South Indian Carnatic Classical Music

[marsilians]

I have tons of bootleg recordings of jazz concerts and many of them are of a fairly high quality. I see the term 'soundboard' used to describe these recordings, but don't know what that means. I am assuming that such recording are made from a mixing console or something similar. Can't similar recordings be made of Carnatic music concerts?

Soundboard recording means that the recordings are done while being connected to the sound systems typically in non-studio type environments. this is as close one will come to hear the artistes and are usually very high quality depending on the equipment used.

This will definitely require permission from the artistes, organisers and also promoters as you are recording by directly connecting to the soundboard output at the venue.

In some instances, I have seen shows being recorded as such and then mixed with audience or open air recordings to generate a very good concert feel.

I have seen this in one Green Day concert. Furthur (former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh) allow for open air recordings.

 

[Gerry_the_Merry]

Diwakar, I havent had time to check the audio quality but I am recording 24/96 on iMac which has a single minijack for analog as well as digital in. I can connect pretty much any analog source, set Audacity once, and thereafter it rolls on.

If you had a chance, would you be confident that DR-100 will do a professional job in converting high fidelity analog reel tapes to digital, or you would look for a standalone ADC for audiophile grade conversion?

 

[Divakar7]

Apologies for going OT.
@Gerry the DR100 wouldn't be the right tool for the job. It is great for live recording but it isn't worth getting it for its ADC. I have bought the Cakewalk UA-1G USB Audio Interface precisely to do these kinds of transfers. It supports input and output at 24-bit/96kHz and has a "high quality" A/D and D/A converter. I put that in brackets because I haven't had a chance of using it other than testing it a couple of times.

The ADC converter on your laptop wouldn't be great especially if you have reels that record at pretty high quality. So I would definitely look for an outboard solution that connects to your Macbook, USB preferably but optical also works.

 

[Gerry_the_Merry]

Diwakar, on iMac, i was considering transferring old cassettes, for which iMac is enough.

For reel recordings, I had the NCPA reels in mind. Others can also be dug out. They may be of very good quality but I cannot keep them. So needed a DAC, but what you say about a strong solution makes sense.

My own high quality reel tapes I will keep as reel only. I will also try transfer LPs to reel, once I have perfected the solution.

But I realize I have digressed.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Gerry, you are certainly in need of a proper audio interface (aka sound card, either internal or external. External, I suppose, if you are using a laptop.).

Does your Mac have a firewire port? I guess it has USB. Between the two, you could choose from a very wide range of equipment.

 

[canchi]

Awesome! I had just texted the Prince about the Hindustani equivalent of Amritavarshini (he said he hasn't heard about it). He is an amazing singer and explains the music so lucidly. And he plays the swaraswati Veena beautifully. Try to get hold of his Veena CDs, they are well recorded and unlike anything you may have heard.

If anyone is into Prince Rama Varma's music and is passing by Hyderabad, would be welcome to listen to my recordings. I have many of his concerts on DAT.

Yes, he does explain the historical context of how a particular song was composed and so on. I got to hear some interesting anecdotes from him during the concert. Good stuff!

 

[Gerry_the_Merry]

Thad. The Mac is merely for transferring old cassettes to digital. The music is anyway poorly recorded (but divine).

The adc is needed to copy reels from places like ncpa (if they become accessible) will maximum possible fidelity within a budget if the organizers don't do it themselves with professional equipment.

 

[sivasarjun]

The festival season has just ended in Kerala.The is more famous for Tala than raga.Infact the percussion ensembles mainly Melam and Panchavadyam are auditory and visual marvels.
See and hear this clip.
Major Set Panchavadyam - Majestic Trios.mp4 - YouTube

 

[vraned]

Folks,

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but I thought what I'm currently working on addresses this challenge. I've always found it difficult to find good classical music (there is a lot of variety out there, but hardly anyone carries it) in digital format (CDs, MP3 etc.,).

I'm putting together a project (which will eventually evolve into a business - I hope around streaming music to smartphones. The app provides legal, high quality music on-demand wherever you are - at home, in the car, on the move, on devices etc., We are expecting to go live with the beta in early september and will launch with around 70K tracks from 40+ record labels. Also, our launch theme will be around indian classical music (mostly carnatic to start with). The service is 100% legal and 100% free

We are also directly working with artists to use our platform to share and promote their music. You can check us out at www.facebook.com/twaang and sign up for an invite-only beta on twaang.com.

Thanks

 

[gobble]

The festival season has just ended in Kerala.The is more famous for Tala than raga.Infact the percussion ensembles mainly Melam and Panchavadyam are auditory and visual marvels.
See and hear this clip.
Major Set Panchavadyam - Majestic Trios.mp4 - YouTube

Fantastic video with good sound .. enjoying it!

--G

 

[canchi]

Folks,

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but I thought what I'm currently working on addresses this challenge. I've always found it difficult to find good classical music (there is a lot of variety out there, but hardly anyone carries it) in digital format (CDs, MP3 etc.,).

I'm putting together a project (which will eventually evolve into a business - I hope around streaming music to smartphones. The app provides legal, high quality music on-demand wherever you are - at home, in the car, on the move, on devices etc., We are expecting to go live with the beta in early september and will launch with around 70K tracks from 40+ record labels. Also, our launch theme will be around indian classical music (mostly carnatic to start with). The service is 100% legal and 100% free

We are also directly working with artists to use our platform to share and promote their music. You can check us out at www.facebook.com/twaang and sign up for an invite-only beta on twaang.com.

Thanks

Nice idea. Hope it works. Have signed up on twaang.com
Cheers!

 

[sivasarjun]

Jana gana mana by the great D K Pattammal.
http://youtu.be/wQGaVdZsMy4

 

[sivasarjun]

Dwijawanti(Jaijaiwanti in Hindustani) by the Other stalwart.
Akhilandeshwari_MS Amma_Dwijawanti_Muthuswamy Dikshitar - YouTube

 

[sivasarjun]

One more by DKP.An outstanding Bhairavi.
DK Pattammal - Yaro Ivar Yaro - YouTube

 

[gobble]

One more by DKP.An outstanding Bhairavi.
DK Pattammal - Yaro Ivar Yaro - YouTube

On the related videos links there is D K Pattammal - Eppadi Padinaro.wmv - YouTube which is also superb .. simply divine!

Thanks for the link!

--G0bble

 

[Asit]

Just listened to the music posted by gobble (I'll try to hear the others posted before, whenever I find some quiet time). It is really really a beautiful piece of music. Name of the raga is Carnatic Devgandhari. The North Indian equivalent is called Bhimpalashi. The raga alapana before the actual composition starts exposed the melody wonderfully, and that is why she was great.

Regards.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

MSS and DKP: queens of beauty of the carnatic stage, as well as queens of music.

The first time I saw a picture of MSS as a young woman, I just gasped!

It is one of my life treasures that I met DKP at her home a couple of times --- accidents of fate! --- but I never saw her concert.

 

[sivasarjun]

Just listened to the music posted by gobble (I'll try to hear the others posted before, whenever I find some quiet time). It is really really a beautiful piece of music. Name of the raga is Carnatic Devgandhari. The North Indian equivalent is called Bhimpalashi. The raga alapana before the actual composition starts exposed the melody wonderfully, and that is why she was great.

Regards.

For a lay person like me it sounded just like Abheri of Nagumomu fame.
See what Sanjay Subramaniam has to say.
Carnatic Music and anything else: Pantuvarali, Abheri etc
Either way the song was beautiful.

 

[gobble]

For a lay person like me it sounded just like Abheri of Nagumomu fame.
See what Sanjay Subramaniam has to say.
Carnatic Music and anything else: Pantuvarali, Abheri etc
Either way the song was beautiful.

SS is one of my favorite artistes! I followed the blog links and found another interesting mp3 to listen: http://sanjaysub.blogspot.in/2008/07/sanjay-subrahmanyan-show-episode-2.html Check out the opening piece in the 1st 30 secs hyeah:

--G

 

[gobble]

MSS and DKP: queens of beauty of the carnatic stage, as well as queens of music.

The first time I saw a picture of MSS as a young woman, I just gasped!

It is one of my life treasures that I met DKP at her home a couple of times --- accidents of fate! --- but I never saw her concert.

wow! You seem to be one serious student of Carnatic!

--G