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TFM MD'S musical approach and recording technqs

Topic started by UV (@ 138.88.107.150) on Sun Feb 3 14:58:08 EST 2002.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Here we will discuss constructively about the various trends in compsoing,recording techniqs,methods that existed,adopted,tried and being introduced by all our MDS with major focus IR nd ARR followed by others.
Hopefully those who read the postings will get an idea about Music making and thats its an art of the highest creativity of human mind.
And not mere digital gadgetry or synth music

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Srikanth (@ 151.201.225.222) on: Thu Feb 7 07:51:09 EST 2002
  
  Sam, in Kandukonden kandukonden song did you note it has different bass parts for each saranam.
  
  
  Kiru,
  Kandukonden kandukonden is very nice number musically, epspecially when you often talk of melodies etc, I think song deserved a second chance without any bias :-) (justkidding)
  
  for the rain, rather than crash it is a ride cymbal and the rain drops is not from a keyboard, I think it is from a drum machine. btw:Even though this songs is supposed to have it beats from a Dr Alban song ? ...kiru...:) once again are we drifting here, just because arr used the same sample library he is having his day till now
  Both happened to use the same library, (this is a first hand info from Arr.:)
  
  good discussion guys,
  
  
• From: UV (@ 134.113.203.85) on: Thu Feb 7 11:26:41 EST 2002
  
  Guys
  the one song that keeps me haunting is this 'KanduKonden Kandukonden' from that movie.
  First the melody wise it is really cool and has a nice groove to it.
  Song structure wise there are so many nice things to say about it.
  From the very begining to the end
  Esp the bass,it simply rules!!,look at the way it joins the song that itself is nice
  he has used fretless bass if i am right?
  The way he handles those sounds are pretty amazing. Nice use of cymbals and bell sounds :)
  And then in final interlude the way the violins and flute joins is very nice once again bass joins smoothly into the song.
  
  Srikanth did you notice any timing problem with 'Endhan Nenjil' song?
  
  
• From: UV (@ 134.113.203.85) on: Thu Feb 7 11:49:23 EST 2002
  
  Guys one more nice song
  Hope someone can explain in detail.
  Song 'Kannan vandu padukindran' from Rettai Val Kuruvi its a nice song with good bass notes and brass usage.
  
  When Janaki sings the first stanza everytime the chords progress from 1#-2#-3# phases i may be wrong? if someone can explain as whether its the chords or just an appregio ?
  
  The ending of the song is also great
  
  
• From: kiru (@ 192.138.150.249) on: Thu Feb 7 13:15:45 EST 2002
  
  Srikanth, thanks for the info on ride vs crash cymbals.
  "btw:Even though this songs is supposed to have it beats from a Dr Alban song ? ...kiru...:) once again are we drifting here, just because arr used the same sample library he is having his day till now Both happened to use the same library, (this is a first hand info from Arr.:) "
  Srikanth, I dont understand this use of library loops probably. Can you explain more ? What all/kind of songs are orchestrated using this ? (Many songs of Muthu sound like this, _ this CD is still in my car, that is why I am on Muthu :)) Like I suspect, ARR is the first to do this. And I am sure people would like to understand how he uses these tools/techniques/libraries.
  
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ 216.65.106.130) on: Thu Feb 7 14:47:24 EST 2002
  
  Kiru, here I go :)
  What is simple keyboard?
  Keyboard is collection of processed sound waves packed inside a ROM, it maps each wav sound to different instrument and splits them into different keys based on the musical frequency (WAV Table). This is your simply Casio keyboard. But if your keyboard now allows you to process or change the wav (in the ROM) it becomes a synth, however the sounds are still limited to the ROM. The manufacturer gives these oneshot samples. You don’t have control over the quality of the sound wave,. Korg Triton, Kurz, Emu-Porteus , Roland, Yamaha have very good sound (one shot) samples, more you pay better quality you get. (IMO each of specialize in certain sound. For piano it is Yamaha, for brass it is Korg.)
  
  But when you are allowed to load your own sound wave and play around with it, it becomes a sampler. You can choose the sound! For your keyboard, these days a keyboard is often bundled with a sampler, however stand-alone samplers like AKAI are industry standards. With a sampler we can capture any sound and convert it to an instrument. It can slice/stretch (etc) and create an octave of sounds. There are tons of Samples in the market, they are packed and grouped in CDs. Which we can load it into the sampler. We can also sample (record) our own sounds (like spoons, tumbler, cup, table) :)
  
  In general there are 2 kinds of samples
  1. One-shot, just one sound, like a crash Cymbal, we get one shot of Tabla, like each sound is sampled as one-shot or the “SA”note in a veena, we create one shots of each note and map it the sampler-keyboard
  2. Loops: Loops are basically a musical phrase set to a BPM and a bar length. Drum, bass, guitar riffs/licks loops are quite popular, you ask a big time drummer to play some beats (for a BPM and bar length) record this into a sampler keyboard like triton and assign this loop to a key so when you press this key instead of one shot you get the whole drum groove. Musicians like Arr who work with top artists records each and every action of the artists and preserves this recording, uses them as samples in some other song at later date. So nothing is wasted, in olden days wrong or incorrect “takes” are over written, this is called destructive recording, but in digital era nothing is lost, it is kept aside can be used later. You have full control over it. So a musical phrase is not restricted to one song that is being recorded.
  
  As this technology grew, many drummers and musicians started to create sample cds, collection of Loops/one-shots (or some other format like Akai), They play some common beat patterns and create some good phrases for others to plug it in into their score, these samples are of very hi quality (both musically and recording). These are categorized based on music styles; some time ago in Tamil songs we had a lot of influence of LATIN beats and phrases. A huge bundle of Latin CD was released during this time. Arr was first to use it and then YSR followed then slowly T.D and H started using it.
  Many musicians buy these cds (off the shelf) and use the sample grooves, Arr also does this when needed. This is to get some good and fresh new musical flavors. IMO This not wrong this is a technology growth, you use a service, you pay of it, instead of a top artist working for you in your studio you have his sample CD, you have more choice, however trouble starts when it is used as it is. 99 out of 100 times ARR does not use it as it was in the CD. Since these CDs are available worldwide, Arr can use it, T can use .D can use it. and Dr.Alban or compunder Alban can get it and use it. Some thing like use the same keyboard model across. Also people need to understand, I tell this time and time again, This is just one of the trick for a musician/composer, a musician does not contain himself with sample CD alone. Only a mere DJ uses sample CDs and try to remix someones track. A responsible music fan should not evaluate ARR capacity or creativity with just a bunch of sample cds or some aloof comments. If you ask me using the proper sample at a proper time, is an art by itself. If using sample cds is not a big deal, same CDs are available to everyone; there should be 100000 ARRS by now.
  
  
  Note: The reason I went on raving about Arr in the last para is just to discuss with Kiru, what I feel on ARR, please don’t misuse our discussion to divert track. Kiru and I know clearly where we stand. Btw: Kiru, a song Sounding like some other song I heard is not a valid argument in this court:),
  
  
  
• From: kiru (@ 192.138.150.249) on: Thu Feb 7 15:10:11 EST 2002
  
  Srikanth..Fantastic !!I am sure lots of people will find this info useful. I strongly agree with you - getting to the level of ARR even using samples/loops is no joke. Surely, he is a very talented MD. We should also appreciate his guts/new thinking to try music making differently.
  BTW, a loop can be assigned to a key ? I thought it can only be played in the background, while you keep playing ? Can you give some examples/demo of this loop thingy ?
  
  "Loops are basically a musical phrase set to a BPM and a bar length" - clearly explained. Thanks Srikanth.
  
  
• From: UV (@ 134.113.203.85) on: Thu Feb 7 16:30:02 EST 2002
  
  Wonderful Srikanth
  Hopefully people will think before throwing in some ignorant comments without knowing the depth invovled in this. Music making is no joke however the techngly improves.
  "If using sample cds is not a big deal, same CDs are available to everyone; there should be 100000 ARRS by now"
  This statement is so true,if false we would have seen so many of them now unfortunately no.
  
  Guys
  One of my favourite Rock Band 'Scorpions'(German) done new album which so far only few have attempted
  its fusion of Rock and Symphony
  The band plays the famous songs along with Berlin Phil harmonik Orchestra .
  They sync so well and the listener is left with extraordinary experience of 'RockOpera'.
  Man what an rush amazing stuff.
  There is a peice where they have used indian instruments.It gives me gooze bimbles to listen
  The album name is 'Moment of Glory' scorpions and Berlin PhilHarmonik Orchestra
  
  
• From: Sombu Nilagriesar (@ 64.105.35.113) on: Thu Feb 7 17:33:54 EST 2002
  
  Srikanth, what do you think of S.A. Rajkumar's usage of samples?
  
  
• From: Sam (@ 132.235.18.15) on: Thu Feb 7 17:41:40 EST 2002
  
  Kiru, my two cents on "song-sounding-as-someother-song"
  I also feel that song sounding like some other song is not valid (of course there might be one or two exceptions). A creative musician tries to get something new in a "song-sounding-as-someother-song". If u take GNR's appetite for destruction, all are hard rock songs, same genre, but u can differentiate between Paradise City and Sweet Child o Mine in that album.
  Again, people complained that when Boonden se baatein came, that it sounded like Musthafa Musthafa, and when Shingu lingu came , they said it sounded like Boondein Se baatein. But if u observe, Musthafa Musthafa is a college song with emphasis on string instruments like guitars, Boondein se baatein is song abt the girl and rain and the emphasis was on gettin that feeling with violins, flutes and santoor, and shingu lingu was a peppy number with trumpets on the front. (Lets not go to whethere these are great numbers, only trying to show difference). Only thing I can see common is that they all have reggae style chords. MAy be the MD wanted to try somethin within the reggae style. Wish to hear ur views too.
  
  
  Sriknath, yep I saw that the bass guitar is more prominent in the second charanam. Cud u please tell us more about rhythm programming also? Another thing I noted, but I am not sure is, at the credits we have Sivamani mostly on real percussion, than on rhythm programming. Cud u also tell how these two differ?
  
  
• From: Sam (@ 132.235.18.15) on: Thu Feb 7 17:49:13 EST 2002
  
  UV, metallica did it with SanFrancisco Symphony with Michale Kamen conducting the orchestra.
  
  

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