General Asylum

Posted by Timbo in Oz (A) on August 07, 2012 at 06:06:46

In Reply to: RE: We can't hardly control for that ourselves, can we? posted by Inmate51 on August 06, 2012 at 23:47:53

And quite a few other published articles, in fact I've probably bought quite a few single issues of magazines I'd not otherwise buy, because there was a stereo miking article in that issue.

I can forget things like the size of the Decca Tree array, but there you go I am over 60!

I've borrowed most of the books on the subject of recording and acoustics in the National Library, the local public library system, and from the University of Canberra where I was once a tutor in 'systems'. I'm now a Life-Member there.

I think I understand 'proximity effect' for example, and how different stereo miking arrays are written down as working.

But, I am looking forward to really learning - which only can happen through doing - and anticipate having to read quite a bit of it all over again in consequence. But then my reading will be more directed.

I am lucky that my system then and still is, capable of revealing what kind of stereo miking was used. A long-term friend is the recording engineer at our Canberra School of Music. He has a single capsule stereo mike hanging above the stage of the School's Lewellyn Hall. One of teh better big halls around.

I have heard some of the tapes he made of concerts, like one of the Academy of Ancient Music, and brought his old Revox G36 here. I had a Hi-Fi VHS recording which I'd set-up on the VCR's timer before my wife and I went to the concert.

We and my wife agreed that we could easily hear the one extra mike used by the ABC to spot-light the soloist Anthony Pay (?) who was playing the basset-clarinet in WAM's 'Clarinet' Concerto, for which it was actually written.

On the night, live, the instrument disappeared 'into the mix' when the orchestral tuttis got loud and Pay was joining in outside his solo score but on the ABC's direct broadcast you could just hear it as a distinct sound even then. Level too high?

For someone who didn't know the score but familiar with the piece from other performances, they might have thought it was strange, or a newly found score. Engineer / producer decision?

The coincident-only - 'bootlegged!' - tape was more like the sound we heard at the concert, in that Pay and his instrument blended back in as as he did on the night, when he wasn't soloing. The engineer's tape was at least as enjoyable in every other way and had more depth, probably because height can exaggerate that with a stereo array.

I am hoping to play around with how that single capsule mike can be moved around on its wires/ropes, and borrow some of the mikes he has available.

Canberra has a lot of live acoustic music going on, some of it free or available to us old folk for a discount, and it's not always being recorded IME. Do a deal with them for a copy, and I'd probably get in for free! ;-)!

This was a memorable concert for another reason, it was in 1988 and I had the day before resigned from the civil service and gone out on my own as a consultant to companies needing to put a case to government on issues to do with industry protection, tariffs, dumping etc.

I took Patricia to the National Gallery near where I worked for lunch and in the restaurant was Christopher Hogwood and the concert manager of Llewellyn Hall. My wife was adamant that I shouldn't go over and talk to them, thinking I'd gush.....

I said, 'Hullo, you are Christopher Hogwood aren't you!' ..... 'Thankyou for your music!" and went and rejoined Patricia. The waiter came a bit alter and they had us join them and they paid for lunch. This was before William Christie and Les Arts Florissant really took off and Hogwood was very interested in what I thought of French Baroque music and its future market.

Chris gave us good tickets right near where the reviewer's used to sit and passes for the after party for the next night's concert.

That same afternoon I'd been invited to a cocktail party by the President of the Specialty Chemicals Manufacturers Association of Australia. Because I'd resolved an anomaly in rates of tariff applying to the same product but with different fibres for his company Cussons, Australia.
By 'tabling' a Tariff Amendment in 'the House' resolving the anomaly using the then Gov'ts stated policy of no anomalies of that kind as the reason and, as usual with Tariff Amendments, not a murmur from the members or later the Senators. He'd also taken me to lunch and had written me a recommendation for me to use in my marketing.

I was greeted by the president, given a drink, and taken over to a group which turned out to have a few senior guys from my Department (of Industry). One of whom, recently but no longer my boss, said in surprise "What are ~you~ doing here, Tim?!" So, I nodded at our host and winked, and he told him.

And then I said, 'I think I know how the system works, don't you?!'. Stunned silence, and then one of the directors under him in his new Branch, said, "I think we've been underestimating you, Tim!".

I walked form the hotel to the Hall, met Patricia and went to the concert and after party.

Chris H. later sent me an autograpphed copy of his book on Handel.

Memories, eh?! ;-)

Note that a post in response is preferred.

Warmest

Timothy Bailey

The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger

And gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!

'Still not saluting.'

• CSoM's venues incl. Llewellyn Hall   (Open in New Window)

Edits: 08/07/12   08/07/12