New (Contemporary) Music – Musique Actuelle

3 or 4 weeks ago, I tried to record a couple of impressionist tunes…. the weather had changed, turning my reeds to tire-grade rubber and perhaps the oboe too. I was very frustrated and my self-esteem had been thrashed. These 2 tunes by Kathryn Potter (www.oboebrilliance.com) from her publication “Arc en ciel”, 16 pieces for solo oboe. I felt these 2 would best help restore my recording nerves.	Il y a 3 ou 4 semaines, j’ai essayé d’enregistrer 2 pièces impressionistes… la météo avait changé et mes anches ont décidé de jouer comme des pneus mal soufflés! Le hautbois a peut-être été affecté aussi. Par conséquent, ma confiance en a été boulversée. Ces 2 pièces par Kathryn Potter (www.oboebrilliance.com) de son recueil “Arc en ciel: 16 pièces pour hautbois solo” m’ont paru appropriées à restaurer mes nerfs.
Lilacs (Kathryn Potter)	Peony / Pivoine (Kathryn Potter)
Kathryn had kindly dedicated “Lilac” to me and Peony was undedicated, so I felt it was fine to play it too. She dedicated many pieces to many oboists from near beginners to prolific professionals, all with our consent. I hope everyone will also record and post their dedicated tunes, to really show the evolution of the oboist along the different phases of development.	Kathryn a gentiment dédicacé un grand nombre de ses compositions à un grand nombre  de hautboïstes du presque-débutant au professionnel prolifique avec notre consentement; Lilas m’est dédicacé. Pivoine reste ‘libre’, alors j’ai cru bon l’enregistrer aussi. Je souhaite que tous les hautboistes dédicacés enregistrent leurs pièces montrant ainsi l’évolution du musicien au long des phases de développement.
Kathryn gives the performer lots of leeway in terms of performance requirements. For Lilacs, she wrote “delicately, gracefully” and for Peony, she wrote “freely” and “dolce”.  But in both, she indicates p-mp, requiring a soft performance. Peony could be played faster than I did, but tranquility must emerge.	Kathryn accorde à l’interprète une grande liberté d’interprétation. Pour Lilas, elle n’écrit que “délicatement, gracieusement” et pour Pivoine elle note “librement” et “dolce”. Mais pour les deux, elle indique p-mp, exigeant un jeu en douceur. Pivoine peut être joué plus rapidement, mais la traquilité doit en émaner.
Lilacs are busy flowers, being composite structures… even more so if you are a bee skipping from blossom to blossom, bumping into butterflies and ladybugs on the way! But take a step (or twenty) back that they appear like very delicate and soft flowers: high energy produces softness and tranquility.	Les lilas sont des fleurs vivantes et dynamiques, étant des structures composées… d’autant plus si vous êtes une abeille côtoyant des papillons et coccinelles! Mais prenez un pas (ou vingt) derrière et surgit une vue délicate de fleurs douces: l’énergie active produit une douce tranquilité.
Kathryn might not like my saying so, but I have loved Peonys all my life… and have never seen them without a colony of ants all over them! I might be wrong, but I think they live in symbiosis: the busy little ants helping the grand and pensive blossom to open.	Kathryn me disputera, mais j’ai aimé les pivoines toute ma vie… et je ne les ai jamais vues sans être couvertes de colonies de fourmis! Si je ne me trompe, je crois qu’ils vivent en symbiose: les fourmis occupées aident aux amples fleurs pensives à éclore.
Different Acoustics, Different Sound.	Changer d’acoustique ravive le timbre.

I did not do a video recording because I wanted to focus my time and efforts on trying a different acoustic location in my house. Recordings on the main floor (discussed in this previous post) are very lively, but tend to sound bright because of the hardwood floors and reverberation from the walls. I had noticed that in a smaller carpeted space sounds richer and softer and recordings sounded more like I hear myself, but the sound is dull.	Je n’ai pas fait de vidéo parce que je voulais me pencher sur la prise de son dans une acoustique différente à la maison. Enregistrer à l’étage principale (discuté ici) ont un son vivant, mais tend à la clareté à cause des planchers de bois franc et l’écho des murs. J’ai remarqué que les petites pièces avec tapis ont un son plus riche et doux: les enregistrements sonnent plus comme je m’entends, mais le son est mort.
The floor plan above shows a compromise between the two in the hallway of the second floor. I think the extra rooms with open doors add a little liveliness to the sound and the microphone, over the stairwell, is farthest it can be from most of the walls so the bright ringing is less important.	Le plan ci-dessus montre un compromis trouvé dans le couloir au deuxième étage. Je crois que les portes ouvertes aux atures pièces ajoute un peu de l,ampleur et que le micro, au dessus des escaliers, est le plus loin possible de tous les murs de sorte à atténuer la résonnance.
I also increased the microphone sensitivity pretty high for such a small space. This is why you hear my breath and keys even though I am playing softly. It seems that greater microphone sensitivity captures more of the low frequencies, adding more depth to the sound.	J’ai aussi augmenté grandement la sensibilité du micro pour une si courte distance. C’est pourquoi vous entendrez ma respiration et mes clefs bien que je joue doucement.. Je crois qu’augmenter la sensibilité capte mieux les fréquences graves, accordant la rondeur au son.
Amateur’s Choice	Le choix est à l’amateur.
One big advantage of being an amateur is that, whereas professionals must play repertoire they don’t always enjoy (they have to earn a living), the amateur can pick and choose what to play and can reject what s/he considers unpleasant. This is especially true when we play alone or with only a small group.	Alors que les musiciens professionels doivent parfois jouer du répertoire qu’ils aiment moins (on doit gagner sa vie), l’amateur peut choisir et rejetter à sa guise. Ceci est surtout vrai lorsqu’on joue seul ou dans un petit groupe.
In my student and short-lived pro-days, I used to abhor most music by living composers or having lived during the time of the 2nd World War. I disliked not only atonality, but the aggressive anti-melodic stuff that composers loved to analyze and explain, but rarely seemed to be enjoyed by people outside horror movies. In my university theory courses, I came to the conclusion that these composers cared only about innovating at any cost by designing systems of sound organisation: complaints of repugnance were accused of ignorance and closed-minds. Anyone who wanted to compose like the past greats were treated as cheap copyists.	À l’époque de mes études et très courte période professionnelle, j’avais horreur des compositions “actuelles” ou de l’après 2e guerre mondiale. Pas juste l’atonalité, mais des tendances agressives et anti-mélodiques… ce qu’on a appelé parfois “l’art comprends-pâs-rien” (au lieu de “contemporain”). On aimait analyser et expliquer ce qui semblait conçu pour films d’horreurs. Dans mes cours d’analyse à l’université, j’ai conclu que les compositeurs ne voulaient qu’innover à tout prix, concevant des systèmes d’organisation du son: toute critique était accusée d’esprit fermé et d’ignorance. Quiconque voulait composer comme les grands du passé étaient traité comme de simples copistes.
I am now happy to discover that many composers of the turn of the of the 21st century have returned to a sense of writing through inspiration rather than empty intellectual design. Many 20th century composers who continued in the late-romantic and impressionist styles are not becoming known and today’s composers are no longer afraid to mix traditional harmony with new sounds: novelty is again driven by a search for meaning… in other words, what jazz and hard-rock have known for generations is finally understood by “classical” music too!	Je suis heureux de découvrir que les compositeurs du 21e siècle semblent retourner à un sens d’inspiration, plutôt que l’intellectualisme froid. Plusieurs compositeurs du 20e siècle, qui ont voulu continuer les styles du romantique et impressionisme font surface et ceux d’aujourd’hui ne fuient plus l’incorporation de l’harmonie traditionelle aux sons nouveaux: l’innovation est à nouveau dirigée par la une quête d’expression… en d’autres mots, la musique classique semble enfin réaliser ce que sait le jazz et le rock-dur depuis des générations!
Although I remain a fan of the Baroque, Romantic and Impressionist styles, I have been happily surprised by many brand-new works for oboe ensembles, complete with multiphonics, that are really enjoyable. There is a lot of hope for new music: the rift between composers and audience might just be closing at last!	Bien que je continue à choyer le baroque, romantique et l’impressionisme, j’ai été agréablement surpris par des pièces flambant-neuves pour ensembles de hautbois, comptant même des “sons multiples”. Il y a donc de l’espoir pour la musique contemporaine: le gouffre avec l’auditoire semble enfin se refermer!

Rare wired reeds!

Changing the background because the seasons have definitely changed here!

Telemann Flute Duets and metronome recording…

I have a couple of movements from Telemann’s flute duets coming, but there is a bit of difficulty in playing with myself….. mostly in terms of stable rhythm. I need to work with the metronome more because I rush some groupings and slouch on others… not in an artistic fashion either!

My solution is simple: the Zoom H4n has a built-in metronome that I can hear in my head-set when recording, but does not sound when playing back. The movements I chose sound fine in strict tempo – lots of room for dynamic expression – so I will do that for the experiment.

Wired Reeds… me?

I have tried several times in my life to use wire for my reeds to help control opening, stability, ease of playing and so on. My conclusion has always been that wire just doesn’t work. Well, things have changed!

Two of my reeds were “slipping” (sideways offset) quite horribly. I was going to break them, except they played rather well…. apart from choking as a result of slipping…  I decided to try using wire around them: for the first time in my life, this actually saved the reeds! Note that the purpose was to save already good reeds, wrecked by slipping: not to try to fix bad reeds!

European (short) Scrape – adaptive method

I read more and more questions about European scrape (I combine German, French and other short-scrapes because I explain the differences with methodology). Over the next several months, I hope to explore these questions and hopefully provide solid guidance. I am NOT Albrecht Mayer, I am NOT François Leleux and I am NOT the best reed maker to be found but I have done enough experiments to provide beginning guidelines for stable, well sounding and flexible reeds that are also easy to play.

(Click on the images below to open the REALLY big original pictures!)

To start off with, here are some pictures of very different reeds. They play differently, sound differently look different and this will help a discussion on how to get what you want with respect to the cane you are using. Be careful not to judge on what you see: later I will give sound clips on them and you might be surprized.

High-definition pictures:
much more revealing than backlighting!

Taking pictures of reeds is difficult! I have a fantastic high-definition (1080p) web-cam, but I can’t get as good pictures as my wife: she can handle lighting much better and faster to show the smallest details in the grains. I find this shows flaws in my scraping much more clearly than backlighting. If I can setup my web-cam to take good pictures, that will help my reed making quite a lot!

The really big images (on my wife’s Flickr account) shows scraping trends which you might think give horrible reeds… but all these reeds play very well. You might also think that the differences are so great I used different techniques or get really different results… actually, some that look the same play more differently!

In subsequent posts, I will provide crowing and sound tests on these reeds, compare the sounds, say what I like and dislike about them and perhaps “adjust” a few.

Microphone Geometry

I followed the advice of Craig Matovitch on microphone placement and put my recording device on a cheap tripod which I put on my desk. This way, the desk table is not blocking out half the sound waves! I found the experiment very much worth while: it really helps create a more living sound, even in my stuffy study/studio.

The following observations pertain to recording the oboe at home. If you record voice or another instrument, or if you have a sound engineer working in a studio or concert hall, all these observations might be completely useless.

1-2 microphones & different ranges of sound capture:

There is a lot to know about microphones (basics of it here)… too much for the home-recording amateur! Still, a few simple considerations can spare a lot of wasted time and frustrated efforts:

1. How many microphones on your recording device?
2. What is the area coverage (capture angle) of the microphone (or set of microphones)?

Good quality recording devices are practical because they contain the microphone, recording and playback capabilities all in one gadget: no computer, no cables, nothing cumbersome to carry. The better ones have 2 microphones for stereo sound capturing (better approximate what we hear with 2 ears).  There are different types of microphone and there is a full vocabulary to describe them. In a nutshell, and in common language, we can think of 3 considerations:

1. close and far range sensitivity,
2. wide area coverage or focussed point sound capture,
3. different ranges of frequency sensitivities.

The frequency sensitivities can be understood as follows: some microphones are better suited to percussion, others to tubas, others to piccolos and others for voice. In fact, the best web-cams for tele-conferencing focus on clear spoken voice, but they are terrible for recording the oboe!

For range and coverage, this table should explain well enough; click on the image for more explanations.

Angle for true oboe sound and the atmosphere of a lively hall.

The last consideration for home-recording is how to capture the truest sound of the oboe and get a lively atmosphere. For this, I can only say that pointing one microphone directly to the oboe will get the right sound and the other microphone will pick-up room reverberation for the atmosphere. It is difficult to say whether it is best to point the other microphone points forward, up, down or backwards, the results will change according to the room layout, proximity to walls and so on. A few minutes of sound sampling is a worthwhile experiment. I have also found that the microphone below or behind the instrument adds a lot of buzz to the recording. Otherwise, the following images should be clear enough.

Reflections on Telemann – Home Acoustics

A week has passed now since I posted my recording of Telemann’s Sonata in A minor for oboe and I have received kind compliments, thank you so much!

After listening to it over and over again, there are a few remarks that should be made:

1. Obviously, I still need more stability, especially on that 1st octave-key E-natural. My dynamics are inhibiting the tuning, but they are supposed to help each other out. I hope that a few more months of practice will take care of that. Although the hot humid weather did affect my reed, I cannot blame it nor my Lorée as both were definitely good enough for the task.
2. There are some very strange sound effects happening – on my word, I did not tweak the oboe part with software! – and a little acoustic analysis might help explain them.
3. As for stability of rhythm… yep, needs work… let’s just not talk about it!

Interpretation style:

The original Ensemble Arion.

Over 15 years ago, I had the immense privilege of being taught by 2½ members (the 3rd was a coach at a master-class) of the Ensemble Arion: one of Canada’s most pioneering ensembles that really ushered-in baroque performance practice on replicas of period instruments. These remarkable musicians, extraordinary teachers passionate about their work and simply really fine people flourished into what is now the Arion Baroque Orchestra.

The Ensemble Arion practiced one type of baroque interpretation they retrieved from their research-teachers in Europe during the 1970-80’s (I think it was this time). They emphasise the discordant notes and the rhythms in motion rather than the destination/resolution notes. They once said in a master-class that Baroque music savours the musical journey whereas Romantic music must emphasise the ends of phrases because they’re glad it’s over! Yes, they got huge laughter and applause!   This is how I approached the first and last movements in the sonata. The two middle movements sort of told me how they wanted to be played.

Home Acoustics: be careful!

In the few weeks preceding this recording, I had found that playing in the dining area gave a more living sound than cooped-up in my dry muffled studio. In my first few recordings, where I placed the microphones adds buzz and makes the sound ridiculously bright. But I found that as long as I keep it beside me, one microphone pointing at me, the other one backwards, then the recorded sound is truthful. However, the dining area (open to the kitchen, the entrance, the living room and even to the floors above and below) has its own quirks.

1. In the 2nd movement (especially), there are really parts that sound like 2 oboes are playing in unison.
2. There are places I moved my body closer to and farther away from the microphone in order to emphasise crescendi and diminuendi…. this backfired making the fortes sound muffled and the dolces sound harsh.

For the double-sound, I really think it has to do with the echo and the double-microphone (stereo) used by my recording device. Possibly (but I’m not certain), when compressing the stereo oboe track into a mono track to have the piano sound more to the left and the oboe sound more to the right, the software I used might have accentuated that echo that I did not hear when plugging my head-set into the recording device directly.

The first image shows where I chose to set-up my recording device. It is to the side of the oboe with one microphone pointing backwards because experimentation showed that this prevents buzz and gets the most realistic sound from my instrument. The two other images show potential sources of echo where the 2 microphones might have actually bee recording different sources.

The issue of the dynamics is much easier to explain: the microphones were lying flat on a table and I was standing very close to that table:

1. We naturally want to move closer to the microphone to make fortes stronger and move away to soften dolces. But the top image shows that in my setup, the exact opposite happened: turning towards meant the table blocked a lot of the sound and turning away meant the entire room bounces even more sound to the microphone.
2. When breathing-in, fully using the diaphragm and abdomen makes my back bellows which naturally curves me downwards. So the most powerful fortes puts my bell below the table… crescendo broken!

There are other issues: the microphone too far adds buzz to the sound, but too close gives a stuffy sound with all the key-clicks and other sounds the audience should not hear. So more experimentation with home acoustics is definitely required!

Blow that tooth hole!

O.K., three weeks have past after the extraction of my wisdom tooth. So here I go trying to play again. There is still a huge hole in my gums where my tooth used to be, but the dentist, a registered nurse and two very experienced oboists have reassured me that all should be fine. (One of these oboists had his jaw-bone cut for the extraction and still played after 2 weeks!) So get back on that oboe! Besides, the weather is getting good which means I need to start my lunch-break-in-truck rehearsing again.

FINALLY, recorded my real sound!

“Maybe” by Thom Pace.

One contributor on the BBoard requested sound clips of the other contributors so we could get an idea of the panorama of sounds that we have. I don’t really like my other You-Tube recordings because of recording issues I explained in previous posts. Also, someone reminded me of this lovely tune and I thought it would be a good comeback. This is a You-Tube of the original for the movie and TV series Grizzly Adams.

I finally recorded what I consider to be the same sound I hear when I play…. that is, if you’re listening on speakers with the same specifications as those that come with a Dell Dimension 9150 computer! It also sounds fine on my home theatre system, but if I listen to it through my lap-top: not the same…. through my Sony EX35-LP ear phones: not even remotely the same… and so on and so forth!

First play after 3 weeks post tooth extraction.

The layout was to sit at my computer desk with the Zoom H4n on the desk, pointing straight at me but me playing to the side (towards the door open to the hallway and stairwell). The microphone sensitivity was at 15%.

This is not what I consider my best sound, but it’s close to it. The dark warm tone is 80% of the way to my favourite but the dynamic range and stability are a little bit under. That’s O.K. I’d better get my gums used to the pressure slowly with easy reeds. This reed was shaped with a Kunibert Michel 7.25 shaper and the cane was gouged with my own gouger using my latest blade profile.

Oboe results with hole in mouth:

There’s only a little discomfort with my gums not fully closed yet. I feel a pulling sensation in the hole, that comes from the pressure of my cheeks holding back the air pressure. For that purpose, I’ll do only a few minutes at a time with more breaks.

As for the oboe sound…. this has little if anything to do with my tooth extraction, but I really need to work my breathing more. The sound is pretty good, but I can tell the fullness is not what I’m capable of getting. I can kind of hear that my thorax is not expanding very much, especially in notes of the 1st and 2nd octave keys. I cannot blame it on the tooth pulling because my thorax feels the same as always, I guess I’m just paying more attention to it now that I’m consciously observing the feelings in my gums.

Hobbyist's Warm-up, Microphone Tips #2 and IMS #5

Scary stuff first!

I wanted to put a floor-plan of the house comparing where I stand and where I put the microphone for different recording sounds, but last night (after my IMS treatment #5), I was just too sore and tired! But it's definitely getting better: my neck was immediately and significantly more relaxed as I left yesterday's treatment and my right hand has pretty well been relaxed all week. Last week, my physiotherapist started working on my right forearm, and the reaction (pain and pull-back response) was much stronger than he had expected. He tried my forearms again yesterday, and the reaction almost broke off the needles in my arm! So he only did a few needles in each arm. But you know what? Since last week my right arm has been relaxed and this morning, my left hand is open and relaxed instead of being always tense and clenching - the first time in I don't know how many years! In fact, since the treatment, I don't even get strained from using the mouse at my computer so much! Seriously, this is the first time in maybe 20 years!

Now for the musical stuff!

As a professional software developer working a "day job" full time, my oboe practice time is short and precious. In fact, the last recording I made (2nd Recording here) was done without even doing a warm-up.... unless you consider the first "take" to be the warm-up for the second..... Outrage at the good ol' Oboe BBoard! But what can you do when you work all day and have to take care of the house and dogs at night? At least one contributor reminded me of exercises I had described myself:

1. Breathing exercises using the staple of the reed to work on abdominal air support.
2. Reed exercises to work on facial muscles and reed positioning.

The very competent players on the BBoard (proven with recordings of their own) consider those as actual warm-ups! A person with a full time day-job can certainly do those throughout the day: if people are allowed to take half a dozen cigarette breaks during the day, why not reed-buzzing breaks? ... urrrhhhh maybe because it's embarrassing as all Hades when passers-by or smokers catch my buzzing that strange little thing in my mouth?  Either way, the breathing exercise makes no noise, so every time I get up for coffee, lunch or the bathroom, I now walk with a staple in my lips to breathe in and out forcibly! I find that after doing it for as little as one minute, my lips have the same feeling as when I practice long-tones (sustained notes). So there must be some real benefit there. When spring comes and the weather gets warm enough to practice in my car at lunch time again, the extra time will make formal warm-ups easier. But in the meantime, with any luck, this will improve my sound and my endurance. I'll have to record some evening sessions at home to see if it does.

 Help wanted: it would be great if you left a comment of one of your own warm-up tricks!

Microphone Tips:

Today, work was slow so a nagging feeling in my mind kept getting louder: why would such an expensive microphone (recording device) add so much buzz that I have to play in another room to sound like myself? I figured, maybe the frequency sampling rate (file quality) was too high => higher frequencies are effectively what buzz is, so if I reduce the sensitivity, there should be less buzz... Turns out it was near lowest. So I jacked it at the high as it could get and put it on the computer desk to my side (mics point to me, I point away, to one side). Well, that helped! Reducing the ”gain” (recording level) also helped, but the actual sound remained about the same. Then I put it on a tripod behind me (same settings): OUPS, mega-buzz! In a nutshell, here’s what I observed (more experimenting needed):

1. Microphone behind: more buzz, even if on a table.
2. Microphone pointing in the same direction as oboe (e.g. both facing door): more buzz.
3. Surround microphones with dishcloth: helps because the sides of my mics are open to pick-up reverberation from the room.
4. Put the device to the side of the oboe and choose one of the XY formation microphones to from the pair to point directly/exactly to my oboe: much more realistic sound – no extra buzz (even without dishcloth).
5. It is possible, but not conclusive, that my very cheap tripod transmits vibrations to the recording device, resulting in lots of buzz.

This is by no means a scientific study! I think there are just too many variables for this to be done. Recording and equipment layout becomes an art where experience is only led by knowledge and both end up building instincts on which the sound technician must rely. But in the meantime, if we share each other’s stories, we can help each other out a lot!

So go ahead: leave a comment with one of your own recording stories!

Recoding Tricks

During the fall, I would use my lunch breaks to practice in my truck… that was actually one of the reasons I chose a Ford Edge! One day the bright idea came to me to use my my cell phone’s sound recorder on while I practice: the benefit was immediate and crystal clear. I heard things about my playing that were really not like I thought they were. This included tuning, but mostly about attacks, sustaining the notes and general phrasing.

Now, I can no longer imagine productive practicing without recording. For example, the benefit of the metronome is multiplied by recording when the playback clarifies if I really was playing with it or not.

Naturally, my cellphone (best free keyboard phone I could get without a data plan…) does not provide very good fidelity for sound quality!!! So my wife agreed I should get a really good portable recording device with emphasis on the quality of the microphones. Well, naturally, I looked at Sony, Korg, Yamaha, but it turns out that the reviews are unanimous that the best of the best for my purposes is the Zoom H4n built especially for photographers who do ad hoc videos.

The price was about the same for all of them in the same category, but this one had far superior specifications. It allows you to do multi-track recording itself (no computer needed) by playback dubbing and plugging-in many different inputs (guitar, other mic, CD player, computer, etc.). It can also serve as a microphone plugged into a computer: even on my Windows-7 computer, all I had to do was plug-in in with a USB cable, do simple Windows device configuration and POOF, it works perfectly with simple or excellent multi-track recording software like Audacity (free and powerful). It even has a chromatic tuner and metronome!

Sound tips for oboe

The Zoom H4n and others in its class are professional tools. This means that you need to know how to use them and use them well or else the result can be worse than with cheap tools! In my 1st You-Tube recording (Gammal fabodsalm fran Dalarne), I was a bit disappointed with my sound which seemed to have more buzz than in real life. Well, I know that I have to experiment more with room selection and the layout of instruments and microphone, but today I discovered a few things about the microphone itself that greatly affect the final quality:

1. The H4n has recording sensitivity: if the level is set too high (very sensitive) it will add buzz. Being in a small room and playing just one yard (1m) away from the microphone, there is no need to have the recording level over 25%
2. The microphone adds buzz when it is lower than the bell. The best level, at very close range, is about half way up the instrument.
3. Playing towards the microphone gives a“more alive” sound. Playing away from the microphone sounds a little artificial.
4. Playing with the bell below a table and the microphone on the table also seems to darken the sound.

So are all these tricks cheating? What is the real sound coming out of my Lorée with my reeds? Well, I think its not cheating and the real sound coming out of the instrument depends greatly on where the listener is standing (sitting) and where the oboe is playing! My wife’s photography proves that cameras are not a faithful witnesses to what we see, and it should be known that even the best microphone recorder is not a faithful witness of how we perceive sound… I REALLY like the way I sound when my laptop does the recording (el-cheapo mics)!!!

I’ll be working on this for my next recording, hopefully in a week or two!