Recorded and mixed on a D8B

[FrankH]

In all the years I've been on this forum, I've never posted a link to any of the audio work I do with the D8B. But this cover made me laugh...and is worth sharing with the lot of you.

Let me just say this...it started out as a simple piano piece and...um...kinda snowballed out of control after a while. About 40% is live tracks, the rest is sequenced VST instruments.

http://78cf01617e3950417f0c-edf74d1b5a4 ... TheSky.mp3

[Phil.c]

Hi Frank...that is excellent, I love it, very close to the original sound and feel, I like your take on Lennon's voice...everything works, Well Done my friend

I have been doing oldies copies for many years, as we're on the Beatles theme, here's two, A DAY IN THE LIFE was recorded to get those early sounds warts and all, as they were not perfect as we know regarding drums etc, I have actually played the piano's which were in the last famous chord, this was on one of my visits to Abbey Roads Studio 2.

A friend played guitar for the vocal part with this one, I played the last verse.

https://app.box.com/s/euug8c81520a5hlhdz89cr6bqrsdj149

Here's some backward stuff

https://app.box.com/s/7jl5l7vcribqgnhgmend

Phil

[Bruce Graham]

Hey Phil is that you on LAP STEEL?

Nice!

Bruce

[Phil.c]

Strat bruce, no lap steel.

Phil

[FrankH]

Thank you Phil. I listened to "A Day in the Life". Jeez...if only that piano was in tune for the last chord, huh? All the little drum things didn't bother me a bit as they kept to the spirit of the original. Pretty good rendition, though. I couldn't listen to the other piece because the damn thing won't download from the site. It starts then sticks.

OK...so while we're on this Beatles thing....I've uploaded a version of "She's Leaving Home". Not done a D8B....mainly because the D8B didn't exist when I did this over 20 years ago. However, it was recorded and mixed with a pair of Mackie 1604's. A Tascam 1/2" 8tk SMPTE slaved an Atari Falcon running Cubase, MIDI'ing a slew of analog synths and samplers. It started out as an ear training exercise to try and pick out the string arrangement....and um...when I finished the instrumental, I couldn't live without the vocals....so I did those on the Tascam. Aint great....but they made the thing a whole piece.

Click me

[FrankH]

I like your take on Lennon's voice...everything works...

Funny thing about doing those...

On the original, Lennon's vocal was speeded up quite a bit. Probably about 2-3 half steps. Easy to do back then. VSO the recorder down, record and then speed it back up. Not so easy a stunt in digi-world. There isn't a DAW out there that can do this in one step....with good sounding results. Mostly the shifting algos they use. Particularly when you need to go beyond 3 half steps.

This is what I did. I used a stand-alone shifting program, called "Amazing Slow Downer". The developer created one or two of the best shifting/stretching algos I've ever heard (there are 5 in the program). When it first came out, he hadn't thought to tie them together...they were two independent processes. I wrote him and suggested it....which he did. One of the great features of this program is that whatever you do to the audio can be instantly exported into the audio format of your choice.

So I ran a mix of the instrumental through it and slowed it down by 4 steps ( I tried 3, but I could still hear "me"). That was dumped back into Cubase as a new project where all the vocals were recorded against it. Those, in turn, were rendered out, dumped into ASD and bumped up 4 steps, using the best algo it has for solo instruments/vocals: nice formant shifting and no detectable glitching. The results were saved out as AIFF files and dropped back into the instrumental, in the original key. No edits or alignments necessary. Mixed it and done.

I'll tell you....if I tried to do this at speed, I could have never done it. My 64 year old pipes can't hit those notes anymore....so this little process was quite a saving grace.

[Bruce Graham]

Strat bruce, no lap steel.

Phil

Well.. so much for my hearing!

Very Nice! Great sound for that song.

Cheers
Bruce

[Phil.c]

That was great Frank again very close to the original I love the harmonies

Here's Strawberry Fields with that trick ending and again some backward stuff, I don't know if you know that the original flutes was a Melatron.

https://app.box.com/s/mz8un9put31vh5rgrn5c

Here's I'm only sleeping again but a different link.

https://app.box.com/s/7jl5l7vcribqgnhgmend

Here's another I did...waiting for your vocals

https://app.box.com/s/w8igzwx6l4aohfi0su96nk1f95f821vy

Do you know this guy...not the one on the right

[Crash]

The great Ken Scott. That is standing in some tall cotton.

[FrankH]

Phil:

Those came out quite well. Nailed the drum sound on Strawberry Fields. As to singing E.Rigby...thanks for the invite, but I have to beg off. Singing is a royal PITA for me and I do a vocal about once every 20 years....so um....sorry.

BTW....at one time, back in the late 70's, Ken Scott and I dated the same girl (at different times though).