A soundman's nightmare - youtube, itunes and Spotify think it's great though!

Marlow Wilson

Marlow Wilson

Junior
Jan 11, 2011
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Montreal/Ottawa
I was listening to Spotify on my laptop today - I know, low quality audio, even worse speakers...

A song comes on that starts to haunt me... do I hear feedback, on Spotify? Why did someone release this to the public? Searching online, it turns out a million people thought it was worth listening to on youtube. WTF has the world come to?

Top comment?

"I wish this song never ends .. );" - apart from being ungrammatical, REALLY?

Another comment: "this song gives you that certain feeling that doesn't come by too often. love it. its real."



[video=youtube;-mHAuOibP-k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mHAuOibP-k[/video]

Takeaway?

  1. If you want to make your shows more 'real' just throw in a little ring around 1k and people will feel like they're at an intimate concert again.
  2. If you ever need to torture a soundman I can't think of anything better. Make it your go-to track as a BE - it's available on itunes :twisted:
  3. As an aside, am I missing something here?
 
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Re: A soundman's nightmare - youtube, itunes and Spotify think it's great though!

I used to work at the local basketball arena. The standard tracks for the national anthem have some french horn parts that sound like feedback.
Took me a long time to get used to that.

I think the same kind of thing is happening here. Some keyboard guitar harmonics. Or else I don't hear what you do.
 
Re: A soundman's nightmare - youtube, itunes and Spotify think it's great though!

Jack Arnott said:
I used to work at the local basketball arena. The standard tracks for the national anthem have some french horn parts that sound like feedback.
Took me a long time to get used to that.

I think the same kind of thing is happening here. Some keyboard guitar harmonics. Or else I don't hear what you do.
Click to expand...

I'll have to check once I get home on some proper speakers. It would certainly put my faith back in the listening public!

Edit*** - listening on my iPad (instead of the Thinkpad I was originally listening on) it sounds like it might be a desired effect of crescendo to 'fortissimo' and then decresendo of the high C key or similar, but with the irritating addition of the sustain pedal.

Sorry for any extreme comments... and note to self not to make any public music critiques from the not-so-hifi T500!
 
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Re: A soundman's nightmare - youtube, itunes and Spotify think it's great though!

In case anyone's dying to hear what I heard... I still can't believe the effect was so pronounced!

 
Re: A soundman's nightmare - youtube, itunes and Spotify think it's great though!

It almost sounds like someone using an Ebow on an electric guitar with a volume pedal and some light distortion, possibly combined with the overall reverb used on the track.
 
Re: A soundman's nightmare - youtube, itunes and Spotify think it's great though!

Jack Arnott said:
I used to work at the local basketball arena. The standard tracks for the national anthem have some french horn parts that sound like feedback.
Took me a long time to get used to that.
Click to expand...

This reminds me of a nightmare I had on a series of outdoor ballet gigs years ago.

I was blending live classical performers with some sound effects they had pre-recorded. The musical director/composer decided to use "controlled, sustained feedback" as an effect and recorded it INTO the tracks.

*EVERY SHOW* when we played this song, a significant number of the audience would turn around to see who the moron was at the mixer, and why they couldn't fix the feedback!!! I hated that song!!! *EVERY SHOW* I'm glad that's over!!!

Great, now I need my meds again just for talking about it. ;-)
 
Re: A soundman's nightmare - youtube, itunes and Spotify think it's great though!

Dave Rickard said:
This reminds me of a nightmare I had on a series of outdoor ballet gigs years ago.

I was blending live classical performers with some sound effects they had pre-recorded. The musical director/composer decided to use "controlled, sustained feedback" as an effect and recorded it INTO the tracks.

*EVERY SHOW* when we played this song, a significant number of the audience would turn around to see who the moron was at the mixer, and why they couldn't fix the feedback!!! I hated that song!!! *EVERY SHOW* I'm glad that's over!!!

Great, now I need my meds again just for talking about it. ;-)
Click to expand...

That's basically what I thought was happening with this track. It's amazing how feedback can evoke a physical 'somethings wrong, fix it now' response from our trained minds/bodies.

I still haven't had a chance to listen with proper speakers or cans, but playing pink noise and some test tones through the T500, it was a bit peaky at those frequencies, but really not that bad.
 
Re: A soundman's nightmare - youtube, itunes and Spotify think it's great though!

Went back and listened to the song (have the album in my library, now that you mention it there is an annoying feedback-ish type sound when heard on small speakers. But it is instrumental in nature.
-The aerialists at the nighclub I ran for a couple years used the XX too frequently, so maybe my brain just tuned-it out.
 
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