Open Mic 10: Recording + After-Show Chat

Congrats to everyone that performed tonight! This was my first time joining the audience and I was very impressed. All of the song choices were great and I thoroughly enjoyed watching everyone perform. Iā€™m in awe of all of the talent we have here!

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Damn. Cranky at myself. I overslept my 4:30 am alarm this morning and missed the OM completely :sleeping:. Sounds like it was a great one. Looking forward to catching the recording.

Cheers, Shane

I donā€™t recall saying that. It can have some effect if your bandwidth is low. It probably doesnā€™t apply in this case.

If there are audio problems, itā€™s almost always down to people not using headphones or muting in my experience.

Cheers,

Keith

@DavidP was in the audience, so you missed his appearance as well.

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you certainly didnā€™t suck, you were really good. Every performer was great yesterday.

Dave

I just banged this out this morning, regards setting up with Loudness Meters. You and others may find it useful.

Cheers

Toby
:sunglasses:

https://community.justinguitar.com/t/getting-the-right-loudness-levels-and-mix/119812

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Congratulations to all of the performers.

Everyone did a really nice job and I enjoyed from start to end.

Attending an OM was one of the goals I had set to myself when i wrote them down on my learning log. The next one is performing at one! :sweat_smile:.

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When youā€™re ready, weā€™ll be waiting !
:sunglasses:

Iā€™m waiting for the official announcement of the date for the next one. So iā€™ll know if i can :crossed_fingers:

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You wonā€™t have to wait long for that. Work in progress at the moment :smile:

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Right on so video is cooking up now no issues, due to some chores I left replying back for later so I will do a combo post now :smiley:

Apologies I needed to leave once it was finished this time around, when I was leaving I left Jason as main Zoom host instead of me so that probably kept it alive. When Jason left you have two buttons to click - leave meeting or End for all, Jason probably clicked the other as this is the main red button, whereas leave meeting is below and not so noticeable. :slight_smile:

So when you put your headphones into the PC it can detect you are switching from speakers to headphones automatically. With Zoom itā€™s not often happening and you need to change it manually in settings while on meeting bottom left corner. Same applies with a microphone.

Now with this I would be cautious - what appears too loud for one sitting in headphones can be just okay for other on laptop speakers. You were a bit louder than some but to me your levels werenā€™t too bad. I think video recording is a good indicator, this time around I didnā€™t have to play with volume envelope while cooking final video. Your levels based on the graph were similar to JKs, I think during last OM you were way louder.

I can organise a meeting just for people to play around with levels, although there is even a simpler solution - you can log in to your personal zoom and start a meeting yourself. Then hit record and it will record meeting with yourself to a local file. After doing some fiddling you can check if levels are okay to you - again what is okay for you might be off for someone else, all depends what someone is using for listening :slight_smile: I reckon 30mins-1hr before OM is a good moment to get everything tested out and changed, but again if someone wants to get it checked even before that just give us a shout and something can be organised :slight_smile:

Your feed was actually okay no glitches at all, I think this time around John had some connection issues and Dave early but he sorted it out before his performance. :slight_smile:

Well done to all performers, I just rewatched the ones I havenā€™t watched originally (only like 4 songs) due to some chores happening in the background around the house. It wasnā€™t a long OM but definitely top quality as always!

In the final video worth mentioning Rod recorded his performance from OBS onto a desktop, itā€™s exactly the same audio and video so I managed to swap his glitchy video feed. For those interested worth having a look! Actually I think this OM was most heavily edited one so far! :smiley: but it will be published later in the night.

Take care folks and see you onto the next one!

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We did a good sound check for almost everyone this time. Most people I asked to dial their volume down a bit. In general people have their guitars too high and vocal too low. I think everyone was pretty okay except for Dave and JK who I knew were louder than the others but not overly so. Toby was also a little hot on the guitar but actually not too bad for the performance.

Mark and Jen was a bit oddā€¦ we had the same issue they experienced during soundcheck. Iā€™m fairly certain they switched on original sound and it disappeared. However it came back. Mal had the same problem and again original sound sorted it out.

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Thanks for all the extra job you do editing the OMs! :man_bowing:

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Cheers Adi, Yeah Iā€™m good with the recording, have been setting up way above -14dB in practice though. Because the drums are generated in software I found I could push them all the way to the red line without clipping and then adjusted my guitar and vocal mic from there.

Toby has put a link up with regards to Youtube target levels and the apparent drop in dB over zoom so will have a look through that. I do think a strong signal works better across zoom, got to find the right balance I guess, you donā€™t need any extra work to do.

Definitely interested in joining a tech only zoom session, could maybe try and reproduce some of the issues and find some fixes.

Thanks again for all the work Adi, I donā€™t have the hardware for rendering video, but happy to help where I can. I was wondering if the ā€˜on the night commentsā€™ could be overlayed on the final youtube video, maybe as a CC option, Iā€™ll have a look into itā€¦ ā€¦see if itā€™s possible to automate a conversion of the zoom text file to a subtitle file.

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Me and @liaty with the Spinal Tap amps :rofl: :rofl:. This one goes to 11!

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OK, a bit of feedback for the great performances.

I like these retrospective reviews so thought I would try one out myself, also I got caught out on a previous open mic when I was commenting all along the way and managed to pull out my Audio Interface usb cable as I was setting up to play, so I just set up ready and leave it now which unfortunately makes it a pain to comment along on the night.

@DavidP David - Hope youā€™re on the road to recovery. Sorry, was going to shout out during the set but still a bit of rabbit in the headlight syndrome for me yet.

Jason @Rossco01
Thank you Jason. Great job as MC.
Going to look into the volume levels, Toby has soent some info.

Toby @TheMadman_tobyjenner
Should have listened.
Dog is like, whatever just donā€™t disturb my snoozing :slightly_smiling_face:
I like the way your songs sound like you, you bring your own style and individuality to each. Iā€™d come to see you play.

Here I am, on the road again
Ahh gear! so simple to operate when youā€™re practising - the controls seem to move themselves around on the nightā€¦
Love the chord progression in this one, dark.
Suits your voice and style.

Thanks again for organising the night.

Kevin @KevinKevan
I wanna be yours
Fantastic groove.

Something
Nice stong vocals.
Live solo, wow, good effort man.
Intermittent picking is nice, right on the beat.

Top notch Kevin, well done.

Mal and Lara @Malz
Peaceful easy feeling
Nice use of the capo for harmony, obviously well practiced.
And singing to match, lovely.

Really enjoyed that one.

The letter
No capo needed for Mal :slightly_smiling_face:
Fantastic vocals, the pair of you.

What a team, fantastic!

Mark @Notter
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Timing is spot on Mark.
Pitch on vocals is good, donā€™t be afraid to throw it out there!
Pedals as well, nicely handled.

Great overall performance Mark.

Eric @eric.lennon
I wonā€™t back down
Vocals are spot on. Great dynamics.
Nice palm muting technique.
Love the sound of the acoustic through the mic.

Nothing Ever Happens
Cadence is right on the button.

Wonderful, heart felt.

Luka and Sheldon @glpguitar
Original (Lost)
I wouldnā€™t have thought you could blend an acoustic and synth but you pulled it off, love it :slightly_smiling_face:
Great tone bending.

Jam (Thought I knew you)
Fantastic finger picking.
Great vocals.

Yep, like this. Great team effort.

Dave (me)

Oh dear, need to practice my pre song blurb.
ā€¦ and a get well soon for David P, no ā€¦ ā€¦ OK you just crack on then :frowning_face:

Smoke on the Water
Gets out of time, looks down at the strings like theyā€™ve moved :grinning:
oops, missed that chord change.
And that one, better than only getting half way to it though, I suppose.
Donā€™t know how the pros head bang and play, that mini head bob was me fully rocking out!
Awkward cheesy grin to finish, just say thanks maybe?

Happy with that one, and Iā€™ll pass on the comments from the night to my mam. Thanks for the positive feedback all, really enjoyed the night.

ā€¦could we do with a ā€˜roast meā€™ thread on the forumn, the anti-safe space???

John @Willsie
Harvest Moon
Nice and relaxed,
ā€¦ until the alarm goes off, ahhh :exploding_head:
Well handled, just got on with it.
Oh yeah, that is good.
Spaces in all the right places :slightly
Your vocals match this song well John.

Very chilled, nice work.

Rod @Rod58
You Got Lucky
Fantastic vocals.
Yep, grooving now, up and running.
Great stabs - is that the correct term? - sound good whatever they are called.

Very cool Rod. A natural.

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Mari @Mari63
59th Street Bridge & Wonderful World
Hand made Tele, wow. Looks and sounds great Mari.
Rockinā€™ and a groovinā€™ :slightly_smiling_face:
Seamless transition, wonderful :grinn
So accurate wth your playing Mari.

Lovely, soulful.

Mark & Jen @TheCluelessLuthier

Aw, such a shame with the sound issues, I know how much effort goes into the build-up.

Your voice was coming through strong.
ā€¦until, sounded like the sound went funky right as a laugh came in from the crowd, but you had knocked your speaker off???

So the sound of Jason was echoing as he introduced youā€¦ ā€¦then a bit of a high pitched hum, like feedback??.. ā€¦you turned down your speakerā€¦ ā€¦ then just as you were counting in, came a laugh - was there another speaker on, or headpones next to a mic?
ā€¦ Jasons voice was not echoing as he got your attentionā€¦ ā€¦but echoed as you turned the speaker upā€¦ ā€¦still issues when you turn your speaker back down, vocals are crystal clear but guitar is muted (by software) somewhereā€¦ ā€¦ I canā€™t imagine, but was the acoustic a lot louder than your speaking and just clipping? Someone, did suggest this at the meeting.

Hope to catch you both the next time. Itā€™s all part of the learning. :slightly_smiling_face:

JK @jkahn
Half 5, good effort.
Oh, hey
Nice and clean, great tone in the voice.
Percussion too!

Sunny Afternoon
A tough one and you delivered!

Great way to close.

well done everyone and finally a shout out to Adi @adi_mrok for sorting the video :+1:

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@liaty cheers Dave, props to you for going through the entire OM and so soon as well!
Keep rocking, itā€™s always great to see you play live!

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Go for it Edgar, you really wonā€™t regret it!!

@liaty Appreciate the listed and comments Dave. Iā€™m still trying to find my most comfortable pitch for vocals I think and that last button in my head to push to let it rip!! Iā€™ll get there :slight_smile:

This was an amazing OM for performances all around, what a joy to be a part of :+1:

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Thank you Dave for the kind words. It is Lara though, not Zara as was introduced, my Yorkshire accent again. :smiley:

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