The Nearness of You – =Improvise in Middle

[Robert Frederick]

OK Everyone. I am ready for some assistance. Tried a little improvising.

Selmer Mar VII
Carbon Fiber MS
Original Mouthpiece
Running blowout of my mic and amp into PC with Audacity
Sounds like I am playing an oboe

Give me your thoughts on what you like and improvements.

Dr. Zoot

The nearness of you

[brother cavefish]

the recording set up could just be junk, bare in mind you are playing into a computer,, never had much luck myself that way is this an external mic and amp or everything in the computer, also your playing might be too exact, too simple, almost sounds like midi file from what i hear,, the mouthpiece might need to change and the reed, for me carbon fiber sounds like carbon fiber,, bamboo is the best for me , the wood sound comes through , for me,,, what backing track are you using Jazzbacks has some nice ones more colorful

[Anonymous]

in my own experience, and i’ve used garage band, logic pro, 8 track digital recorder. The 8 track was the easiest to use and was slightly better sounding than the others.

But and a massive but, the room you record in has a massive impact on your recording – doesn’t matter how much technical recording equipment you’ve got. If you want decent recordings you’ve got two options, either hire a recording studio (and that will blow your mind away) or get one of your rooms in your house converted into a recording studio (you can do it yourself).

if like me, i cant afford to record in a recording studio and cant afford to convert a room into one. The next best option is to have music lessons as some music teachers teach in their own home recording studios – and they will let you do a decent recording in their studio, which will sound miles better.

I’ve given up on the recording front, and just use a GoPro in my bedroom, which has that much carpet and furniture in it, that it absorbs all the sound waves.

A bath room sounds great to play in, but is the worst place to record in as the sound is bouncing off everything.

Listening to your recording, you play very well. How ever the you don’t sound in tune with the backing track. i do a lot of art work and in art work one of the biggest problems people have with drawing is they look at an object and they don’t draw what they see of the object, they tend to draw what their mind knows what the object looks like in general.
It’s the same thing with sound, you can get carried away and play what your mind thinks is in tune rather than what your ear is hearing in tune. My ear is hearing the backing track in tune, but not your sax playing. if you are not pitch perfect, then every day before you start, you need to reset your mind to play a few keys in tune with a pitch generator. A persons mind has to be reminded of what an exact pitch should sound like on a regular basis, as the mind has a short term memory of exact pitches.

It is possible your recording set up is making you sound out of pitch. The room acoustics you are recording in, can affect how you are hearing the backing track pitch and causing your mind to adjust your sax pitch playing slightly different.

Who knows, i’ve given up on getting good recordings, most of the time i sound better than the recording in terms of sound (not in terms of playing, i don’t play as well as your playing).

Just play, record and have fun..

[Anonymous]

this is art, where one colour is surrounded by another colour. Yet the same colour in the middle looks a different colour, but it’s still the same colour!
http://www.designmatrix.com/pl/cyberpl/cic.html

Sound behaves in a similar manner, your sax sound is surrounded by the backing track sound. Change the backing track sound and you will think your sax sounds different, where as in reality, your sax sounds the same in both cases.

[john]

My advice is to now try to change one thing and try again
Don’t change a few things and redo cause then you won’t know what made the difference
At this point don’t change the things you can’t control such as your program and backing track (of coarse you can change if you want but keep as is)
What you can change and make a difference is your EQ and mic and maybe more importantly your reed and mouthpiece

If you change your reed AND the EQ then you won’t know which of those made the change so one thing at a time

But what you’re doing is right and now u need to keep reaching and making it better

[Ridge]

My first thought was EQ the mic sounded hot to me. next thought was to lower recording level in audacity.

[RockinRobin]

I’ll be working on my recorded sound today. I’m using garage band, audient interface . ribbon preamp. ribbon mic and carbon onyx reeds medium trying to put some buzz into the sound.7* slant sig 2 mouthpiece.

[saxomonica]

ya Doc Zoot it does sound a bit oboeish, maybe overmodulated with a bit to much mic gain and overdriving amp
but heaps better than i can do
i like the pronounced legato, variation in volume, the high notes around 3:00 on are real good but the bass ones not so much
i love the way your sax lazily weaves in and around the off beat and overall it is a lovely air
looking forwards to your take 2, that is coz i’d like to try recording into PC with Audacity too soon
let us know what small changes made one at a time offered up for best effect? cheers 🙂
heya on another note found vid clip below helps out with tonal development; ie sighing, and arching soft pallete
“to achieve one must heap up small things”

[Author]

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