Whistle meets Telemann

[weedie]

Lovely stuff MT....a real pleasure to listen to ...

[brewerpaul]

Terrific recording, Guru!
I've played this hundreds of times on it's original Alto recorder, and you really did it justice.

Now, for the Fantasias...

[kennychaffin]

once again, yer seeking to destroy the ambiance of the whistle forum

ain't it?

[peeplj]

Beautifully played.

--James

[synergy]

I'd also like to add that as great as the whistle playing is, the midi accomp. is also wonderfully done. Did you use a pre-made loop or did you roll it out yourself? It sounds wonderful for midi.

[anniemcu]

(Where's that 'jaw drop' emoticon when you need it?)

Most wow-inspiring!

[jkrazy52]

OUTSTANDING!!




Me -> ........... <- MTGuru

[synergy]

OUTSTANDING!!




Me -> ........... <- MTGuru

You forgot the . . . "we're not worthy, we're not worthy"

[MTGuru]

I'd guess there are thousands of school kids who could do a better job on whistle, recorder or otherwise than my amateur effort ... a humbling thought. But it's sure fun to try.

The trickiest thing to play are those accidentals in the B part. The darn whistle doesn't have any of those handy key thingies on it, just a bunch of holes.

Hmm... that's interesting. I've tried to make some recordings with my SM58 but the sound I get is nowhere near this nice. I thought that maybe I need a condenser mic, but obviously it's possible to get good results from dynamic mics as well. Maybe I need to experiment more with mic placement.

I imagine your SM58 should work fine; as you know, it's basically the same microphone. You do need a good preamp (the Behringer board is not bad). I use a foam windscreen and point the mic down toward the fipple around 20 cm away. I also roll off the treble -3 dB above 12 kHz. Try recording the whistle at a fairly low level, -12 dB or less, then normalize later. I find that helps to reduce harshness and noise with my limited space and poor acoustics.

I'd also like to add that as great as the whistle playing is, the midi accomp. is also wonderfully done. Did you use a pre-made loop or did you roll it out yourself? It sounds wonderful for midi.

Yes, the continuo is nice, but my own keyboard skills are in chopsticks territory. The midi file is from the Recorder Home Page midi page, transcribed by Randy Kwak (with a few clinkers repaired by me). And the patches are just my default 4MB SoundBlaster sound fonts.

Ah. So that's about what it would sound like in my kitchen.

If your kitchen looks like Notre Dame cathedral.

[synergy]

Try recording the whistle at a fairly low level, -12 dB or less, then normalize later. I find that helps to reduce harshness and noise with my limited space and poor acoustics.

Very good advice. I record everything this way. Only I usually don't normalize later as that can bring on unwanted noises as well. I just keep all my levels around -12 to -10 dB which, with a few instruments like this, will show the master level around -8 to -6 dB. I then bring the overall level up with master compression or just a master limiter if the mix doesn't need any compression.

[Jerry Freeman]

Ah. So that's about what it would sound like in my kitchen.

If your kitchen looks like Notre Dame cathedral.

Actually, my kitchen does sound like that.

I'm doing some work, and there's no furniture in there right now. No curtains, large glass surfaces (patio door, large windows), ceramic tile floor, smooth nonacoustical ceiling, about 16' X 15' area.

The Supremes recorded in a bathroom because in the record company offices, that was the room with the best reverb at a time when the recording equipment was unsophisticated and the studio redimentary.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[Paddyman]

[Traveler]

Absolutely amazing, John. You are, in fact, the man.

W:boggle:W!!

[West]

You do need a good preamp (the Behringer board is not bad).

That's probably the weak link in my setup. I'm plugging the mic directly into my old Soundblaster Live!. The kX drivers let me control input gain... but the whole deal is very noisy. The woes of cheap A/D converters I suppose. Note to self: get a decent mic preamp.

I use a foam windscreen and point the mic down toward the fipple around 20 cm away. I also roll off the treble -3 dB above 12 kHz.

20 cm I've been recording at like 5 cm to get a good input level... Are you using any compression? I've found it very hard to record my whistle playing without quite heavy compression. There's huge differences in volume between octaves, though that might be related to my whistles and/or my technique.

Try recording the whistle at a fairly low level, -12 dB or less, then normalize later. I find that helps to reduce harshness and noise with my limited space and poor acoustics.

I never normalize, I compress. But I see your point.

Also, sorry for derailing the topic with a lot of technical talk. This is a lovely and very impressive piece -- it really shows the versatility of this little instrument. I was just curious how you got that very sweet whistle sound.

I'd also like to add that as great as the whistle playing is, the midi accomp. is also wonderfully done. Did you use a pre-made loop or did you roll it out yourself? It sounds wonderful for midi.

Hey! Don't underestimate midi!

[kennychaffin]

...

Hey! Don't underestimate midi!

Yes, never underestimate midi, particularly with a great synth for the output!