Sounds like you had great fun putting this together. Regards, Randy Klumph The National Consortium on Deaf-Blindness The Teaching Research Institute Western Oregon University [log in to unmask] ----- Original Message ----- > On Dec 17, 2009, at 8:46 PM, Eric Thomas wrote: > > > A few months ago we were toying with the idea of making some kind of > musical feature for the release of 16.0, which quickly turned into a > feature for our traditional New Year electronic postcard given the > 16.0 release calendar. This has been a lot of fun, and a lot of stress > too :-), but a lot of fun nonetheless! Most of us had never performed > in public or recorded ourselves before, let alone with studio-grade > microphones where you can hear every little flaw, and I have to say > that it was quite a shock the first time! You might think that you > have at least some kind of very basic idea about what you are doing, > but when you listen to yourself for the first time, well you just want > to run away as quickly as possible, but not before having thoroughly > reformatted the media containing that recording ;-) There is > supposedly a saying in the music industry, "we'll fix it in the mix," > but in this particular case the person wearing the sound engineer hat > (me) had never mixed any music before, knew next to nothing about > music theory, and only had a basic software package at his disposal. > So we all went into this knowing that any flaws we recorded would be > there to stay, and we would just have to live with it. Then one day at > around 4pm, we realized in horror that the instrument players were > about to go on vacation, meaning we were not going to have any > accompaniment for the vocals. "You are going to record the songs a > cappella??? Are you out of your mind???" ;-) We got instrumental > tracks literally at the last minute for two of the songs, and that's > the best we could do without impacting the 16.0 release, which of > course was our first priority. > > > > As we cannot hope to compete with professional performances, we > decided to go for a different style than the traditional performances. > Going from left to right on the New Year card, the songs are: > > > > 1. En etsi valtaa loistoa ("I seek not power, glory nor gold") by > Jean Sibelius > > > > This is a traditional church choir that I tried to mix in a > Gregorian style and turned into a duo. I hope I won't offend anyone in > Finland :-), but the thing is that I don't speak Finnish and I can > only listen so long to a choir in a foreign language before my > attention starts drifting away. I think the lead vocals make the piece > more interesting if you don't understand the language. What I like > with this piece is that I hear something different in the background > every time I play it. > > > > 2. Stille Nacht (Silent Night) > > > > We decided early during the project that we would perform > international Christmas songs in their original language, in this case > German. It seems that it is usually sung as high as you are able to > go, plus one semitone ;-) Instead, we decided to go for a darker > version (and as the performer said, "We need to test the new > conference room subwoofer anyway!" :-) ). This track can sound pretty > dull on small desktop speakers though, it works best if you play it in > a living room and turn up the volume. Actually this is probably true > of all the tracks as I did the final check-up in my living room. > > > > 3. Minuit chrétiens (O Holy Night) > > > > This one is also sung all over the world but the original is in > French. Early clickers may have heard an "Easter egg" vocal warm-up > track on that melody, as the song was not ready by the deadline, but > became available in record time after the newsletter went out *grin* > > > > 4. Auld Lang Syne > > > > This song has the largest number of performers, across two > continents, making it the perfect closing number for our little > project. But it was a challenge to mix as some of the tracks were very > noisy (we only have one, arguably two decent recording locations). > Overall I think it worked very well, but you should maybe not turn up > the volume too much. This is also a song where you hear something new > every time you listen to it. > > > > Well, enough talking, here are the songs! > > > > http://www.lsoft.com/news/issue4-2009-us.asp (click on the New Year > card to begin) > > > > I hope you enjoyed them :-) > > > > Eric