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Posted: **Sat Nov 25, 2023 10:16 am**

I met Jeff Reynolds - back in the early 80's - at an afternoon party in Memphis.
The LAPO was on tour, and the MemphisSO bass trombonist had the LAPO low brass over for a BBQ. I was invited, as I was playing all the Memphis stuff that particular year, and the Memphis bass 'bonist was playing tenor in a quintet with me, whereby we were playing tons of (ask older union musicians about these...) "green sheet" gigs. When fb became a "thing", I was impressed with Mr. Reynolds' memory capacity, as he actually remembered me...so we're fb friends...btw...This was the same weekend that (at the MSO bass trombonist's community college - where he was music dept. chairman) the LAPO low brass showed up and played an hour's-or-so worth of excerpts. Mr. Bobo played everything on his B&S Symphonie F...Yes, including the intro to "Meistersinger".

Jeff Reynolds, retired LAPO bass trombonist, wrote:My brother Jim has been fiddling around with AI via chat GPT for a year now, asking questions and trying to find if AI has a bias and how far is the limit. He was recording the PaleoBones (along with our son Matthew), both tech aware men, each with a different mic setup at the Trabucco Ranch's amazing cathedral-like space. Simply the best Renaissance sound quality in central/northern CA.
Just the right amount of very honest reverb up and down the spectrum, and a great sound capture.
Jim sent me this note about AI:
"I can easily see a time in the not-so-distant future where you provide several "takes" to the robot and it splices them all together in an optimal manner, complete with reverb, pitch and time correction, balance, compression, and the rest.
Anything we can do, it can do better and much, much faster.
There will be no jobs for post-recording engineers.
But, as we have seen, though recording and processing in the studio has taken quantum leaps in recent years, the music has become dumbed down in almost every way, from subject matter to chord progressions, lyrics to melody, harmonic content to percussion (no live drums anymore).
Robots will splice together and edit bits that are increasingly of little musical value as a whole.
Eventually, the "composer" will just tell the robot what to include in his next creation. At which point, nobody will care how good it sounds. With autotune and other tricks, we are not that far away from that world. Almost every CW song sounds the same these days, as does pop, rap, and every other over-produced genre.
There are already tools that allow you to reharmonize a tune in various ways.
Of course, Gabrielli and Haydn had common formulas, as well. But, at least they had to actually write the music down.
Regards, Jim Reynolds"
and Matthew's response:
"Yes, I whole and full-heartedly agree with everything you said. That's why "live/analog" music will survive and flourish as a niché, because people will grow weary of consuming the "perfect" sounds hitting their ears. But alas, I am biased and this audience is biased to a certain level of authenticity in musical performance. Many are not aware of this "authenticity" in a musical piece."
jefe:
"In sizing up concert halls and other sonic venues during tours with the LAPhil I decided on the trip hammer for greatness: Does the hall/venue make you sound better than you are? Few in this country fit that mold. Symphony Hall Boston; the old Carnegie; are among the very few. In Europe the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Musikverein in Vienna have my vote."
Just some grist for all my musician friends.

Curiously, most of the LAPO retired peeps (who seem to agree with bloke's world views) leave the area immediately, upon retirement

Posted: **Sat Nov 25, 2023 1:19 pm**

Oddly enough, AI could allow listeners to make some decisions themselves. Glenn Gould advocated this 50+ years ago. This is from the book “Woundrous Strange” by Kevin Bazzana.

He extended his belief in creative freedom to its logical limit, advocating the direct participation of the listener in the creative process, through the intercession of technology. He believed that the modern listener had the same right to tinker with the recording artist’s work as the performer had to tinker with the composer’s. “Dial twiddling is in its limited way an interpretive act,” he noted, and the hi-fi listener was by nature a creative force: even to adjust volume, tone and balance on a crude home stereo of the 1960s was to impose oneself creatively onto the work. “I’m all for the kit concept,” he said in 1968. “I’d love to issue a series of variant performances and let the listener choose what they themselves most like. Let them assemble their own performance. Give them all the component parts, all the component splices, rendered at different tempi with different dynamic inflections, and let them put something together that they really enjoy — make them participant to that degree.” […] But even without the “kits” he envisioned, recording, Gould said, “compels the performer to relinquish some control in favor of the listener, a state of affairs, by the way, which I find to be both encouraging and charming, not to mention aesthetically appropriate and morally right.”

Posted: **Sat Nov 25, 2023 1:29 pm**

MikeS wrote:...his topical sidebar...

Musicians have reacted to recorded music listeners' ability to turn up (because listeners apparently LIKE the results) the bass on "hi-fi" record/ tape/now:digital players.

acoustic upright basses:
Many people (given a choice) seem to really like "a lot of bass" (probably related to how many people seem to like "a loud-thumping" bass drum), so (even) acoustic double basses have been designed (in more recent decades) to offer BOTH "deeper" AND "louder" bass.

The 6/4 tuba thing:
The (actually...regardless of how many tuba players disagree) extra size actually makes it more difficult (given the same amount of energy input) to play so as the tuba is just as audible as with "regular"-sized tubas, but (many...most?) tuba players with such instruments seem delighted to have an opportunity to put more energy/effort into their playing. That having been said, a 6/4 instrument (hopefully, as this is surely the goal) offers a more "bass" type of resonance. Anyone who doubts that more effort is required to get as much (easily audible) sound out of a 6/4-size tuba should play theirs, set it down, and IMMEDIATELY play (assuming they own one) their F tuba. If the F tuba is played in the VERY SAME WAY, the sound will be "hard" and raucous.

bass guitar:
duh. Just turn it up, and (depending on the style of music) turn the bass knob up.

Posted: **Sat Nov 25, 2023 4:42 pm**

What do you do to an upright bass to make it deeper and louder?

Posted: **Sat Nov 25, 2023 4:53 pm**

jtm wrote: ↑Sat Nov 25, 2023 4:42 pm What do you do to an upright bass to make it deeper and louder?

Bury it in the yard and paint it bright yellow?

Posted: **Sat Nov 25, 2023 5:41 pm**

Many believe that Busetto-style bass bodies offer more low end resonance.

Those that I've seen are really pricey.

Probably just as many believe they've noticed that the best of the plywood basses put out a noticeably high amount of sheer volume.

Posted: **Tue Nov 28, 2023 2:40 am**

AI is an improvement over today's viola players......

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