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posted by Dave at
9:11 AM
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Sunday, January 10, 2010
Friday, March 20, 2009
The Books & Kronos @ Cincy
Whoa, it’s been awhile since I’ve been here. Time to update!
The MusicNOW Festival was last week down in Cincy. On board for the evening of March 11 were The Books and Kronos Quartet at Memorial Hall in Over the Rhine. Thanks for the swell birthday present, MusicNOW!
I've been in Memorial Hall once before, when I was sound designer for A Post Modern Love Story with Blueforms Theatre Group, the precursor to our current company, Available light [theatre]. We were there for the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. It was our final 'award' performance - we won an award (the critic’s award maybe?), so we had to haul everything from the Contemporary Art Center over to Memorial Hall and re-tech the show on 48 hours notice – lucky us! All I remember was everyone sweating through their clothes while just sitting there in the June heat, but it's rare that I see so much energy thrown back and forth between the audience and actors. It was a cathartic evening, to say the least.
So, between my previous experience there, 2 of my favorite music groups, and my birthday, I had high hopes.
First up were The Books. I was nervous about their performance there - Memorial Hall is a music hall, not too suited for their dry electronic sounds. My fears were founded - the sound was awful. They were probably trying to keep the volume down, partly because they were opening for a string quartet, and partly in attempt not to over-excite the room. Either way, the mix was off, and the PA wasn't quite tuned right - at least not at my seat, 4th row center. I've seen them twice before - both at the Wexner Center, a very dry venue with a great sound system, and a great person driving it (Scott Austin). Their music may not be quite suited for performance by 2 people. With so many layers, each of them has to pick one, and none of the layers really 'lead' the music, so they often end up disappearing into their backing tracks, and it becomes a music video viewing. I love The Books, but seeing them always makes me a little sad. I’ve given up a little part of my soul just to write this in a public setting.
And they didn't play Tokyo. I'm a bit obsessed with that track - on long drives I'll listen to it over and over, imagining a different orchestration each time. What if Kronos did it? What if a marimba quartet did it (I’m workin on this one)? What if some wanker metal lead guitarist did it? Toy piano? Brass quintet? Sax? Bass clarinet quartet (Edmund Welles, are you listening?)? Rachel's? Zachery Allen Starkey??? At one point I had a list of 12 different orchestrations/bands/groups lined up (in my head), and had grand plans of recording a cover album of my favorite Books track. And everyone was going to see the genius of the track and the brilliance of commissioning an entire cover album of it, thus making me rich and famous. Clearly I didn't follow through.
During the set change I pulled out my iPhone to check email and tweet about the show. But then I read an email that had come sometime during The Books' set from Twitter telling me that @kronosquartet was following me. Uh, what? I didn't even know they were on Twitter! I suddenly got a little scared - how did Kronos find me?? Wait, Kronos, aka Cronus, the supreme god before Zeus? OMG they're watching me now! I think I'll keep myself from being a twit till later...
On to Kronos. Wow, where to begin? The music ranged from quite good to excellent, most leaning towards excellent. The performances were astounding. This was one of the best shows I've ever seen. This was the best sounding electro-acoustic performance I've ever heard.
WARNING: Sound Geek Speak Ahead!
This show really sounded great. They had 2 sets of mics on the instruments: a KM184 mounted under each music stand, and a clip on mic, I’d assume something like a DPA 4060. PA was EAW KF750 & SB1000. One sub per side, 3 KF750 per side – one main floor, one balcony, and one in-fill. Front fill was 2 Meyer UPM-1P.
Begin Speculation:
It took me a couple pieces to realize how the show was being mixed – for the more natural pieces, that were just the quartet, no verb, no FX, and no playback, it sounded like he was using the KM184. Considering the location of the mic (mounted under the music stand), it sounded much better than I would’ve guessed. It was a nice, natural, and mellow yet detailed sound. The KM184 can drive me nuts sometimes, with a screechy high end that can rip your face off. But perhaps being more under the instruments helped mellow the sound, or maybe they were the older, mellower KM84 – I didn’t get a close enough look.
The KM184 sound just brought everyone forward a bit, like giving the audience a seat at the conductor’s position. The first piece was mixed this way, but even quieter than the rest of the show – I’d say the PA was 6-9db below the acoustic sound. But my ears may not have acclimated in time – it’s possible that the PA was run at the same level as the rest of the show. It was more like 1-4db lower for the rest of the pieces in the show mixed using the KM184. This helped in a number of ways – it balanced out the volume with the other, louder pieces, and helped bring out some of the smaller, ‘fingery’ sounds. A lot of the modern pieces they perform sound better in a somewhat dryer environment, like a recording studio, and a little PA helps swing the direct to room ratio to the direct sound of the instruments.
The PA sounded like it was pretty heavy on the 2 front fill speakers. This makes sense, as it would help localize the sound as well. I couldn’t really tell if they were using the KF750s for this sound at all – I was directly in front of one of the front fills. But, one of the problems I had with The Books was that I was sitting in an area that was covered by both the front fills and the KF750 infill, and there was a timing difference – the KF750 was arriving after the front fill. This time difference could be easily obscured by string instruments, but pretty obvious with electronic music with fairly staccato sounds, like The Books. The EAW and Meyer speakers didn’t mix too well either for The Books - the wide open high end of the UPMs made the high end of the KF750s sound like mud. But EQing the UPMs to match would’ve ruined the natural sound of some of Kronos’s pieces when using the KM184. Also, running mostly through the front fills helps with the inverse square law – everyone is pretty much equidistant from both the instruments and the front fill speakers, equalizing the PA to direct ratio for basically everyone in the house.
Other pieces with verb, distortion, playback, etc. were mixed using the clip on mics. They had that distinct ‘stringy’ sound that close miked strings have – but not a bad stringy sound. It sounded like they used more of the KF750 for these pieces, and a healthy amount of subs for a couple pieces. All the reverb, distortion, playback, and other FX were very well balanced with the acoustic sound. This level of interaction between the band and the mix engineer happens only after spending a significant amount of time in rehearsal together. The one exception would be the last piece of their set, called 12/12. They were bouncing back and forth between the playback backing up the live performance and the live performance backing up the playback. But this ended up seeming more like an orchestration issue to me, and not the mix.
End Sound Geek Speak.
I haven’t talked about the music yet, which was all quite good. Maybe I’ll follow up later. But probably not. Just being honest here. Either way, Kronos didn't play Tokyo.
The MusicNOW Festival was last week down in Cincy. On board for the evening of March 11 were The Books and Kronos Quartet at Memorial Hall in Over the Rhine. Thanks for the swell birthday present, MusicNOW!
I've been in Memorial Hall once before, when I was sound designer for A Post Modern Love Story with Blueforms Theatre Group, the precursor to our current company, Available light [theatre]. We were there for the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. It was our final 'award' performance - we won an award (the critic’s award maybe?), so we had to haul everything from the Contemporary Art Center over to Memorial Hall and re-tech the show on 48 hours notice – lucky us! All I remember was everyone sweating through their clothes while just sitting there in the June heat, but it's rare that I see so much energy thrown back and forth between the audience and actors. It was a cathartic evening, to say the least.
So, between my previous experience there, 2 of my favorite music groups, and my birthday, I had high hopes.
First up were The Books. I was nervous about their performance there - Memorial Hall is a music hall, not too suited for their dry electronic sounds. My fears were founded - the sound was awful. They were probably trying to keep the volume down, partly because they were opening for a string quartet, and partly in attempt not to over-excite the room. Either way, the mix was off, and the PA wasn't quite tuned right - at least not at my seat, 4th row center. I've seen them twice before - both at the Wexner Center, a very dry venue with a great sound system, and a great person driving it (Scott Austin). Their music may not be quite suited for performance by 2 people. With so many layers, each of them has to pick one, and none of the layers really 'lead' the music, so they often end up disappearing into their backing tracks, and it becomes a music video viewing. I love The Books, but seeing them always makes me a little sad. I’ve given up a little part of my soul just to write this in a public setting.
And they didn't play Tokyo. I'm a bit obsessed with that track - on long drives I'll listen to it over and over, imagining a different orchestration each time. What if Kronos did it? What if a marimba quartet did it (I’m workin on this one)? What if some wanker metal lead guitarist did it? Toy piano? Brass quintet? Sax? Bass clarinet quartet (Edmund Welles, are you listening?)? Rachel's? Zachery Allen Starkey??? At one point I had a list of 12 different orchestrations/bands/groups lined up (in my head), and had grand plans of recording a cover album of my favorite Books track. And everyone was going to see the genius of the track and the brilliance of commissioning an entire cover album of it, thus making me rich and famous. Clearly I didn't follow through.
During the set change I pulled out my iPhone to check email and tweet about the show. But then I read an email that had come sometime during The Books' set from Twitter telling me that @kronosquartet was following me. Uh, what? I didn't even know they were on Twitter! I suddenly got a little scared - how did Kronos find me?? Wait, Kronos, aka Cronus, the supreme god before Zeus? OMG they're watching me now! I think I'll keep myself from being a twit till later...
On to Kronos. Wow, where to begin? The music ranged from quite good to excellent, most leaning towards excellent. The performances were astounding. This was one of the best shows I've ever seen. This was the best sounding electro-acoustic performance I've ever heard.
WARNING: Sound Geek Speak Ahead!
This show really sounded great. They had 2 sets of mics on the instruments: a KM184 mounted under each music stand, and a clip on mic, I’d assume something like a DPA 4060. PA was EAW KF750 & SB1000. One sub per side, 3 KF750 per side – one main floor, one balcony, and one in-fill. Front fill was 2 Meyer UPM-1P.
Begin Speculation:
It took me a couple pieces to realize how the show was being mixed – for the more natural pieces, that were just the quartet, no verb, no FX, and no playback, it sounded like he was using the KM184. Considering the location of the mic (mounted under the music stand), it sounded much better than I would’ve guessed. It was a nice, natural, and mellow yet detailed sound. The KM184 can drive me nuts sometimes, with a screechy high end that can rip your face off. But perhaps being more under the instruments helped mellow the sound, or maybe they were the older, mellower KM84 – I didn’t get a close enough look.
The KM184 sound just brought everyone forward a bit, like giving the audience a seat at the conductor’s position. The first piece was mixed this way, but even quieter than the rest of the show – I’d say the PA was 6-9db below the acoustic sound. But my ears may not have acclimated in time – it’s possible that the PA was run at the same level as the rest of the show. It was more like 1-4db lower for the rest of the pieces in the show mixed using the KM184. This helped in a number of ways – it balanced out the volume with the other, louder pieces, and helped bring out some of the smaller, ‘fingery’ sounds. A lot of the modern pieces they perform sound better in a somewhat dryer environment, like a recording studio, and a little PA helps swing the direct to room ratio to the direct sound of the instruments.
The PA sounded like it was pretty heavy on the 2 front fill speakers. This makes sense, as it would help localize the sound as well. I couldn’t really tell if they were using the KF750s for this sound at all – I was directly in front of one of the front fills. But, one of the problems I had with The Books was that I was sitting in an area that was covered by both the front fills and the KF750 infill, and there was a timing difference – the KF750 was arriving after the front fill. This time difference could be easily obscured by string instruments, but pretty obvious with electronic music with fairly staccato sounds, like The Books. The EAW and Meyer speakers didn’t mix too well either for The Books - the wide open high end of the UPMs made the high end of the KF750s sound like mud. But EQing the UPMs to match would’ve ruined the natural sound of some of Kronos’s pieces when using the KM184. Also, running mostly through the front fills helps with the inverse square law – everyone is pretty much equidistant from both the instruments and the front fill speakers, equalizing the PA to direct ratio for basically everyone in the house.
Other pieces with verb, distortion, playback, etc. were mixed using the clip on mics. They had that distinct ‘stringy’ sound that close miked strings have – but not a bad stringy sound. It sounded like they used more of the KF750 for these pieces, and a healthy amount of subs for a couple pieces. All the reverb, distortion, playback, and other FX were very well balanced with the acoustic sound. This level of interaction between the band and the mix engineer happens only after spending a significant amount of time in rehearsal together. The one exception would be the last piece of their set, called 12/12. They were bouncing back and forth between the playback backing up the live performance and the live performance backing up the playback. But this ended up seeming more like an orchestration issue to me, and not the mix.
End Sound Geek Speak.
I haven’t talked about the music yet, which was all quite good. Maybe I’ll follow up later. But probably not. Just being honest here. Either way, Kronos didn't play Tokyo.
posted by Dave at
5:08 PM
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0 comments
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Noise & Cancer
So, I've been out of it for awhile. I apologize to my rabid readership. A week or so ago I went to go see Necropolis, one of my favorite local bands, at a breast cancer benefit show at Carabar, one of my new favorite bars. They did something a bit unusual for them - they played a noise set. It caused quite the ruckus over at Donewaiting. I really enjoyed the set, and here's why (from what I posted over at Donewaiting):
--------------------
You know, I couldn't think of anything more appropriate at a cancer benefit than a noise set. The lives surrounding late term cancer patients couldn't be described by anything better. The confusion, lack of rhythm, struggle for meaning and purpose, and reactivity by everyone in the room are all things you find in both situations. Even those fleeting seconds of really beautiful music found in noise sets match those 'better' moments with cancer patients. While they certainly aren't as overtly cheerful as Peaches en Regalia, it's the relative beauty that makes those moments great.
I know, I'm digging deep on this one, and I know it was completely coincidental that Necropolis chose a cancer benefit to do a noise set, exactly four weeks after my dad died of esophageal cancer. But the appropriateness really struck me that night. Noise was all that really made sense to me this summer - it was just the only music that reflected what was going on in that room.
Anyway, sorry if this is too much of a downer for the friendship farm.
Thanks Necropolis.
--------------------
So, that pretty much sums up what I've been up to this summer. I miss my Dad.
--------------------
You know, I couldn't think of anything more appropriate at a cancer benefit than a noise set. The lives surrounding late term cancer patients couldn't be described by anything better. The confusion, lack of rhythm, struggle for meaning and purpose, and reactivity by everyone in the room are all things you find in both situations. Even those fleeting seconds of really beautiful music found in noise sets match those 'better' moments with cancer patients. While they certainly aren't as overtly cheerful as Peaches en Regalia, it's the relative beauty that makes those moments great.
I know, I'm digging deep on this one, and I know it was completely coincidental that Necropolis chose a cancer benefit to do a noise set, exactly four weeks after my dad died of esophageal cancer. But the appropriateness really struck me that night. Noise was all that really made sense to me this summer - it was just the only music that reflected what was going on in that room.
Anyway, sorry if this is too much of a downer for the friendship farm.
Thanks Necropolis.
--------------------
So, that pretty much sums up what I've been up to this summer. I miss my Dad.
posted by Dave at
5:24 AM
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0 comments
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Rachel
I wrote this a few months ago, but somehow never posted it:
OK, I just can't continue posting about Humana until I get this off my chest - I had a private concert performed for me and my friends by Rachel Grimes, of Rachel's, my most favoritest band in the world! OK, it wasn't really private... or a concert... but that's how I think of it. A bunch of us went out to brunch Sunday morning before our first show - I won't say where. They have a pianist play some background music, and the piano is right by the doorway between the seating area and the brunch buffet. I walked in to the table, noticing the piano, but not who was sitting at it. We all get up to go get our first round of food, and I notice the attractive and talented pianist, and wait, she looks fam... holy crap! It's Rachel! I find Matt, who I knew would appreciate my excitement, and then did a few laps around the room, pretending to look at the beautiful buffett spread. I was competely flabbergasted. Rachel! Of Rachel's, the one band in this world who do no wrong, and who collaborate with the one theatre company in this world who do no wrong - the SITI company. Wow.
OK, I just can't continue posting about Humana until I get this off my chest - I had a private concert performed for me and my friends by Rachel Grimes, of Rachel's, my most favoritest band in the world! OK, it wasn't really private... or a concert... but that's how I think of it. A bunch of us went out to brunch Sunday morning before our first show - I won't say where. They have a pianist play some background music, and the piano is right by the doorway between the seating area and the brunch buffet. I walked in to the table, noticing the piano, but not who was sitting at it. We all get up to go get our first round of food, and I notice the attractive and talented pianist, and wait, she looks fam... holy crap! It's Rachel! I find Matt, who I knew would appreciate my excitement, and then did a few laps around the room, pretending to look at the beautiful buffett spread. I was competely flabbergasted. Rachel! Of Rachel's, the one band in this world who do no wrong, and who collaborate with the one theatre company in this world who do no wrong - the SITI company. Wow.
posted by Dave at
1:45 AM
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0 comments
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Humana Weekend, Part 1
I spent the weekend at the Humana Festival in Louisville, KY, which is presented by Actors Theatre of Louisville. This was my second year attending with a group of fellow theatre geeks. If it hadn't been for the SITI Company doing a show there this year, I may not have attended, as I was pretty dissapointed by last years festival. Anyway, I'll start off with the shows I saw on Friday.
Low - written and performed by Rha Goddess - I got there just in time to see Low. I dropped off Matt and Ian at the front door, and then tried to find a parking spot. I'm not a late theatre patron, but this was the first time the house has ever been held for me. Low has it's moments as a hiphop theatre show, and is hiphop enough for the greater theatre going audience, but probably not enough for other hiphop theatre artists. It had some of the same major flaws as hiphop music shows - too long, sounded like crap, and was incoherent. The sound design team was comprised of hiphop producers, who were assisted by one of the very competent staff members at ATL. The performer was miked with a head mounted lav, and the reinforcement sounded very good - about as good as I've heard in a thrust space, but only when Goddess was facing me. The siblince was a bit too much when she was facing away, but that's the rub when it comes to using wireless like this in a thrust space. The human voice is fairly directional, so when listening from behind someone, we lose all the high frequency information - but the microphone still gets the same signal. There were quite a few 'transient' sound effects, such as door slams, prison door slams, and some quick wooshes. But they all sounded like low-bitrate MP3s, which is particularly bad for transient sounds, and makes them sound all mushy, compressed, and noisy, as was the case here. Though they were all different, they all kinda sounded the same. The music numbers were just a little too fast, making her vocals completely incoherent in some sections. Slow it down people - just because you can rap fast doesn't mean you should. I know speed can be impressive in the hiphop world for battles and such, but in theatre, if we can't clearly understand what you're saying, then you're not saying anything at all. This show seemed to me to be a case of a great staff having to deal with inexperienced guest designers. I've been there, and I empathize with the staff. If I had to guess, I'd imagine that the ATL staff took care of the reinforcement and SFX programming - kudos to them for making the reinforcement sound great in such a situation.
The Scene by Theresa Rebeack and Act a Lady by Jordan Harrison were up next. I was fairly indifferent towards both shows in general, but the sound designs, though fairly simple, were well implemented. I don't remember much outside some well chosen and composed transition music.
Low - written and performed by Rha Goddess - I got there just in time to see Low. I dropped off Matt and Ian at the front door, and then tried to find a parking spot. I'm not a late theatre patron, but this was the first time the house has ever been held for me. Low has it's moments as a hiphop theatre show, and is hiphop enough for the greater theatre going audience, but probably not enough for other hiphop theatre artists. It had some of the same major flaws as hiphop music shows - too long, sounded like crap, and was incoherent. The sound design team was comprised of hiphop producers, who were assisted by one of the very competent staff members at ATL. The performer was miked with a head mounted lav, and the reinforcement sounded very good - about as good as I've heard in a thrust space, but only when Goddess was facing me. The siblince was a bit too much when she was facing away, but that's the rub when it comes to using wireless like this in a thrust space. The human voice is fairly directional, so when listening from behind someone, we lose all the high frequency information - but the microphone still gets the same signal. There were quite a few 'transient' sound effects, such as door slams, prison door slams, and some quick wooshes. But they all sounded like low-bitrate MP3s, which is particularly bad for transient sounds, and makes them sound all mushy, compressed, and noisy, as was the case here. Though they were all different, they all kinda sounded the same. The music numbers were just a little too fast, making her vocals completely incoherent in some sections. Slow it down people - just because you can rap fast doesn't mean you should. I know speed can be impressive in the hiphop world for battles and such, but in theatre, if we can't clearly understand what you're saying, then you're not saying anything at all. This show seemed to me to be a case of a great staff having to deal with inexperienced guest designers. I've been there, and I empathize with the staff. If I had to guess, I'd imagine that the ATL staff took care of the reinforcement and SFX programming - kudos to them for making the reinforcement sound great in such a situation.
The Scene by Theresa Rebeack and Act a Lady by Jordan Harrison were up next. I was fairly indifferent towards both shows in general, but the sound designs, though fairly simple, were well implemented. I don't remember much outside some well chosen and composed transition music.
posted by Dave at
6:53 AM
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