Mouth Off 01.24.10
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Around the Horn The ICCA/ICHSA begins, CARA nominations are on the way, win $25,000 singing the Folgers jingle, lots of aca-lumni on American Idol, The Choir comes to England, The Sing Off goes international?, Bill and Dio talk mastering on RARB, CASA.org features a great interview with Troy Horne, AcaPolitics is a riveting dramatic new novel about aca, LA/AF is THIS WEEKEND!, and Sing Off winners Nota will be headlining SingStrong!
My New Boyfriend Christopher can’t believe the arranging and vocal prowess of Overboard director, Nick Girard.
The Good Ol’ Days Dave tells us about the Grammy-decked, pioneering voices of Manhattan Transfer. It’s all about the music, baby.
I Just Gotta Say Christopher wants to know…where’s the bass? A short rant about the rumblings (or lack thereof) in recorded a cappella.
Album Review: Momentum- Face The boys give a little bit of tough love to the Sing-Off-featured rockers from Colorado, Face. If these guys want the big time, their recordings need more oomph…big time.
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I went back and listened to the back-to-back comparisons for the bass. For me the basslessness (new word?) is more evident in the kick than the bass line.
In the “Just Dance” original recording, it sounded like they had a square-wave bass sound going on (as well as square wave for some other background parts). I don’t know anything about producing/mixing/mastering, but I would imagine it would be difficult to emulate this effect by just doubling the bass in the a cappella mix or running it through any filter. I could be wrong, though. Regardless, this disparity could account for the perceived weakness in the bass line.
In the next song, I feel that the bass line intensity was matched, but the kick was at about 50% intensity of the original (to my ears). Maybe this could be changed with different mixing? Again, don’t know too much about that.
I’m listening on these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00008VF63/ . They’re cheap, but have great bass and are all-around superb for the price. I actually couldn’t tell the difference in bass with the original and covers at first. I had to go back and listen hard.
That’s my two-cents!
~Alfred
Can it just be a general rule to avoid Jason Mraz and Michael Buble songs when making an album?
I’m with Alfred on this one. Part of it is that not only is the bottom of the kick drum kind of lacking in the Red States, but the high mids of the beater slap and the upper harmonics are pretty anemic on Flashing Lights. In fact, the actual bass frequencies in Flashing Lights are even louder (maybe) than the original, we’re just missing the upper harmonics again.
The great thing about the bass in Jugadung (let’s call it that) is that it’s almost treated like a solo voice EQ-wise. Boosts up in the high mids, a little warmth, a little subtle distortion… it sounds like you should notice it.
On a related note, the bass in Face sounds like he’s either bored out of his mind or hearing Jack Johnson in his head when he sings rock basslines. ATTITUDE!
Christopher, you keep letting Dave make you jealous. Surely you’ve got something on him? Still, I’m in agreement with Dave here, Nick Girard is just a really, really nice guy. Actually, the whole group is. I got to hear them at a private performance December before last, about the time ‘Tidings’ came out. What really impresses me is that they not only keep up a full time gig schedule, they also put out a -lot- of albums, especially for a group that doesn’t do this as a full time venture. Five albums since 2006. They’ve very quickly moved up the ranks of the Boston scene, and are now up at the top along with FOCS and BitH. Im sure they could make it to the top, too, if only you could shorten their name to four initials as well. Like OVBD, but not reminiscent of a bad bumper sticker.
Lastly, Manhattan Transfer definitely kicks butt. But you should have connected them to Gene Puerling (who you covered in a Names You SHould Know segment) as the arranger of their Grammy winning ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’.
Hey Christopher, was intrigued by the opening snippets of the “jam-a-licious”, good-bass-examples tracks you played in the I Just Gotta Say Segment. What were they?