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CONTROVERSY – AGAIN By Ray Graeff Controversy…. Everywhere you look. Do you allow drums in your band, is an electric bass Ok? How many non standard chord changes do you allow in a Bluegrass song, before you say “Enough is Enough” ? Do you use the Antares pitch (Pro-Tools) corrector to make your recordings absolutely perfect and on-pitch every time? Do you use a electronic device called a vocalizer to pitch your voice up and octave…. To hit those really high notes…. Or the reverse, do you use the vocalizer to pitch your voice down an octave, so that you can make the bass singer in your band really exciting? That same vocalizer will take your voice and make two or more harmony singers electronically appear on you recorded project. There are so many electronic devices now-a-days that the choices are endless. Back in the days when reverb started, it was thought that all recordings just absolutely had to have reverb (to make it sound like you were singing down a well). I don’t know if that was good or bad as it was thought that reverb covered some close calls in the off pitch department. As a recording engineer, I’m caught in the middle. As a recording engineer, bass player, producer, record label owner and promoter, I’m the in-between guy that has to make some hard choices, every day. Sometimes I feel like a tightrope walker, and there’s just no way to please everyone. Over the years, I’ve become quite good at using most of the features of the Pro Tools recording program and the abilities of that program boggle the mind with all of the assists that are available to the modern day engineer. But, where do you draw the line? There are purists out there that say “Those tools should not be used at all, an artist should be honest and true to his profession and not use any of that fakery”. I’m not so sure. In these days when bluegrass is competing with modern country music and all the facets of it, you face the situation where someone says “I never listen to Bluegrass - most of the time they can’t even carry a tune, and the rest of the time they sing through their nose”. The response to this may be to help the singer stay on pitch with the use of pitch correction. But then you catch it from the purists who say… “Leave it alone”…. That’s just the way they are”. Soooo, if you are the Engineer, what do you do? Ahhh… the controversy ! There are as many views on this subject as there are cars in the parking lot. If you take your car to the body shop for a re-paint job and they leave a big paint run in the drivers door, would you accept the answer of “Oh, that’s just the way we are”? or would you tell them to fix it? I think you would want it fixed, and there are varying degrees of even that. Is it up to the artist to decide whether to use pitch correction or not, and to what degree? I guess the Ethics of the subject has to enter into it and the individual artist has to know their fans well enough to understand just what they expect from anything bearing that artists name. There are so many electronic aids available to a modern recording engineer, that they can make a pretty mediocre artist sound pretty good (as evidenced by many country music projects today). If there’s a click or a pop on a studio cut, we can fix it. If you move you fingers on the guitar neck and there’s the resulting “zzzzzzzzip” as that happens, it can be removed. A breath sound occurs when some artists use “Ps” or “Ts” in the words of a given song that even a breath shield can’t keep out. Those can all be fixed, and we do it routinely. Even a wrong note on the bass can be fixed by copy and paste from another location in the song where the correct note is found, and that’s done frequently using the pro-tools computer driven mix system. Some artists even record the chorus of all their songs only once, and the ‘puter engineer just copies it and plugs it in for the second time the chorus is needed. This has been standard studio procedure for more years than I care to think about. Now where was that doggone line again? Did I cross it? How much do I fix? There is a presumption that the bad line in a recording should be re-recorded again and again until it’s perfect…. Isn’t that cheating too…. You can’t do that on a live show. Uh-huh…the line just got fuzzy, didn’t it. Where is the Ethical line between making your recording project the absolute best it can be and still remain honest and true to your fans that purchase your recorded projects? I’m guilty, I use pitch correction in our studio, and all the artists I’ve worked with have applauded that. You just have to weigh having the artists take another day and drive for hours to return to the studio and re-cut a given line in a song…… or just push a button. The button wins, most of the time. I’m safe to say that 90% of all bluegrass recording done today uses pitch correction, it’s become a given, however, I will not use a vocalizer to synthetically generate harmony tracks or synthetically raise or lower a voice into a abnormal range. There is a infinite adjustment to the degree that you can use pitch for correction and percentages can be selected by the recording engineer. The Engineer can also choose how much “Hold Off” he uses. “Hold Off” means that fraction of a second delay that pitch correction uses before it takes over…. In the word LOVE, (that happens frequently in Bluegrass songs), the first part of the word is un-touched…. But as the word is held and the pitch may tend to wander slightly, pitch correction kicks in and the tail of that word is protected against any drift off pitch… That is the degree which I normally use in the studio (I don’t like to let anything leave my body shop with runs in the paint). There have been two occasions here in our studio where the artists pitch was so bad, that I asked them to go elsewhere to get their project recorded. I think that’s where the ethics of the subject kicks in. Other ethics questions include not allowing any electric basses to be used on Bluegrass projects….. and there’s no way in H… that I’m gonna work with a drummer or a keyboard and try to call it Grass. The line just got fuzzy again didn’t it? But…. There are other studios and labels around that won’t let a small matter like that influence their making a buck or two.
I’m sure you have an opinion on this subject. Let me know, I’ll put your comments in Bluegrass Road. Thanks for visitin’ with me Ray G. |
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T HE iBLUEGRASS.com CHAT ROOM PHENOMENON
Gosh ! has it been four years now? I can’t believe I’ve spent that many evenings in the www.iBluegrass.com chatroom. I know I’m not supposed to elevate or even mention a site that is supposed by some to be my competitor. But what the heck, Skip Ogden is a friend of mine and we talk often on the phone and by email. He has spent much time telling me that a Bluegrass web magazine is a heck of a lot of work. I first though that he was trying to convince his wife Glenda that was the case, just so he could hang out around the house more. NOT ! He was dead on, it is a lot of work. Sharon had called herself the Web-Widow in the past, but that has now taken on an even more pronounced tone since I started Bluegrass Road. I lost track after the first couple of hundred hours I spend just building the layout, not to mention all the writing effort that has gone into the thing.
Anyway….. back to the Chatroom. Whenever anyone in Bluegrass says THE Chatroom that can only mean one thing…. iBluegrass.com . It is utterly amazing that just through the printed word of someone else that you’re used to communicating with, you can sense whether someone has had a bad day, is tired, or something has happened to put them in a down frame of mind. Those that regularly come in to Chat can sense those kinds of things in just a few short comments from someone else in the room., we know one another that well. A comradery has developed among us that is un-breakable. To further enhance this bond, we decided early on that we should all get together and finally meet all those that we had been visiting with via the web. Soooooo.. it was decided, that since everyone was familiar with the yearly IBMA convention in Louisville, Ky, why not kill two birds with one stone and all of us meet there? We did it. I think the first year, there were about 35 of us that attended. It has steadily grown in the years since. Now… Ole’ Dobber is not just a familiar sequence of letters on the screen, he’s a real flesh and blood person and there was no doubt that we were all friends that had shared many a trail with one another, even if it was not face to face.
Romance flourished too…. GibsonB had for months been talking to a young lady named Whitedove and they found that they liked one another quite a lot. They’re now living in Virgina, husband and wife. Then there was this guy from Virginia that got to talking to a girl from Arkansas… BINGO… (Sherrye now lives in wedded bliss with John, in Virginia). Then there’s Danny from W.Virginia who after finding out what made a lady from Las Vegas tick, over the internet, decided that they should meet and see what happened… Danny and Half pint are now happily married and she’s in the family home in W.Virginia while Danny is over-seas in Iraq serving in the Army. Danny will soon be home though, so they can take up where they were interrupted. I’m sure there are others too, maybe I shouldn’t delve too deeply here…. Hehehe.
I have no good estimate of how many friendships and life long bonds have been developed over the years, but I can tell you one thing. We know one another better, due to the Chat, than a lot of next door neighbors know one another, and we wouldn’t want it any other way.
Some celebrities come on the Chat occasionally too. Sonny Osborne, for instance. Then there’s Valerie Smith, and who can tell who else. Since we just choose a name to log onto the site, you’re never sure if you’re talking to one of the big dogs or not. We’re all just regular folks in there, and sometimes the big dogs get asked some kinda pointy questions. Rhonda Vincent once told me that she had visited there too. None of us know for sure just what her name was on those occasions…. “Supermom”… or “8picker” or whatever. It doesn’t really make any difference, we’re all just folks having a good time and joking, and kidding one another. We’ll tell of our likes and dislikes honestly and maybe even step on some toes occasionally, but that’s ok, ‘cause we’ll all friends bound to a common love…. BLUEGRASS.
Of course there are a few apples in the barrel that are not always shiny and honest, but it doesn’t take long for the truth to come out. We have our ways… lol. But I don’t suppose there was ever a group that was 100% honest. Some are even prone to stretch the truth a whole lot on occasion.. Ernie will tell it so many different ways, that one of em surely must be right…. Kinda, sorta, I think…. Maybe. Stories and jokes abound and most of them are fit for family consumption. The Chatroom computer keeps a constant vigil and you find out pretty quick that there are certain words that you just can’t use….. without a bunch of ********* showing up on the screen. You name it, and it’s probably happened in THE chat…. Marriage counseling, job hunting, trading instruments, someone has a new song, or just got married, or sure would like to meet a certain girl or guy. Just like life you’ll find a rich mixture of all the things that make life worth living in God’s great plan. Hummmmm… wonder what HE might use for a chat name?
Getting into the chatroom is absolutely painless… you just log onto www.ibluegrass.com and when the first page opens up you click on the symbol that has CHAT underneath (up near the top). A new page will open up with all the rules listed and you’re required to read all of them before you go any further. NOW it’s time to choose a name for yourself and click on the deal in there that says…CREATE ACCOUNT…. Another page will open up with some questions on it…. Your real name, your email address and a couple of others… Don’t worry about this stuff being used for spam or anything, that just ain’t gonna happen. Skip Ogden must know who you are in case there’s ever a problem or anyone does anything illegal or against the chatroom rules. There are a few who have been denied admission to the room following those kind of happenings. When you’re all done, hit submit, and shortly you will receive an email telling you the code that you need to enter into the discussion with the rest of us. It’s a hoot, I tell ya’. Come on in. The regular bunch usually get together about 10:00pm eastern time, but you may find someone in there most any time. We’ll treat you so many ways, you’re bound to like one of ‘em.
Ray Graeff aka “Bullfiddle”
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HOW DID WE SURVIVE ? According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's probably shouldn't have survived. Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.) As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors! We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have Play stations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside and found them. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them. Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that! This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. And you're one of them! Congratulations. Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good. Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it? FROM THE INTERNET..... |
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OFF AND RUNNING.... Who would have thought that an old country boy
that happens to play bass a little could do something like this
website. We know it's not beautiful. We know there are mis-spelled
words here and there. We know pictures take up a lot of space and are
slow to download, but what th heck ! I like to see folks and what
they're doing and I think all those pictures and stuff are neat. We
plan to have lots more, if I can just get folks to start sending them in
to me. Of the few responses I've had they've all been supportive of the
idea of preserving Traditional Bluegrass... My kind of folks.
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THINGS ARE CHANGING I guess change is inevitable, but…. Some of it is a little painful. Do you remember when any bluegrasser’s word was his bond? Do you remember when you could leave your valuable instrument unattended for hours and return to find it exactly as you left it? Do you remember when everyone dressed to go on-stage and the stories were all fit for family consumption? How about returning to the field that held a festival last night, and finding that all the pop cans and popcorn bags had all been picked up and deposited in the trash barrel by the attendees? How about not worrying about your tape and CD money in a cash bag left at your tape table. All these things are changing. It’s not just the music that is undergoing a revolution. Thanks to the iBluegrass Chatroom I’m hearing about a major promoter that held a large festival on the east coast and when the performers were finished Sat. night, were told that there was no money to pay them….. It really happened. How about the guy in Nashville who set his banjo down behind him in a hallway to visit just a minute and turned around to find his banjo missing. NOT GOOD ! I’m seeing some major bands now show up un-shaven, dressed in cut off blue jeans and sloppy flowered shirts… HUH???? Not long ago I saw a number of body piercing on a couple of band members…. One had a gold piece through his lower lip….? ? ? Just this summer I attended a festival here in Missouri that looked like a battle zone. Trash, cans and cigarette butts thrown on the ground…. Would sure hate to have to visit the jerks who did that in their home. Yup…. It’s changing alright. We … personally lost our cash bag off our tape table in one of the northern states… luckily it only contained about $150.00…. it was a slow day…. The park personnel later found our money bag with a few checks and our business cards in the bottom of the trash can in the women’s rest room. Of course the cash was all gone…. I know, I know….. Change….. There is also some good stuff happening. Lots of people hate Rap music just as much as we do…. Hehehe. I’m not sure what we are going to do about the jerks running down main street with their 600 watt car amplifiers going - BOOM, KA-BOOM. We’ll work on that one. After all this griping, I then see some great new family bands come along that just knocks my socks off. I’m a big fan of The Faris Family since they came on the scene, and before that it was the Chapmans, then The Martin Family, and the Larkins, and on and on….. things haven’t been this good since they invented peanut butter. THEN ! How about a Mom on mandolin that also clawhammers banjo, Dad on the Doghouse bass, 18 year old sister that flat tears up a banjo, a 10 year old little sister that gets with it on th fiddle (left handed yet), an older brother who fiddles twin with his sister (his fiddle neck is on the right end, though), and a 12 year old brother that flatpicks the heck out of a Martin guitar; And they all sing tight harmony. And to top it all off….. When they play a hot one four of the kids (and maybe Mom too), All clog dance in unison. I’m talking about the Cherryholmes Family Band, And we had to follow them on stage at Sally Mountain Festival. Dang it….. You get th picture. If you get the chance to go see ‘em…. Do it. P.S. – NEVER FOLLOW A KID ACT, THEY’LL TEAR YOU UP ! There are other great young performers too. Ryan Holliday…. (no need to expound on that one)….. The Chapmans and dozens more…. Things are looking up. Today you must sing on pitch… (that’s a little different). You must be great on your selected instrument. You have to sing tight harmony (that’s grown to be a fine art). You must be personable and have a sense of humor, have adequate transportation (Bus or nice RV that’s dependable). And…. show up when you’re supposed to. This new bunch of young people coming along have all these things and the worry warts that are concerned about our genre failing are due for a big surprise. WHOA… What’s this…? I guess I’ll reverse myself just a little and talk about an old timer too….. We played Starvey Creek Festival in Conway, Mo. awhile back and Don Day reports that Saturday night was the largest single night of any festival he has held…. EVER….. Who was on that show ? You guessed it - - Jimmy Martin. Jimmy says he is now 75 years young and everyone was green with envy that he could pull the kind of crowd that he did. The line at his tape table was about 50 deep for a couple of hours and the rest of us, just kinda stood around. Say what you will about the old timers. ...............WAY TO GO… JIMMY……. The Bluegrass genre is the only music that still honors and respects it's senior members. See ya next time
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