"The Shed" guitar

[peter.coombe]

And, even with their size, once the box is closed, you can't get your hands in!

That is not just a problem with basses, I have the same problem. Once a mandolin box is closed up that is it, no access.

Peter

[kevjed]

Could it be that the second clip guitar is tuned down a tone, hence the need for the capo on the second fret, results in less string tension and thus drives the sound board a little less? This would seen to produce a more"mellow" tone or less "bright" sound if you like. Perhaps due to less of the odd numbered harmonics?
Just a stab from a brass player. lol

[kevjed]

Oooops, just found the second and third page. The mystery is already answered.
Mass loading. Brass players do the same thing by adding mass to various parts of the instrument.
Sometimes valve caps but usually the mouthpiece.

[Trevor Gore]

The mystery is already answered.
Mass loading. Brass players do the same thing by adding mass to various parts of the instrument.

Interesting. I didn't know that; and my late father was a brass player...

[Trevor Gore]

It's a while since I posted to this thread and quite a lot of water has passed beneath the bridge since. Some of the sound clips are not currently available due to the passing of my old mate Alan, whose studio we recorded them in and whose YouTube channel we posted them on. I've managed to retrieve the files, so I might be able to get them up again.

Alan and I did some recordings of The Shed guitar, but we didn't get to finish mixing them down, hence my earlier "sound check" recordings. So I've done a couple more takes at The Shed, trying to improve my technique with all this software. So here's a couple of tracks which primarily demonstrate how stiff my fingers have gotten and how my timing hasn't improved any.

The first take is recorded outside on my deck to avoid some of the natural reverb my place has, and the second take is inside, capo at 7. No EQ or effects etc. on either recording. I'll try to do another direct recording from the K&Ks in a later post.

Shed Guitar Nov2012.mp3

(818.23 KiB) Downloaded 813 times

Parsley fret 7_1.mp3

(753.83 KiB) Downloaded 804 times

[Trevor Gore]

Here are two more recordings using the K&Ks via a Baggs preamp, then into the MBox. No EQ, reverb etc. etc. Not too bad a sound, considering, and the recording can be done whilst listening to the cricket, something you can't do when using a condenser mic, unless you want Jim Maxwell in the background. The tapping sound that you may hear is just my fingernails hitting the strings. A better player would avoid that...

Shed K&K no capo.mp3

(777.04 KiB) Downloaded 753 times

Shed K&K capo 7.mp3

(773 KiB) Downloaded 839 times

[Trevor Gore]

Do you know how sometimes the break goes your way, the planets align and all that...

Well, remember this young guy? I said something like "No slouch in the playing department, either!"

This clip was pretty much rescued from the digital cutting room floor, recorded on a freezing night last July. Nearly got lost for ever.

This is Tom on "The Shed" guitar. Definitely worth a listen...

Tom - Tripping.mp3

(1.45 MiB) Downloaded 916 times

I found a couple of other bits of track too, so will post them if requested!

[Trevor Gore]

This page seems to have taken a few hits since I was last here!

I've been experimenting with video formats on my website and have loaded a video of Bruce Mathiske playing the Shed Guitar. It seems to play OK on my PC but I would really appreciate any feedback on how it plays on other devices (phone, tablets, Macs etc.) e.g. too much/little resolution, quality of the sound etc.

The link is here: http://www.goreguitars.com.au/main/page ... sound.html. (The video is down at the bottom of the page).

Thanks in advance for your help.

Trevor.

[Dave M]

Trevor I am also using a PC but from the other side of the planet...

The sound comes over really well, with good clarity and separation of notes. It is quite 'upfront' which is what I at least like in a fingerstyle performance.
In comparison it is much better than your mate Dannys performance of Buffalo, which comes over somewhat muffled. Though as an aside it is nice to hear Davy Graham's tune being played, though I am more familiar with John Renbourn's version of it.

I appreciate your issues with getting a decent sound out. My low level attempts at just audio digital recording, let alone video, have not been a great success.

[Steve.Toscano]

Hi Trevor, something to keep in mind is that currently upon first visit to that page the video defaults to 360p, instead of HD - in the case of this video 720p. Therefore audio (and the video, but who cares about that ) aint the best. Noticeable difference on my not studio quality but better then average BOSE pc speakers here at the office.

After manually selecting HD, the browser will remember this for next time.

We have had similar problems with the videos on Strato's site (FLG), my web guy is working on a fix - the youtube recommended fixes dont work .
That site's built in wordpress, so the same fix may be useless for you but will shoot you an email when/if we have one anyway.

See screenshot below of how it loads on a Samsung galaxy S7.
It's actually very difficult to make it full screen - need to hit the little full screen square in the bottom right hand corner of the video - i have slim fingers and was struggling. Compare to how say the FLG site loads the videos.

Cheers
Steve

[Trevor Gore]

Dave, Steve;

Thanks for responding. I often wonder whether it's worth posting sound clips and videos on the web because they never sound anything like a live guitar anyway (!) but people keep asking for them.

Dave, thanks for the comment about "Buffalo". I went back to the original .wav file I have of that and hear the same things as in the MP3. That particular guitar was very articulate live, so I think what we're hearing is Danny's bare finger playing (no nails and a palm mute on the bass notes) which adds that muffled, rather nasal sound.

For those that weren't there, Bruce was recorded using the mics you see straight to a Mac yielding .mov files. He was using a thumb pick and also acrylics (I think). There were a few extraneous clicks which appeared to be artifacts of the recording process so I had to edit those out in Audacity, add the sound back as a .wav and then convert to a more compressed video format. What's posted at the moment was sent as a 20Mb .wmv file which then got processed to 720p. I can't stream that fast out here in the sticks at Cottage Point, so in auto it plays at 360p! And yes, it does sound better (through the buffering gaps) at 720p.

I was thinking of trying Vimeo out. Is there any significant advantage over YouTube? It seems you have more control over the file size/compression than in YT. What do you reckon?

[Dave M]

Further the sound is good over an Ipad and an Android phone using headphones.

I think you are right about the Buffalo recording. It comes over much better through phones and yes it is probably a lack of that initial attack you get with nails. Cheers Dave

[Steve.Toscano]

I was thinking of trying Vimeo out. Is there any significant advantage over YouTube? It seems you have more control over the file size/compression than in YT. What do you reckon?

While vimeo has its technical advantages over YT. I recommend sticking to where your users/potential customers are and that would be youtube (there's no reason you couldn't upload to both).
For example - this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dc-gzkGEWY
While uploaded on May 4th, has been publicly listed on youtube since late July. In under 4months has had 219 of it's total 430 unique views come from direct youtube searches containing the term "trevor gore". "trevor gore guitar", "buy trevor gore guitar", "classical guitar trevor gore" "Trevor gore falcate" etc etc.

Would that same volume of people be typing Trevor Gore into Vimeo? - i wouldn't think so. In my experience hardly anyone uses vimeo directly, they just end up there from google searches or go there looking for naked yoga videos (vimeo are more relaxed on nudity then YT). Don't ask how i know this.

Interestingly the 2nd top organic youtube search result for "trevor gore" is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW9Ho7fuc9E "eat up the cookie"

[Trevor Gore]

Thanks for doing the analytics, Steve!

I take your point about people searching on YT, but I'm guessing that those people who know to search for "Trevor Gore" and something guitar related would get to YT having not found what they want on my website. The intent is to embed stuff on my site with a view to getting the best sound possible (which, as I mentioned before, is still a poor representation of what a guitar actually sounds like). But people seem to like videos.

Maybe another way to go go is to upload typical quality video on YT or Vimeo etc. along with a higher fidelity sound file,e.g. a .wav file. I've seen many YT clips which are actually just stills with sound over. I've not looked into whether or not you can up the sound quality with a still on YT and still have a reasonably compact file. Have you tried anything like that?