Singing Potatoes
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Wednesday, 8 January 2003
Burden lifted

Back in October, I recorded my fellow members of the HMS Falcon singing sea shanties. I've finally finished massaging the audio to produce something worth selling on a CD, and now I can progress with some of my other projects.

From a technical point of view, the recording environment was somewhat less than optimum. We were in a large room full of hard surfaces which reflected sound back into the microphones, with fluorescent lights and no enclosed control booth to keep the computer noises out of the microphones. (And it was miserably hot, as the warehouse had no AC and we couldn't run the enormous fans to keep us cool — but fortunately the heat didn't affect the sound).

Click for slightly larger image

There was a lot of hum in the recordings, and many of the songs sounded like the guys were singing in a tiled bathroom. Thanks to a couple of parametric EQ filters, I was able to isolate and drop out the frequencies polluted by the lights and CPU fans, and by physically moving the microphones' individual audio clips on the timeline in relation to each other, I managed to reduce the reverberation drastically.

And though it's not perfect, I still think it sounds pretty damn good. So to celebrate, I bought myself an MP3 player to put the shanties on.

Update: linked picture to much larger image

Posted by godfrey (link)
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Comments
Ok, I dig the music - where can I hand over my hard won cash for a copy of the CD?

=)
Posted by Darren on 8 Jan 2003 10:39
As one who was part of the 'rough copy', I am very impressed by what he did to these tracks. You out there wouldn't believe what he had to work with.

BTW, the heat may not have affected the sound, per se, but as one of several fat guys present, it certainly didn't help.
Posted by Lunchbox on 8 Jan 2003 11:10
As soon as the CDs have been manufactured, Darren, I'll let you know.

Posted by Godfrey on 8 Jan 2003 12:41
Lunchbox sub-blog post #5:

Today my masterful grasp of useless knowledge won me nothing but satisfaction. Apparently the Fixed Income department (not exactly famous for their whimsy) has a daily trivia question, and not-so strangely, one of our brokers assumed, correctly, I would know the answer. The question was: who were the members of the Rutles? Of course they were Dirk, Stig, Nasty and Barry. Everyone knows the Pre-Fab Four, don't they? If anyone hasn't seen this film, from the Monty Python crew (from back in the 70's) you absolutely must get it. Even more strange is that I own this film on CD, from back before DVDs existed.
Posted by Lunchbox on 9 Jan 2003 09:13
Lunchbox's Australian namesake.

Posted by Godfrey on 9 Jan 2003 09:40
Some questions (I had) answered:
"Donkey Riding" - very well known capstan and windlass shanty, each verses are connected with consecutive ports of call.

timber on the deck - The Pinewood/ Softwood Trade of the period 1799 - 1860 actually saw some "one voyage ships", constructed to sail to Europe with Timber Cargo, the ship itself being broken up for timber at the end of the voyage- avoiding control/ custom duties on a large weight of timber.

Mobile - "Gulf" Town, South USA. Cotton had to be pressed into bales and pressed hard into the hold of the ship. It had to stay dry or it was ruined. Some ship fires occurred from the innercraft combustion heat of cotton cargo. Black as slave loaders got pittance wages. White folks - one dollar a day.

Iquiquie in Chile was not a real port, but a guano loading stage - fertilizer for Europe.

shake their belies - refers to prostitutes - has obvious sexual connotation.

White Stocking Day - traditional clothing for entering port at the end of voyage to pay off from ship.

Johnny - nickname for merchant navy sailor.

donkey - small deck windlass, later steam or power driven winches. Term still exists on modern UK Merchant Navy. "Donkeyman" looks after anchor and loading winches.
Posted by Lunchbox on 10 Jan 2003 08:25
Hey, if you haven't already, forward that to Matt so he can put it in the liner notes.

Posted by Godfrey on 10 Jan 2003 13:54
Maybe it's just me, but hearing someone sing "Haul Away, Joe" reminds me of the PDQ Bach number, "Throw a Yule Log On, Uncle John," which is about throwing a Yule log on Uncle John...
Posted by Zach on 14 Jan 2003 05:02
Yes yes, where can I buy this?
Posted by Moira on 23 Jan 2003 13:39
I'll let you know too!
Posted by Godfrey on 23 Jan 2003 13:46