Yesterday's office

John Halliburton

John Halliburton

Junior
Jan 10, 2011
428
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18
The city with big shoulders
The Evanston Ethnic Arts Festival. Lake Michigan is 50m to my right, thank goodness-unfortunately the stage faces South, so performers got hot, even though there was shade on 60% of the deck-which unfortunately had Marley covering it.

Peavey DTH4's over EV MTL2's for the mains.

Soundtech 15" two ways on the deck.

Best regards,

John
 

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Re: Yesterday's office

John Halliburton said:
The Evanston Ethnic Arts Festival. Lake Michigan is 50m to my right, thank goodness-unfortunately the stage faces South, so performers got hot, even though there was shade on 60% of the deck-which unfortunately had Marley covering it.

Peavey DTH4's over EV MTL2's for the mains.

Soundtech 15" two ways on the deck.

Best regards,

John
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Gotta love those gigs where nobody sits in the main seating area and congregate everywhere where shade can be found, typically a long way from the stage. Not the punter's fault of course, just frustrating as a sound provider and from the perspective of the performers.

Sometimes for these little shows I almost think we would be farther ahead to wait and see where the audience congregates and put a couple of speakers on stick over near those areas rather than dragging out a much larger rig to cover a very large area which is mostly empty. ;)
 
Re: Yesterday's office

Jeff Babcock said:
Gotta love those gigs where nobody sits in the main seating area and congregate everywhere where shade can be found, typically a long way from the stage. Not the punter's fault of course, just frustrating as a sound provider and from the perspective of the performers.

Sometimes for these little shows I almost think we would be farther ahead to wait and see where the audience congregates and put a couple of speakers on stick over near those areas rather than dragging out a much larger rig to cover a very large area which is mostly empty. ;)
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Possibly. I had a good crowd to the right of me in the photo where the line of trees keeps going, and they could hear pretty well. Actually, to my left there are no seats, as the landscape gives way to a 100m long lagoon. The only vacant seats here are all in the photo. Around the lagoon are most of the artist's booths, so they can actually hear the music too.

BTW, not my gear.

Best regards,

John
 
Re: Yesterday's office

Jeff Babcock said:
Gotta love those gigs where nobody sits in the main seating area and congregate everywhere where shade can be found, typically a long way from the stage. Not the punter's fault of course, just frustrating as a sound provider and from the perspective of the performers.

Sometimes for these little shows I almost think we would be farther ahead to wait and see where the audience congregates and put a couple of speakers on stick over near those areas rather than dragging out a much larger rig to cover a very large area which is mostly empty. ;)
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It seems to be the same for daytime sets on big festival stages. The people really attracted to the band are downfront and center, hearing the center fills which I can't hear, with most of the coverage area of the mains empty, except for the shade hunters under a tent in the back who are obviously hearing something different from the mains also.

On my most recent, I had the advantage of having extra ears that I trust (Jeff Knorr) tweaking the house eq (well it was really reducing most of the cuts the FOH crew already had there by about 1/2) while I was working on the channel eq's. Having someone who can step away from FOH to check fills would be extremely valuable.
 
Re: Yesterday's office

Graham C Mellor said:
Bodhran, flute, fiddle, guitar and...... WAIT, WHAT? Why is there a piano there? That'll get you ex-communicated!
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Why? If you listen to the "classic" recordings of Irish dance bands you'll often hear a piano. Back in the day here in St Paul (a good Irish town) I was hired to play guitar in a very traditional Irish dance band. I broke a bunch of strings, had no spares and jumped onto the piano while someone went out for a set or two of strings. When the strings arrived they just said, "keep on playing the piano".

It's the guitar that's the new-comer in Irish traditional music.......
 
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Dick Rees said:
Why? If you listen to the "classic" recordings of Irish dance bands you'll often hear a piano. Back in the day here in St Paul (a good Irish town) I was hired to play guitar in a very traditional Irish dance band. I broke a bunch of strings, had no spares and jumped onto the piano while someone went out for a set or two of strings. When the strings arrived they just said, "keep on playing the piano".

It's the guitar that's the new-comer in Irish traditional music.......
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I'm the TD at a Venue in Rhode Island that books touring Trad Celtic music almost exclusively. John and I have shared a few artists on our respective stages. Since you seem familiar with the genre, I'd suspect you'd find the humor in Trad musicians being resistive to anything "un pure". The bouzouki is even newer than the guitar to Celtic music, only being introduced in the 1960s.
 
Re: Yesterday's office

Graham.....

We must differentiate between the current "touring Trad Celtic music" and the traditional Irish dance bands recorded on 78's and LP's. I cannot remember one recording which used guitar but many which featured piano. Around here it's fifty/fifty with dance bands........actually playing for dancing rather than concerts.....is to whether they use piano or guitar.

I suspect the guitar came in slightly before the bazouki, probably around the time that the great acoustic guitarists from "the Isles" started recording. John Renbourn comes to mind. Of course, it's much easier to tour with a guitar and that was why I (as a ceili pianist) would bring one along as a hedge against the provided piano in a hall being unplayable. I never saw a reason to buy an electric keyboard when I had a guitar........

The accompaniment style with piano and guitar are distinctly different with both styles having great proponents. For straight-out dance band work I still prefer piano. For concerts I'll take a good DADGAD guitarist.

But the bottom line is I'll accept either as Celtic trad has to be right up there with good Skandihoovian.........
 
Re: Yesterday's office

Not to derail this this thread, but you guy's are on the topic. How or where would you place a mic for the Bodhran drum? Also what mic choice would you use?
 
Re: Yesterday's office

Some folks use a clip-on condenser mounted inside the drum. For general use and SM57 properly worked by the player will do just fine. I've never seen anyone mic the outer surface of the drum, only the inner.

DR

Not a great pic, but that's all I could find quickly. I'll bet Mr. Halliburton has some better illustrations.....
 

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Re: Yesterday's office

Now that we're talking about my genre of music I feel quite at home, as Dick says micing the Bodhran is nearly always done from inside though when recording I like to keep a mic outside to pick up the rimshots that some players hit. As far as the piano is concerned trad dance bands here use the piano often in place of any bass or rhythm instrument, in the UK people like Christy Moore and Martin Carthy probably lead the guitar revolution though I suspect the Mandolin and Banjo were there well before that. In scottish music the Clarsach or Celtic harp also played a major part in accompanying solo vocalists, while the fiddle, whistle, accordian, and small pipes would carry he melody of the tunes for dances etc. Amongst the younger musicians here many of whom are college trained, mixing pipes etc with modern electric instruments has become popular even though the tunes are very traditional in structure. John that stage layout looks very familiar and I hope you have as much fun mixing tis style of music as I do G
 
Re: Yesterday's office

gordon mcgregor said:
.....when recording I like to keep a mic outside to pick up the rimshots that some players hit.
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I've managed to get them HF shots off of the rim sometimes by using a vocal mic for the bodhran player. If I get the "I don't need it, I don't sing" story I simply tell them that it's there for them to defend themselves if and when the fiddler and guitar player start picking on him or telling bodhran jokes. Sometimes it works.....
 
Re: Yesterday's office

I was going to start quoting, but I decided to just type away at a response.

Traditional die hard Irish music for dance would typically include:

Accordion
Fiddle
Wooden flute
Four string gut banjo, no resonator back
Snare, small kick, small cymbal
Piano

This is what you'd find at a Saturday evening Ceili(dance).

In the late early 60's, Sean O'Riada founded a group that had similar makeup, but used rich arrangements on traditional tunes as performance pieces instead of dance party music. He is generally credited with putting The Chieftains together and on the road, which secured the revolution in Irish music that followed. Great groups like The Bothy Band, Planxty, DeDannan, followed in their footsteps. Our band, Baal Tinne, take it a little further away from Trad, and add more jazz/rock/new age/classical elements in our arranging. Most of the other non traditional instruments started showing up in the late 60's and early 70's-Alec Finn of DeDannan with his Greek bouziki for instance.

As for band make up, we got booted off the hard core Trad train right from the beginning, as my father in law, Noel Rice, plays the silver concert flute. Honestly, why would you huff and puff into the wooden one? You also can't transpose keys with a wooden flute. Our piano and synth work are really not Trad either.

That said, you would have no problem recognizing that we do play Irish music.

robert, as mentioned about the bodhran, they are almost always mic'd from the inside. Kevin Rice, my brother in law, uses a Senn 519 clipon, as well as an AKG D112 on a low boom. Carve out the boomieness, add top end, don't HP the channel, and have subs in the house system. Feel free to try other drum mics-I go for a particular sound for Kevin and the band. He uses drums made by Albert Alphonse in Dallas-tuneable rims, skins picked for deep sound, as well as rims made a bit deeper.

Gordon, it's been 90% of my sound hire work for many years. My wife and I celebrated our 24th anniversary this Spring, and I've been mixing Baal Tinne(and many others) for 26 years.

Audio's not real good, someone caught part of our set at Irishfest Milwaukee in 2009 on the Harley Stage-the festival is held at the Summerfest grounds. We're trying to get our act together and make a decent live video sometime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJwrwT5KxzI

The attached picture of Kevin shows the mic placement on his bodhran.

Best regards,

John
 

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Re: Yesterday's office

I forgot to mention that Baal Tinne's first keyboardist, the very talented Sean Egan, has lived up in the Twin Cities for many years(family is from there), along with some friends and alumni of my father in law's music academy for Irish music, Kate Wade Dowling and her husband Jodi. Sean also plays clarinet, and anchors a Klezmer band up there. Dick has known them for years.

Our second keyboardist, the very talented Paul Ciennewa, lives out South of Boston, is a highly regarded harpsichord performer, as well as music director for First Church in Boston. He has also recorded an Irish music album with Uilean piper Jerry O'Sullivan which released last year.

Best regards,

John
 
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