Pocket Violin

I'd love to get one of these.

Click here.

Top 5 most memorable movies I saw as a kid

1. Bambi
2. The Sound of Music
3. The Karate Kid
4. Close Encounters of the Third kind
5. ET

Top 5 British Comedies

1. Dad's Army

2. The Good Life

3. To the Manor Born

4. Black Books

5. Black Adder

Top 5 American TV shows I loved as a kid in the 80s

1. Emergency!
2. The Brady Bunch
3. CHiPS
4. Diffrent Strokes
5. Happy Days

Top 5 albums

According to Ben it's Top 5 week.  Even though it's Thursday already.  Aren't you supposed to start a theme week on Monday?

Anyway I thought I'd join in the fun.

Here are my Top 5 music albums

1. "Songs From the Rain" - Hothouse Flowers
2. "Bring on the Night" - Sting
3. "Crime of the Century" - Supertramp
4. "Kind of Blue" - Miles Davis
5. "Busted Stuff" - Dave Matthews Band

Anniversary

Today is my 1 year anniversary of being a blogger.  I wanted to thank the 3 of you for reading.  I have improved as a blogger I think.  I'm much more regular now thanks to the extra fibre intake, and I have more pictures.  And shorter posts.  So hopefully this time next year I will have 6 readers.

kora 2

I found some proper photos of a kora from a different gig I did. This was the Blue Mountains Music Festival in 2008. I took these photos with a Canon 400d with 50mm 1.8 lens.

Here's a close up shot. See the nice detail on the back of the gourd and the many strings.


A shot of the guy performing. Sorry I really can't remember his name, but he comes from Mali in west Africa. Don't you love the silver curtain?


And here he is pre-performance, tuning up. Those viney looking rings on the pole looking thing get pushed up and down to tune the strings. Very difficult process.

And here you can see his thumb work. That's how they play, plucking with both extremly strong thumbnails. They are probably reinforced, like flamenco guitarists nails.

The adventures of Basil the basil - one week on.

You'll all be very happy to hear that Basil survived the trauma of last week, and has a couple of little shoots coming through in the middle.

A test

Who watched Australian Idol tonight?   Who can name the 2 microphones the contestants were using during their individual masterclasses with Suzi Quatro?

These 2 mics I have taught you about in my previous audio language classes.  There was a squarish looking mic on a stand, and there was one they were holding in their hand, not plugged in.

A prize may or may not be coming your way if you answer correctly.

This is sure to bring all the lurkers out of the woodwork.

Donkey 2

And this is what the donkey looks like close up.

Snowcake

For some really great acting check out this film.  Sigourney Weaver plays an autistic woman, unable to show any emotion about the death of her daughter. Professor Snape agrees to stay with her a few days to put the rubbish out.  I think his relationship with the woman next door kind of cheapens the film a bit, and there is a bit of a cheesy aspect with his previous experiences being replayed through these present circumstances. But his relationship with the autistic woman is humorous and has an interesting tension to it.  It's a well made film worth watching. 

Donkey

Have you ever heard a donkey bleating? Is that the proper word? Whatever it is, a donkey noise. I took this video on my point and shoot camera when I was in Switzerland in 2005. Immediately after this he charged down the hill towards me and I thought I was going to get taken out by a donkey, but he stopped at the fence.

Always check the connectors

That's today's tip of the day.  Here you can see one headless engineer plus one engineer with a head in the orchestral studio trying to work out why we couldn't get level to tape on four channels.  That's the SSL C200 digital console, looking out through the glass to the large room where orchestras and people go.  Out of the picture were me, with a head, obviously trying really hard to help because I was taking photos, plus another engineer who also has a head, also helping out with the situation.  That's four extremely skilled sound engineers trying to work out the solution to the problem.  Naturally we were trying all the difficult things, like going deep into the depths of the software configaration for the digital connections.  But the answer was simply that the cable wasn't in properly.  Lots of time could have been saved if we'd thought of this first.  But on the positive side it was a good exercise in dealing with the highly complicated software which goes with this desk.

The adventures of Basil the basil

Introducing my new little friend.  He is a baby basil plant.  I have decided to call him Basil.  My friend EF gave him to me today in that nice big pot.  Unfortunately, by the time we got home, Basil wasn't really in the pot anymore.  He was wandering around the car and making a big mess, leaving big piles of dirt everywhere.  Naughty Basil.  Anyway I have replanted him and hopefully he will recover from the trauma he caused himself and grow nice and big.

Dessert

TR and I had this for dessert.  

Double choc ice cream in the glass with biscotti. 

1 shot of espresso

1 shot of Kahlua

1 shot of Baileys

Pour over ice cream.

Enjoy sensibly.

Bell

Hot Tips for Church Sound Operators

Back in 2002 I wrote an article about doing live sound in church for a really cool online magazine of Christian articles . The website was gracenotworks.com, which you can still find, but hasn't been updated for many years. It had some great design features, like the little pixelated sheep up the top which wiggles when you move your mouse over it. Plenty of things to click on. Anyway, I came up with some simple tips for chuch sound operators which I still advocate...

.: Be one step ahead of everything at all times. The sound operator must be continually on the ball. Always watch what’s going on up front and be ready for it. Having someone talk into a microphone which isn’t on should NEVER happen.

.: Be listening at all times. This sounds obvious, but needs to be said. Is the speaker clearly audible? Can all of the instruments be heard in a pleasing balance? (It is hard to hear what is going on if you sing while mixing.)

.: Practice mixing. Take some time to experiment outside the service. Get your church band to come and jam so that you can practice. Try things that you are too scared to try in a service.

.: Familiarise yourself with equalisation (tone controls). Play a CD or sermon tape over the system and hear what boosting or cutting different frequencies sounds like.

.: Familiarise yourself with the sound of the room. Play a CD and walk around. Is what you hear at the mix position similar to what the congregation hear? Do you need to compensate for this in your mixing?

.: If your system sounds like it has gremlins in it, get your church to spend some money getting it fixed up. It is important to have a system which works properly.

.: Having said this, you need to know how to use your system. Know how it is set up so that if anything goes wrong you can get around it.

.: Communicate well with the musicians and speakers about their sound requirements. Aim to make everyone comfortable, and this will result in a much smoother service.

kora

I was looking through some old pics I took on my dodgy phone camera and found this photo of a kora player Ba Cissiko, from Guinea in west Africa. I recorded his band at the Opera House a few years ago.  The kora is that thing the guy is holding in front of him.  It's made from a gourd and plucked really quickly with both thumb nails.

I wish I still had the rider for that gig as it was something else. In Guinea they speak French, and whoever had translated the rider into English must have just used an online translater, because there was some really weird stuff going on.   The technical requirements included requests for the facade and ring roads.   Not normally the language of tech specs.  One assumes the facade was meant to refer to front of house and ring roads was referring to auxiliaries.

But the best bit was the request for 8 foot baths on stage.  Martin audio foot baths even.  Fold back, foot baths, they're all the same!

films

This is my pick this week. Au Revoir Les Infants, a French film, based on the real experiences of the director. Set in German occupied France during WW2 in a boarding school run by priests. A Jewish boy with a fake name is hidden there by the headmaster and takes part in the normal school life, but has several nervous times when German soldiers show up. It's an interesting film based around his friendship with another boy, who discovers he is a Jew, but is unsure of why the Jews should be hated. No sentimentality and worth watching.

vine

This is the wall in my back courtyard.

Vic Simms

Last week Vic Simms' recording of "The Loner" was added to the National Film and Sound Archives Sounds of Australia. I personally find this significant because I recorded Vic in 2007, for a special recording of some the Loner tracks which he has hardly revisited in the last 30 years. Vic is an indigenous Australian who became a recording artist at 15 years of age. In 1973 he found himself in jail and RCA took a mobile recording unit in and he recorded "The Loner" album. Click here for more info on Vic.

And to hear the program we made about the ABC recording sessions with Vic talking about his experiences and bits of the recordings I made click here. Unfortunately the online audio is a bit distorted, not my fault.

audio language lesson 3

The audio language is filled with a lot of numbers. I've already taught you about 87's, 57's and 58's.

Microphone manufacturers love using numbers to name their mics. I think they should use names like Nigel, Herman and Nancy. But no, instead we all have to try and remember a bunch of numbers. Here are some more you should know, which are standard additions to studio microphone cupboards.

This lovely egg is the AKG D112. Just call it the D112. Commonly used for micing kick drums.

This is the Sennheiser 421. It sounds great on toms for a really fat sound. Great for brass as well. Just call it a 421.

This the AKG C451 B. This is used commonly for micing hi hats, and sounds great on strings as it's got really nice high end detail. Drop all the letters and call it a 451. You can see people singing into older models in old 80's film clips too, but they are not commonly used as vocal mics these days. In fact people would look at you rather strangely if you stuck it up as a vocal mic.

And finally, the AKG 414. There are several different models, but we just call them 414's. Great for anything - vocals, acoustic instruments, guitar amps, floor toms, overhead mics for drum kits.

Camera Comandos

I was meant to post these ages ago. This is the Autumn edition of the Camera Commandos outing. We went to Carriageworks for the Finders Keepers markets. It wasn't a hugely successful day. But I got a couple of keepers.
Challenge 1 - shoot anything out of context
Challenge 2 - shoot triangles



I just liked this.


Triangles? Circles?


Triangles

Triangles

Cooking With Sound Part 2

Today's lesson - mud.

Cooking with Sound

Earlier this year I posted some behind the scene pics of making a short film which I did the filming of. Well it's finally up on youtube. Pick the shot where we forgot to turn the lights on. What a bunch of amateurs! And spot my cameo appearance at the end.

photos - walsh bay, Sydney

I took these when I had some time out from the Sydney Writers Festival back in May.

2 photos

Here are 2 little wooden toys I treasure.  

This horse and cart was given to me by my Estonian Grandfather.  I can remember him pulling it down from a high shelf thing above a doorway in his Epping house and giving it to me when I was about ten.  I don't know how old it is or where it originally came from.  I was practicing with depth of field photography.  It's sitting on my bed and is about 2.5 inches in length.

This is an Estonian dolly.  It's only about 2 inches high.  I think my mother brought it back from Estonia for me when she visited there with her mother, brother and sister in 1985.  Estonia was still under Soviet rule back then so they got followed around everywhere by Russian spies and weren't allowed to stay with relatives, and my uncle quite strongly believes they got gassed in their hotel room, but they got out and complained about it and it stopped.

How to heal an ear infection

I've been reading the internet lots about ear infections lately, since mine have been such an issue.  An interesting internet sourced piece of information - most ear infections are viral, not bacterial, so taking antibiotics is useless, in fact, often does more harm than good because they lower your immunity and increase the risk of a relapse.  

Here are some non drug methods I've read about or tried for curing my middle ear infections since the two lots of antibiotics I was on didn't work. 

1. put a garlic clove or piece of ripe onion in your ear (not so small or far in so that it gets stuck or touches the ear drum, that would be very bad.) Apparently the fumes have germ killing abilities.

2. Drip some coconut oil in your ear.  If you suspect you have a perforated eardrum best not to do this.  Coconut oil is supposed to have anti viral and antibacterial qualities.  Also good to take it internally.

3. Dilute some oil of oregano in olive oil and rub inside your ear canal.  Not so much that it drips onto the ear drum as it's extremely potent.   Oregano oil is also meant to be anti viral and anti bacterial and good to take a few drops a day internally for immune system.

4. acupuncture - I've had good results with acupuncture for health issues before.

5.  See an osteopath.  If your neck and back muscles are all jammed up this can impede the drainage of the eustachian tube.  I felt a huge improvement in my ear drainage after a treatment.  I mean osteopath in the the Australian sense, not the American sense, they are different over there.

So I've been trying a few of these things.  My ears smell like a tropical herb garden at the moment.

old jobs #1

I've been working for nearly 15 years now in professional audio.  I've done a whole bunch of different types of jobs in my time, ranging from live sound for theatre, music recording, mixing and production, arranging, radio production, and lecturing in recording techniques.

One of the first jobs I ever did was working on a professional production of "The Mikado" in Brisbane and the Gold Coast as the radio microphone operator. This meant being backstage for the show, fitting mics to people, doing changeovers during the show and constantly monitoring the systems to make sure no one went on stage with a dead mic.  Here's some pics from the production.

Before the show I had to go into dressing rooms and put mics on people.  The big thing was to not be able to see the mics, so there were a bunch of different techniques used.  If someone had a wig or a headband we would just stick it to their forehead poking out from the wig a little bit.  Guys with hair got the "pen job".  This took a little while to master.  It involved getting the tube of a ball point pen, with the innards removed.  Take a tiny rubber band which was only about a centimetre in diameter, and wrap it around the end of the tube several times.   Put the the head of the mic inside the tube and grab some strands of hair just above the persons ear and poke them inside the tube as well.  Then flick the rubber band off the end of the tube so that it is now attaching the mic to the hair.   Sometimes this can be rather painful for the person and needs to be done several times before you get a secure fit without it hurting like crazy.  It's best to have the mics attached to the head so that if the singer moves their head they never go off mic.

John English was one of the stars.  I didn't have to put his mic on but after the show I had to go to his dressing room and rescue his mic from his headband which was dripping with sweat.  It was gross.

During the show there were many transmitter changes.  SG didn't want to hire enough mic transmitters for each person, so they had to be shared around, which meant I spent the whole show running around grabbing transmitters out of people's costumes as they came off stage and putting them in other's as they were about to go on.  Some of the changeovers were so fast I literally had to stick my hand down people's pants the moment they got off stage, no time for modesty, then run and find the next person as they were about to step on stage.  It was pretty tight.  At times I was sprinting from one side of the stage to another to make the pack change in time.  The stage hands knew when I was coming and kept the way clear.  There were also quick costume changes of the actors as well which meant pulling the packs out of one costume and putting them in another as the person was changing their clothes.  This was sometimes a really complicated operation involving several people as some changes needed to be done in about 30 seconds.  And you don't want to be the one responsible for someone missing their cue on stage.  Yes, hectic things go on backstage of the theatre world.

toothpaste for burns

My brother blogged about this a while ago.  You are going to think we're nuts but it does work.  I pulled a hot tray out of the oven tonight and proceeded to touch it with 4 fingers.  Ouchy ouchy.  I ran to the bathroom, ran my fingers under cold water for a minute, then applied heaps of toothpaste to ouchy bits.  I kept it there until the pain went away And I could feel a cooling sensation.  No more ouchy and no blisters.  Read the technique properly at  http://ausdag.blogspot.com/2008/12/toothpaste-for-burnt-fingers-boiling.html