One woman recording of Sousa's "Liberty Bell March"

[Conn 2J CC]

Hello, Fellow Tubenetters –

A couple of days ago, I mentioned in another thread that in the summer of 2010 my wife (Sandy) and I made a multitrack recording of her playing John Philip Sousa’s “Liberty Bell March”, using Adobe Audition 1.0 software. We’re both dedicated amateur musicians, so this was quite a feat for us to pull off. I thought this might be something people on this board would enjoy hearing. So, at the bottom of this post you’ll find a link to an MP3 file of the recording, which plays just fine in Windows Media Player. Here’s some explanation as to why and how we made it -

For over 20 years Sandy's dad, Bob Reed, has wanted her to make a multitrack recording of a band song for him, since he loves how she plays so many instruments. She finally decided to fulfill his request for his birthday in August 2010. Rather than wimp out and give him a recording of "Mary Had a Little Lamb", she chose "Liberty Bell" since he likes marches. And fortunately for her, this march is not dominated by a technical Trumpet melody, which is not one of her strong instruments (her majors are Flute, Oboe and Baritone Sax).

I initially created a drum machine rhythm track of all the percussion parts for her. She then listened to that while recording herself playing all of the woodwind and brass parts, using the computer in our spare bedroom. Our son and I helped record her on some parts, so she could concentrate on playing and ignore the computer. The woodwind and brass parts turned out so good (well, for an amateur playing everything) she decided to play the percussion parts too, instead of using the drum machine rhythm track for the final recording's percussion. So, she went from zero to playing snare drum and tympany rolls, and we took the studio computer to a local high school to record her playing percussion. By the time she was done, she had recorded over 50 tracks on 24 different instruments (11 woodwinds, 7 brass and 6 percussion) - and Sandy played ALL of them. NONE of them were played on a synthesizer or other MIDI instrument (or by myself). The toughest parts for her to play were Trumpet, Tuba and Percussion (she had only played them about a week when she recorded their parts) and French Horn, which she hadn't touched in years. And since the Cornet parts were too high for her, she played them on Soprano Saxophone. Here’s the instrumentation list of what she recorded –

Piccolo - Sandra Reed Ivy
Flute 1 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Flute 2 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Oboe 1 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Oboe 2 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Bassoon 1 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Bassoon 2 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Bb Clarinet 1 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Bb Clarinet 2 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Bb Clarinet 3 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Alto Clarinet - Sandra Reed Ivy
Bass Clarinet - Sandra Reed Ivy
Alto Sax 1 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Alto Sax 2 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Tenor Sax - Sandra Reed Ivy
Baritone Sax 1 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Baritone Sax 2 - Sandra Reed Ivy

Soprano Sax (Cornet) 1 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Soprano Sax (Cornet) 2 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Trumpet 1 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Trumpet 2 - Sandra Reed Ivy
French Horn 1 (double) - Sandra Reed Ivy
French Horn 2 (double) - Sandra Reed Ivy
French Horn 3 (single) - Sandra Reed Ivy
French Horn 4 (single) - Sandra Reed Ivy
Tenor Trombone 1 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Tenor Trombone 2 - Sandra Reed Ivy
Bass Trombone - Sandra Reed Ivy
Euphonium - Sandra Reed Ivy
Tuba - Sandra Reed Ivy

Chimes - Sandra Reed Ivy
Tympani - Sandra Reed Ivy
Snare Drum - Sandra Reed Ivy
Bass Drum - Sandra Reed Ivy
Crash Cymbals - Sandra Reed Ivy
Triangle - Sandra Reed Ivy

After she finished, I condensed the tracks to 36, cleaned and mixed them in stereo, and applied effects to make the final recording sound like it took place in a concert hall. It literally sounds like a 34 piece concert band (one percussionist can handled the tympany, triangle and chime parts), yet the ONLY musician you're listening to is Sandy. It’s not as good as Frederick Fennell conducting the Eastman Wind Ensemble, but needless to say, her dad was in tears when he got the recording on his birthday.

Between the two of us, we spent over 100 hours (mostly her, of course) to make this 2 minute and 15 second recording. Enjoy it, and feel free to share it with anyone else you think might like to hear it too. Here’s the link for the MP3 file –

http://www.mediafire.com/?jrivky4pbje8bdd

Thank you for your time -

[Michael Bush]

Very impressive!

[Conn 2J CC]

Thanks for the compliments, which I've passed on to my wife. Ian - You've brought up several worthy points. As I alluded to in the last paragragh of my original post, the vast majority of time on this project was logged by Sandy, practicing parts and recording takes. I didn't spend nearly as much time on this as she did. Most of my time was spent removing key clicks, valve clanks, loud breathes, and background noise. After all, we were recording most of this in a small room, and the microphone could pick up everything, including the computer's fan. Since I knew I was going to make the final recording sound like it was done in a concert hall with microphones a significant distance away, all of that had to go or it would have really stood out. Even so, I did as little of this as possible to maintain the intergrity of the original raw tracks. After that, I spliced some tracks together and started creating the final mix.

Unfortunately, we don't have the original raw tracks anymore. As you are probably aware, digital video and audio can take up a lot of hard drive space, so as I finished cleaning and splicing tracks, I deleted the raw tracks to preserve hard drive space. I suppose I could upload the two Soprano Sax tracks which would have no effects added to them and post links to hear them, if you would like. Just let me know.

More than anything else, we just hope we've brightened someone day on this board by letting you hear Sandy's birthday gift for her dad. Okay, so it took a while, but that was one of the funnest birthday gifts I've ever helped make for someone.

[Tom Coffey]

Great project and great post!
Very very musical.

[Tubajug]

That is very impressive! Was any tweaking done to the tuning or was she just that well in tune with herself across all the instruments?

Again, very impressive!

[Dan Schultz]

Very impressive. Some previous posters have asked about some of the audio files being 'tweaked'. I 'fiddle' with recordings a bit myself and more often than not... good mixes come from good input. If stuff is 'not-so-good' up front.... it can't simply be easily 'tweaked' to make it right.

[Donn]

The toughest parts for her to play were Trumpet, Tuba and Percussion (she had only played them about a week when she recorded their parts) and French Horn, which she hadn't touched in years.

Can't tell from the recording that she had trouble with the French Horn, it sounds pretty good.

[Rick F]

Nice Job ...and a lot of work! Thanks for sharing.

[Conn 2J CC]

Thanks again for the compliments. I'm making sure Sandy sees them.

Jordan - I only tweeked the tuning on a handful of notes, and I don't even remember what parts they were in. In general, she was just that well in tune across the board. If you listen closely though, you can hear occasional intonation problems. For one thing, I don't know how she managed to hear the multitrack through headphones while she was recording the Piccolo part, let alone stay in tune with it. Geez, those weapons are so loud and shrill, I could hard stand being in the same small room with her!

Dan - You're right, good mixes do come from good input, which is why Sandy put so much practice time into all the parts before she recorded them. The well known admonition "fix it in the mix" only goes so far.

Donn - Thanks, she was concerned about getting the French Horn parts right. She put a lot of effort into those four parts.

By the way, for those of you who are into instrument repair, I'm happy to say that 8 out of the 11 woodwind instruments used in this recording were ones we overhauled ourselves. And finally, if any of you are wondering when I'm going to make a recording like this myself, the answer would be the 12th of Never. I don't like Bassoon fingerings.

[DonShirer]

Very good. If they ever revive the Monty Python TV series, she's ready with the theme music!