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kenmerb@... wrote:
Speaking ofstrange noises, KL and I have noticed a strange noise on at least two ofthe French horn notes, near the beginning of the sounds. You shouldprobably contact me off-list to discuss, otherwise it could be embarrassing. I don't want to describe the sound, other than to ask if, by chance,these were recorded at your "House of Windsor" studio? I ∗am ∗ serious- there is something strange on a couple of the notes.
Ken,I am tempted to give a flip answer here (but I PROMISED not to makeany more jokes at Mike Dickson's expense, that I would NEVER AGAIN mentionon this list what he suffers from.), but I suspect that you're not hearingthe results of incomplete digestion but something more insidious to thosewho try to record 35 perfect notes in something other than a hermeticallysealed recording studio: ambient noise, in this case, more specifically,traffic noises.
When we recorded this sound, the piccolo and the bass clarinet, theflight pattern for the airport seems to have been somewhat nearer to myhouse than usual and we seemed to have a rash of cars and trucks desperatelyin need of mechanical care. Did I mention fire trucks? There were not one,but two fires in the nearby apartment buildings on that fateful night!
Merinque Smith had the unenviable task of sorting through all the takes(some notes with as many as ten) for to try to find ones that didn't haveany "outside influences" and also sounded good and were in tune (a minorqualification), and I think he did a damn fine job. But he has the masters.What's the word, old chap?
I will fire up old Brenda (as soon as I put in a good supply of coal)and check out your claims. What notes are you speaking of specifically?
However, I was just thinking... When the final takes of the master tapeswere being put together, Dickson was present at the Streetly World Headquartersin Lower-Upper Blithbury (hard upon the Twat & Handbag Pub) in orderto make the demo tapes for the Streetly Library Website. No. It couldn'tbe. It's just too far fetched to be true...
And for Gene's earlier e-mail, I agree that listening to the outtakeswould be quite illuminating as well as very funny. For example, when wewere recording the bass flute recently, my red-headed better half suddenlystopped playing and said, "Oh f___! Now I've got the hiccups!" I (beingthe time keeper and present in the vocal booth with her) unwisely said,"Oh, then we can just record some shorter notes between the hiccups." Shecalled me a seven-letter word that begins with "A" and then very sweetlysaid, "Oh! Is the tape still running?"
My feeling is we should leave the exchange in, in place of the 35thnote, but then I'd probably be sleeping on the sofa the rest of my farkinglife.
Hope this sorts everything out.
Rick