting the right delivery was more important than getting it perfectly in tune. It was a good working experience. I put a lot of time into getting the performance from artists, making sure they are comfortable and confident, the ego is a fragile thing!

I wouldn't use the word ego - it has very negative connotations. Singing, and singing well, really demands the singer feels absolutely confident and they're not being sneered and laughed at in the control room. If they're fighting paranoia - their vocal chords tighten up and the have to work against that.

Personally, I hate musicians - they tend to be passive aggressive little bastards who like ****ing up each others performance. Not a great idea if you're in the same band - but some people don't realise that taking the singer "down a peg or two" is shooting themselves in the foot...or head even. It's why Ziggy had to break up the band and throw Mick Ronson on the Rock'n'Roll (rhyming slang for the dole).

Robin, why don't you open a thread to talk about the Kopek album? It could be a really big record - it'd be great to hear you talk about - before inside the music, or whatever that documentary show is, gets to you.

Robin Ball · 25-06-2010 1:33am

Maybe you're right on the ego thing, what I meant to say was self-esteem and the musicians view of him/herself, it can make or break a performance.

Bands are a minefield, it's like being married to 4 different people at once I always thought, have not been in one for some time now, tricky.... very tricky. Managing musicians is the most useful thing a producer can do in the studio!

If anyone would like to know anything about the recording I'm happy to answer any questions that come up, as for Inside the Music, they won't want to talk to me before I've been in a plane crash and had a few drug overdoses!!

(Band politics would be a very interesting thread)

krd wrote: »

I wouldn't use the word ego - it has very negative connotations. Singing, and singing well, really demands the singer feels absolutely confident and they're not being sneered and laughed at in the control room. If they're fighting paranoia - their vocal chords tighten up and the have to work against that.

Personally, I hate musicians - they tend to be passive aggressive little bastards who like ****ing up each others performance. Not a great idea if you're in the same band - but some people don't realise that taking the singer "down a peg or two" is shooting themselves in the foot...or head even. It's why Ziggy had to break up the band and throw Mick Ronson on the Rock'n'Roll (rhyming slang for the dole).

Robin, why don't you open a thread to talk about the Kopek album? It could be a really big record - it'd be great to hear you talk about - before inside the music, or whatever that documentary show is, gets to you.

Name a Good Irish Recording

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