10th August 2007 Willie Colón @The Roundhouse, London

Salsa Gigs in the UK are a little like buses. You wait ages for one and all of a sudden, three come along at once. Hot on the heels of Sierra Maestra and Manolito came Willie Colón's Farewell Tour.

I would be lying if I said that I liked all of his music, but I like a lot of music that he's played on; if you get my drift. Given that, and his place in salsa's musical history, this gig at the Roundhouse was one that I couldn't afford to miss. The venue lives up to its name: the main performance hall is circular, with a suspended floor and a double-height lantern ceiling. The Grade II-listed building was originally an engine shed; and as a vestige of its original purpose, there is a ring of steel pillars obscuring the view of the stage from various seats all around the hall.

It had been a bright and balmy Friday, and people had begun to gather at the place from very early on, spilling onto the terraces and filling the bars with chatter. It promised to be a night of great atmosphere. The doors to the main hall opened at 8pm and people were let in to do their bit of dancing, music provided by a DJ onstage, for about an hour and a half on a packed floor.

And then the lights dimmed...

Willie Colón was the last to come onstage, after the guys on keyboards, bass, congas, timbales, bongo, two trombones and tenor sax. Dressed all in white, he cut quite a dashing figure thickened with age.

In my opinion, Willie Colón is better regarded as a songwriter, brass player and band leader; and less so as a vocalist. Although he has a distinctive voice, he is not held in the same regard as Cheo Feliciano or Hector LaVoe (to be fair, those two don't do everything he does). Time has not been kind to Willie's voice, and its brittleness shows through in the sustain of his notes. But his singing is not the reason why people turned up to pay homage to the man. They were here to experience the classics of a long glittering career personified by the man who created them.

The seasoned pro soon had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand. Engaging with those on the floor, he discovered that there was a vast majority of native Latin Americans, an overwhelming number of whom were Colombians from Cali. In my previous articles, I had alluded to the migrant status of Latin Americans in London; and it was very valuable for me as an ethnomusicologist to experience first-hand how much and how well they responded to a music form that they had adopted as their own (see 'The City of Musical Memory: Salsa, Record Grooves and Popular Culture in Cali, Colombia' by Lise Waxer')

All the classics were there: Che Che Cole, Talento de Television, Gitana, and El Gran Varon as the ultimate finale. But I shan't document the tiny details - it simply wasn't the night for that. It was about what two sides - entertainers and revellers, can bring with them; and what they can do when they meet, to create a very special occassion.

Loo Yeo

28th July 2007 Manolito Simonet @Harrogate International Festival

I was braced for the Mother of All Gigs even before Manolito and his band took to the stage. Having heard and danced to much of his recorded music, and enjoyed the consumate preceding performance of Sierra Maestra, my expectations were well and truly managed.

The actuality didn't quite live up to the billing, and I'm trying to write as positively as I can.

Having met Manolito at the after-show party, I have an even greater respect for him. I was disarmed by how unassuming he was - he seemed to look upon all the fuss about him with genuine wonder and bemusement. He was much more interested in finding out what inspired us (4de12) to play Cuban music, going as far as to offer to look at our arrangements (an offer not made lightly).

Manolito is, first and foremost, a person who loves music. That comes across undeniably, and tallies with what I'd been told of him by a mutual friend, Luis. So in some way, I feel as if I'm betraying him by not giving him the "all-possible-thumbs-up review". But that wouldn't be fair to memory.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the performance and it still ranks as a very good one. It's just that had certain factors not dominated the stage, it would have been an exceptional occassion. He toured with a large group: three vocals, two keyboards, bass, congas, trapset-timbales, flute, cello, violin, two trumpets and two trombones. I understand from Christophe, who saw them last in Cuba, that his normal ensemble is smaller. His lead vocalists put on most of the show with a very energetic display. At times this seemed a little forced - very clearly Ricardo, the token piece of eye-candy, just went through the motions of singing when he wasn't in the limelight (vocalists among you can spot this by watching his neck).

This just epitomised poor teamwork. I found it insulting.

What is more, the cellist played as if he really didn't want to be there. The sad thing was that he was located in the middle of the stage, effectively an obstruction to intra-band communication that sucked the life out of the presentation. The stage was large and they succumbed to the temptation to spread out, rendering the performers more distant from the audience and each other.

I learned a lot about what not to do that night, and this is with no disrespect to Manolito:

• band members should be as close to each other and to the front of the stage as is comfortable, especially the seated players;
• lead vocals should be given enough room to fill the stage, and this space might also be used by mobile musicians when they solo;
• percussion should be clustered in the centre so that rhythm can be disseminated outwards acoustically to all performers; and
• deadbeats, if they are necessary, should be located where they affect the band least.

I really feel strongly about the way people play music for one another and was upset, sometimes even outraged, that two such people would have the temerity to take to the stage and balk Manolito's efforts.

Manolito, I am sure, being the musician that he is, wanted to bring the best possible show to town. And I can see why he did what he did. I just feel that with the wealth of musicians that Cuba and Miami possesses, he can find artists who can augment his band with personality as well as ability.

I will be in the audience again, whether or not that day comes.

Loo Yeo

28th July 2007 Sierra Maestra @Harrogate International Festival

Last weekend was a bit of a landmark occassion for me. I got to see a band that I'd wanted to see for a very long time, and I got to see another that I hadn't seen since I'd first started in salsa.

Sierra Maestra opened the evening at the Harrogate International Festival, and watching them play brought a whole mix of feelings. The first time I saw them was in 94/95 when Juan de Marcos Gonzalez and Jesús Alemañy were still in their line-up, and they were then promoting their album "Dundunbanza". They made an indelible mark on my consciousness then, not least because of how much their playing helped me; to feel my role as a dancer in Cuban music, but also as a teacher - many of their songs in that album were at the right tempo for my students to learn to.

I was to see them at least four more times over the next two years, then not at all until this year. And they played better on Saturday night than I ever remembered.

It could be that I'm more used to the genre now, that I appreciated the extent of their musicianship through their subtlety. They played every single number in their set with grace, passion, power, and conviction. Compared with Manolito who followed after, Sierra Maestra transmitted a palpable sense of camaraderie - a musical understanding of each other, born from many years of playing together.

The line-up was typical of the son-revivalist group: a bongocero/occassional conguero; bajista; three soneros on percusion menor and guitarra; trompetista; and tresero. I can't say enough how much I enjoyed their individual performances, and Sierra Maestra's as a collective whole. When you're named after the legendary birthplace of son, you've got a lot to live up to. And they did with aplomb and a sense of adventure, introducing the seldom-heard genres of sucu sucu and cocuye.

It was a humbling performance that made me proud to be a player of the genre, one that made me feel sorry for my fellow dancers from Sheffield who did not make the trip, for they would have been richer for of the experience.

Sierra Maestra would be a hard act to follow... which Manolito Simonet y su Trabuco would have to do straight after the interval.

Yeo Loo Yen

Yo Soy El Bajista, Otra Vez

My bass is right now with Stuart at Electromusic in Doncaster, being restrung and having its setup checked.

I've decided to wimp out and change to lighter-gauge strings since Ana's become the regular bassist in the band. It's taken me a while to overcome denial - that I'm no longer as sharp nor as strong as when I used to be, and this step is my final admission.

The change in tension and the settling of the neck (the bass, not mine, silly!) warranted a full check-up, and I expect to have eliminated the spectre of fret-buzz when I get it back. You might think that going for the higher-gauge strings in the first place was masochistic, but in my defence, I didn't really know what I wanted then - being new to playing bass and all.

As you may have guessed, all this is in aid of the recording.

I'd been fortunate enough to acquire the rather fabulous Mark Bass TA501 head and Mark Bass 104HR cabinet, and this has prompted both Dan and myself to decide to re-record ALL the basslines to all of the songs. Mark Bass has made THAT much of a difference.

I'm finding it a daunting prospect, especially since I'm not playing regularly any more - maybe I'll feel better about it once I've got a few songs recorded under my belt. But at least I can start practicing the bass again now that Bembé's progressed to the practice stage, and since Ana's going home to casi-Gijón for a month. It means that I can lay down the tumbaos while Nathan's on lead vocals - playing in the band context will be a great help in knocking the rust spots off.

Hopefully Stuart can have it ready before this Wednesday's practice.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Jeremy and I are laying down more guide tracks for El Tambor, El Gallo, Getting It Together, (and maybe more) this Saturday. Then I'm putting down the conga tracks before the bass. At least I'm keeping in touch with the congas - Whib can only make it once a week, so I get to fill in on the other day.

I guess this is my meandering way of expressing regret, of how tough I'm finding it to keep on top of several instruments when I'm not full-time in music.

But rest assured that you would not be able to tell that from our recordings when the album is finally available. We owe it to ourselves not to let that happen.

Yeo Loo Yen

Bembé - The Whole Kaboodle

I finished Bembé a week ago last Saturday. Actually, Jeremy and I got together that afternoon and worked our way through the entire song; intro, verse, chorus, bridge, montuno, coda, breaks, the whole lot. To say that it was one of our better days is an understatement.

Then Ana joined us later and we nailed the basslines, completing both the core rhythm and vocals for the song. It was already sounding great. We introduced it in its entirety to the remainder of 4de12 a few days later (sans Carolyn and Dan who were holidaying), who all quickly got their teeth into it. Despite Bembé's tender age, it's taking shape very quickly which is the mark of a good song. There's even a chance that we could have it ready to debut at our gig in Leeds.

Jeremy and I began the process of recording Bembé with the guide piano, vocals and clave last Sunday - this is the fastest we've ever worked on a song. Conventional wisdom dictates that we should gig a song for at least a year before recording it; to give the musicians time to explore it, for the song to reach maturity. Scheduling pressures on the recording project dictate otherwise.

Where some might think of this as an unfortunate circumstance, I think of it as an opportunity to give Convention a good poke in the eye. Having been through the recording wringer a few times already, I think and feel that there's every chance we can come up with a rendition that will match the others in terms of exceptional quality.

The Fast-track begins here and now!

Loo Yeo

PS. I've recently discovered Facebook and in it, I'm documenting the rise of Bembé in the form of a photo diary. It's a bit of an experiment right now and if it works out as well I think it will, we might publish it on one of our websites.

Timbale Fills... done!

Nathan was on fire last night.

Nueva Generación was the best I'd ever heard him play it: a practice, under the record button, or onstage. As a song that would be made or broken in large part by the timbales, this was the best possible result. And then he went on to add to the feel of Llamada de Ogún; a song that we didn't think could be added to wrt. percussion. Wow!

This was the best way we could have recorded it - the timbales sound as if you're right there playing them. The difference in Sound Pressure Level (SPL) between the rides and the fills was... aww heck! I'll spare you the gory details.

[Get thee hence, recording-tech dweeb!]

Having put all but one of the timbales tracks to bed, we can now turn to editing and preparing to record Harris on bongó; whom incidentally, is so cool he's travelling all the way from Nottingham to lay down the beats. I've set Bobby on the task of getting the Meinl bongó stand for me as I type.

And now that we've been able to pack-down the gear, the front room is available again for band practice. We're all looking forward to playing music together again after a fortnight's enforced watery break. I'm really looking forward to trying out the AMT Roam 2 unit on Jan's violin tomorrow night having already decided to go ahead and get the other Roam units for 4de12. Again, Bobby's on the case.

Lastly, the band (read Nathan) now has a presence in facebook: Cuatro de Diciembre. Pop in, say hello, make Nathan a happier man!

Loo

I'm Afraid Something's Just Gotta Give

And it has to be the website, at least for now.

Readers of the blog should have noticed that the entries are more to do with Cuatro de Diciembre and the music project than anything else, with the odd comment on my dance experiences thrown in. But then, it really should have come as much of a surprise given that I'd mentioned the possibility before. The website development is on hold for now, as I continue to facilitate our salsa band's development in both the recording and live arenas.

It's still my intention to add to the salsa glossary and timeline: there are plenty of entries sitting on my table, twiddling their thumbs as they wait to be put to use. And I have enough material to write the piano tutorial of the highly regarded Salsa Ear-Training programme. I have a forlorn hope that the mobility I might achieve through obtaining a new laptop would help me cobble together enough stolen moments make meaningful advances once again.

Loo Yen Yeo

Just so the Lady could have Hot Chocolate

After having done a good morning's work, I decided to pop by the salsa classes in town on Saturday afternoon.

Unusually, both Helena and Nicolai were there and while the latter beguiled the first class, I siezed the opportunity to catch up with Helena. It's not something I get to do very often, maybe once a year, and we did whilst she was making up for a serious lack of sugar.

It didn't last because soon it came time for the students to partner up, and the class was a person short. The look on poor Helena's face - her hot chocolate had just arrived, and she knew that it would at best, be a 'tepid chocolate' by the time she was able to acquaint it with her taste-buds, caused me gallantly to volunteer instead (and partially redress the gender imbalance).

My reward was being invited to join the more third class; you can tell these participants are much more intent - they all pack a change of shoes. I felt this nagging itch, it felt a little like one was being thrown to the wolves, only friendlier(!) and to music.

Now this was the first time I'd been an advanced learner in ages, and nearly as long since spring-cleaning my dance vocabulary to just the most polymorphic of elements. It was a shock to the system, I can confess: things were happening thick and fast, and in the back of my mind I was thinking, 'we're practicing this right now at 150bpm, how on Earth am I going to get this working at 190bpm?'

So I took a student's prerogative and I cheated. Unashamedly.

After years of dancing the way I do, I'd found myself lately peering over the fence and wondering how well the 'non-me' salseros were experiencing salsa. The teaching was good, spiced up by some badinage between old friends, and sprinkled with proclamations of "my partner wants a new partner" (much to my then-victim's embarrasment); the afternoon passed by most entertainingly. But fun though as it was, I'm happy with my decision, and happier still with my curiousity assuaged.

Yeo Loo Yen

Back on the Recording Trail

I'm feeling a little more relieved after the weekend.

On Saturday, Jeremy and I hooked up to play our way through the entire piano/conga structure of Bembé. It had been a long time since we had worked together in such a manner. The refreshing change must have been welcome because the section transitions and variations that emerged were truly inspired. There will be a few more of these between us before the song will be ready to present to our fellow band members at practice. I'd really like to debut it at our gig on October the 13th.

Then on Sunday, the recording of timbales began for real. Again, the break (this time of three weeks) may have done a lot of good. Dan, having thought about the previous attempt, decided against using the Beta 98s on the skins, instead opting for the SM57s I'd recently acquired. We used the sE Titan on the bells and the Beta 91 on the reverse of the cymbal, and the results were improved by miles. The bells went through the Focusrite Liquid Channel, and the rest needed very little EQ and no compression nor gating - always a good sign that the right mics are in the right places.

A massive thumbs-up to Bobby at Music Technology for the sE Titan recommendation; it has a more hard-core sound than the Neumann TLM-103.

This spate of sessions is to record the Ride patterns which I mentioned in an earlier post. Nathan agrees that recording in this way is much more relaxed, and we managed to chew through four songs. The surprising thing to me was how quickly it happened; I was dreading the amount that had to be done for En la sangre but it didn't turn out to be that onerous in the end. Maybe it's because I wan't the one playing this time, or maybe Nathan and Dan made it look easy. I am glad though, that I'd spent the time listening to the guides and sketching out some arrangement which gave us a loose basis from which we could work from.

Although the session was very much target driven, there was plenty of room for the creative process; indeed, I think that the clear goals helped stimulate an understanding and focus that catalysed the creativity we experienced that day. There are still four or five more songs to do before we pack down for practice; we were hoping to do some last night, but the record-breaking rainfall and resulting floods in Sheffield conspired to delay Dan on his way home from work for six hours.

Elements permitting, we'll resume tonight and perhaps tomorrow, with a mind on finishing the rides as planned before our twice-weekly practice sessions. This would be ideal, as we'd like to start recording the solos on Sunday and have them done before Dan's holiday trip.

Btw, Bembé's gonna rock!

Loo Yen Yeo

Performance Improvements After Millhouses

The changes we had brought into place post our Sabroso gig have made the positive improvements as had predicted.

The most telling was with the way we start our numbers, most of them are now cued in by Dan using a count-in and abanico. The feedback has been that we're now sharper with our entries, getting going straight away, and that in turn gives our music more impact. The implementation still needs more practice to make it perfectly slick, but that does not seem to be that far away now.

In terms of practices, I'm going to start using the chékere instead of the shaker because of its volume, that it can be played at higher tempi, and that it's more visible from stage. Things will start to pull together even more as Wib gains more stamina, Nathan becomes more at ease with the singing process, and I get used to performing and filling the stage again.

As mentioned previously, I've recently acquired a Mark Bass amp-head and cab for our recording and live work which should significantly improve our sound. The next pieces of equipment should be: the well-regarded AMT roam 1 for Carolyn, so she doesn't have to "snake-charm" the mic with her saxophone; an AMT Roam 3 for Catie's flute, plus the AMT WS for her alto which ideally would plug into the Roam 3 unit; and another Neumann KM-105 for yours truly.

The added advantage of the AMT Roams is the mobility it offers our melodics, which will help the band interact and develop its stage-craft. Instead of a Roam 1 for Mike, I expect that we'll use the hard-wired sE Titan on Mike's trombone (which I hear is great for the job); so that he can vary his volume by playing distance and continue using the mute, which he can't with a clip-on mic.

Having had a chat with Nathan, who is the bongó bell king, we'll both stick with hand percussion as lead singers: him on bell and güiro; and me on shaker, maracas and chékere. The both of us would re-inforce the percussive framework by providing the downbeat and backbeat accents respectively, giving Dan and Wib more freedom to manoeuvre. I eventually forsee us having a fibreglass conga or quinto up front with a Remo Fibreskin, so that Nathan could play it with the bongó bell beater along with the bell, or I could provide the tumbao to help Wib solo more freely.

There are advantages to having fully-fledged percussionists as singers.

Those are not insignificant investments, which I'll be very happy to make when the recordings are further down the road. Until then, I guess I'll have to save my pennies for the unexpected that the CD project always seems to throw at me.

Loo Yen

Recording Timbales

is going to be one of the toughest of the upcoming challenges facing the recording project. There are two general approaches as to recording them: using the classic dual-overhead mic technique which gives plenty of atmosphere but little fault-tolerance nor ability to customise sound; or to close-mic everything for a highly customisable sound at the expense of time and data storage space. We're doing the latter.

We'd already had a dry run at recording Nathan on timbales, and learned a lot from the process. Primarily, we found that the bell sounds were bleeding into just about everything else because of the high Sound Pressure Levels (SPL). Also the recorded tones of the skins lacked the ring we were looking for, and that the cymbal sounds hung around for too long.

There are a number of steps we've taken to achieve better and controllable sounds.

• I've acquired three splash cymbals to cut short the cymbal accents, and a hi-hat on which Nathan could play the ride rhythms and still choose the level of sustain, in a manner of playing similar to that on a bell (but perhaps with more subtlety).
• We have more recording stuff coming in: an sE electronics Titan microphone which should have a higher transient response due to its titanium diaphragm capsule, and also be able to handle the higher SPL; the AKG C414 B XLS which is an excellent all-round mic, used successfully in recording a variety of percussion instruments; and two more sE electronics reflexion filters to minimise reflected sounds from the ceilings to the overheads.
• The recording itself will be broken up into at least three phases: ride rhythms, accents and kick drum.
• Dan's going to try a more central placement for the Shure Beta 98 mics on the skins to get more ring.

I'm sure that other matters will crop out of the wood-work. And although the recording of timbales has expanded to a daunting 3-stage process; Dan, Nathan and I feel that this is the approach most likely to get the sound and feel that we want.

Time is knocking on a bit now. Harris is likely to return to Greece in October to perform his National Service, and I would very much like to capture his inspirational bongó playing before he does. Working backwards from there, we should aim to have all of September to record him, which means we have to get a mixdown with finalised timbales to him by the beginning of August. This just leaves a month and a half or so to get these recordings done.

Bearing in mind that this is summer, and that holiday times are upon us, you can see why there is a sense of urgency in meeting this immovable deadline.

Loo Yeo

A Clave Crisis in Bembé

The lyrics to "Bembé", the tenth song in our suite, have finally been done and we began playing it at this week's practices.

On Wednesday, we did the verse and chorus sections. This went swimmingly indeed: I'd sung the song so often in my mind that the vocal melodies were very stable, even whilst playing the congas; Ana and Jeremy had locked in well on bass and piano; Mike was cooking up some really lively trombone moñas; and Dan was pulling nice percussion riffs out of... wherever he keeps them stored. Everything was just hunky-dory.

Fast-forward 24 hours.

It was time to sort out the montuno and mambo sections. Here was when everything went pear-shaped. It all came about because of a misunderstanding.

Let's say that the piano montuno takes place over 2 clave phrases (i.e. 4 bars of music) in the i-iv-V7-i progression in C minor (actual details changed to protect the innocent), which would make it Cm-Fm-G7-Cm. In the chorus it's played in the 3-2 orientation, and I wanted it in the 2-3 orientation for the montuno/mambo.

So I'd want it changed from (clave side in brackets):

• Cm(3)-Fm(2)-G7(3)-Cm(2) to
• Cm(2)-Fm(3)-G7(2)-Cm(3).

The easiest way to do that would be to have a full break for an odd number of bars, and re-introduce the piano on the 2-side.

However, Jeremy had taken me to mean something different i.e. that the piano would remain locked into the clave stream, and that the vocals would come in at the new start-point of Cm(2) instead of Cm(3), effectively changing the perceived progression from:

• Cm(3)-Fm(2)-G7(3)-Cm(2) to
• Cm(2)-Cm(3)-Fm(2)-G7(3).

There was plenty of talking at cross-purposes before we finally understood each other, and by then Frustration was a guest band-member. Certainly the first option was the simplest for most of us to implement, and what I'd prepared the vocal melodies for. The second one required completely new vocal melodies for call and response, a new bassline, and most crucially for Jeremy to rephrase his playing so that the listener could clearly percieve the first of the C-minor chord pair as the start-point.

Naturally we opted to go for the second.

We already had another full break planned for later in the song, and have used the piano drop-out technique in several other songs of the suite. This would be the first time we'd try it this way on one of our own songs (the other instance of this happening in our repetoire is in our augmentated version of the classic 'Bilongo' aka. 'La Negra Tomasa' aka. 'Kikiribú Mandinga'). But the most important point in its favour is that the montuno section sounds different from the chorus, which it would not have done had we plumped for the easy way out.

In retrospect I should have anticipated difficulties as: this was the first time we'd written a completely new song in 2 years; and our first ever one beginning in a 3-2 orientation. I did find a decent response vocal line to the "new" progression; as did Catie, Jan and Mike on melodics. And some of the inspiraciones made the great leap with little difficulty.

Jeremy is working on recording the montuno as a practice track for us over the weekend, which I'll use to re-work the vocals and figure out the best bassline.

Our other songs were written a while ago, and teething problems like these had largely been forgotten. Last night was a short sharp reminder of things past and taken for granted.

Loo Yen Yeo

4 de Diciembre @Millhouses Park Festival 2007

Yesterday, Cuatro de Diciembre (4de12) played at Millhouses Park Festival. It's an annual free event put on by University of Sheffield Management School students as part of their events management project. We were the only salsa band to play there.

On the run-up to it, I was harried by a small gremlin of dread. The few days preceeding it had been somewhat damp, and rain had been forecast.

Not so when the 3rd of June dawned. It was bright, sunny, not exceptionally warm, and Dan had done his utmost co-ordinating the logistics efforts and liaising with the sound engineer over the phone beforehand.

Dan's a gem.

We arrived well before time and set up on a make-shift stage comprising sheets of fibreboard nailed onto a platform of wooden pallets, under an open-fronted pavillion. I'd never been to Millhouses park before; long and thin in shape, it's bounded by a dual-carriageway on one side, and a stream on the other, with a rail-track beyond the latter. Plenty of greenery in between with grassy banks, tennis and basketball courts, a cafe, a miniature boating pool, and what appears to be numbered gopher-holes for you to putt your golf balls into over the uneven turf.

Setup was quick and painless. I don't know what it is about people, but we got a little 'attitude' from the other bands. Maybe it was because we were headlining. Suffice to say that the sniping stopped after we finished our soundcheck number. The proof of the pudding is always in the eating.

We exited the stage for the others to set up, and everything kicked off. Then we waited, watching the preceding acts with coffee (mine's a caramel latte) and junk food accompaniment. We played two sets of five songs, each set supposedly lasting 30 mins. Because we came up just short the first time 'round, we decided to extend the solos during the second. 4de12 like to give their patrons more than their money's worth... even when they're not paying!

The audience was great. They were non-dancers, but that didn't matter - they were attentive and appreciative, and I'd take that anytime over an indifferent dancing audience. I tell a lie; a long-time friend, Ann, was there with her family, and we managed to grab a brief salsa together in 'Hijos de Cam' (the first number of our second set) before I had to join in the backing vocals.

I think this was our best performance by far despite Carolyn's regrettable absence; for many of the reasons outlined in an earlier post, and more besides. Onstage, the communication by eye-contact was superb, allowing us more flexibility and fluidity in the interchange of parts. There was much more show and energy: sweat was flying off Dan and Wib in torrents as they took the percussion to town; unleashed from behind the congas, I could exercise more stagecraft; and Nathan, this being his second gig, sang with greater confidence and aplomp. The monitoring that Catie, Jan and Mike got was well balanced allowing them to play with verve.

Maybe it was the bright sunshine.

All too soon it was over. That final half hour just flew by. Then it was time to pack down and enjoy the remainder of the afternoon.

And enjoy it we did. There's nothing quite like a great gig to set up the rest of your day.

Loo Yen Yeo

Hello MOTU

The recording project hit a nasty technical hitch a few weeks ago which made life pretty uncomfortable.

The situation was this: we had two hard-disk recorders (Alesis HD24XRs) capable of recording a total of 24 channels at 24-bit 96kHz and we need more than 50 channels per song. We get around this by copying the recorded channels onto our server (Dell PowerEdge 2950), play back the channels from the computer (using Cubase 4), whilst recording more onto the hard-disk recorders. Sounds easy, right?

Yes, with the right equipment.

Except we weren't using the right equipment, and we didn't know it.

Let me elaborate.

The real trick is in synchronising the playback with the recording. At first we were using a Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 I/O as the sound interface linked to the pc by firewire, and to the Alesises (?plural?) by MIDI. The Saffire was slaved to the house clock (Apogee Big Ben) by BNC. Cubase would stall intermittently when we hit the 'Play' button, returning control to the console several minutes after hitting the 'Stop' button. There was a lot of MIDI activity, during the interminable wait. Quite frustrating to be twiddling thumbs more than recording timbales.

Salvation: Mark of the Unicorn. Hallelujah!

I called up Bobby, our man at Music Technology and he recommended the MOTU 828 mkII USB. We got it in, partially on the basis that it had an ADAT synch, installed and configured it (a process that took a few days), and it's been working beautifully ever since. The only minor hitch was that the Big Ben would not recognise it as being terminated via the BNC, so we went with the RCA connectors instead.

With a company name like 'Mark Of The Unicorn', you gotta be pretty confident in your stuff; and they don't disappoint. The software for the product is well written and timely. I can't say the same about Focusrite.

We have a Focusrite Liquid Channel, which is an exceptional product; and it was on that basis (and lack of unfavourable reviews) that I pursued the Saffire and the Saffire Pro. It proved to be a costly error.

So in the final analysis, if you want to synch a PC running Cubase 4 to Alesis HDD recorders, consider the MOTU. I've relegated the Saffire Pro to my live rig.

You live and learn.

Yeo Loo Yen

May 2007 Sabroso@Interval Café, Sheffield

This was the the first time for us back on stage since the Donut gig, and with a significantly changed line-up:

• Dan has moved from rhythm guitar to timbales and is doing a fine job;
• Mike joined us just a couple of months ago, and is a great trombonist whose sense of humour comes across when he plays;
• Nathan has emerged from behind the timbales to take on vocals (lead and backing) and hand percussion;
• Wib joined us as a direct result from the Donut gig and is our new conguero;
• I've also stepped out from behind the congas and am fulfilling the same role as Nathan.

I think it's great for many reasons:

• Dan and Wib have an understanding of each other's musicianship based on years of playing live together;
• Mike brings a wealth of experience of playing soul, jazz and blues which is something we very much needed;
• there is more opportunity for interaction in the melodic arragements, which augments the montuno section of our songs;
• the rhythmic 'thickness' of our sound has been increased with both Nathan and I playing hand percussion;
• having two lead singers with different vocal ranges makes a wider range of songs possible;
• we have a high level of redundancy, meaning we can take on more gigs; and
• (selfishly) I can have a rest from singing during a set.

Woo-Hoo! This signals the dawning of a brave new world. Long live Cuatro de Diciembre!

Okay, as with any change in line-up, there is a period of instability. But even with that in mind and based on last night's performance, there's plenty of potential to be realised in this new line-up.

Joy.
Loo

Cuban Salsa over a Chinese Restaurant

I found myself in Manchester not too long ago, courtesy of Jane and Christophe (they're still putting up with me!), at a salsa evening orgainsed by Cuban style dance teachers.

Moso Moso is an interesting place to hold such a thing: the floor's good although the room can get a little bit warm due to the low ceiling, but the real icing on the cake must be the intriguing possibility of having Dim Sum downstairs should the fancy take me. Now that just appeals to my sense of humour.

The music was a pleasant change; being more Cuban than what is normally played at the other nights I skulk into. The reggaeton towards the end of the night is not quite my cup of tea, but I'm open-minded enough to enjoy (and occassionally partake of) the spectacle. The most striking thing, to me as a dancer and a teacher, is how good the standard of timing was. That is, everyone I danced with and observed. Sure, there was the expected variation in physical abilities, but there was I didn't experience the "uncomfortable struggling with a partner whose timing skills had remained vestigeal due to move-blinkering" thing all night.

That surely must be a positive endorsement on the student and dance-culture engendered by Susan and Juan of Salsa de Cuba. I like the way they try to help their students appreciate salsa in its cultural context, and I'm glad to see that there are takers for this approach.

This wasn't my first visit there, although it was the first in a long time. If you like Cuban music, and a chance to dance in that style, I think you might want to pop in and check it out.

Loo Yeo

Cándido's Tumbao

The tail end of last week was when we managed to get the equipment fully synch'ed. The Dell PowerEdge 2950 running with Cubase, the latency of the Focusrite Saffire Pro down to 2.0ms, high quality cables throughout, the lower-output Mackie HR824 replaced, and everything that was eligible hooked up to the Apogee Big Ben.

I'm still disappointed that the Saffire has a propensity to disconnect itself due to driver instability. This is a known issue, and I'm impatient to have that problem resolved because it's a lump in our workflow; trying to get it to re-engage after it drops out. I understand why it's so well regarded and reviewed, but surely this matter needs prompt attention. I was also surprised with the Mackie monitor not living up to its reputation in terms of quality assurance. The theory goes that they're delivered to retailers in four-unit clusters, and consecutive serial numbers are matched. This has not been my experience. One of the pair was DOA out of the box. The other pair had a nearly 6dB disparity in output. Eventually I found one that matched closely enough the output of my original "hot" one, but was far from being consecutive.

Given that the Big Ben is reputed to increase resolution of the stereo field, unmatched monitors don't make that assessment possible. I'm figuring out solutions now.

On Sunday we were back in the recording saddle once again, beginning with the guide piano and vocals for "Tiempo para el amor". Then the conga and tumba were set up and mic'ed. There followed a marathon session of my playing Cándido's tumbao for "Llamada de Ogún" until I got an acceptable take. Now I can play the regular stuff in my sleep / 'til the cows come home but this groove is something else altogether. It's a lot like the bassline in "Corazón Fugitivo" which reveals errors and drift very easily. When that happens, the only option is to start all over again.
Several hours later, we got a stronger take than the one I'd laid down a few months ago. Nailing a finalised take of Bolero rítmico and tumbao moderno for "Tiempo para el amor" was a snap after that.

Monday and yesterday were supposed to be bassline recording days, but with my left hand still tired from the conga session, Dan and I thought it best not to push the issue, and we went to first mixdown mode instead finishing six songs. We should have "Recordando África" and "Llamada de Ogún" finished before band practice tonight; so the band can have it as a take-home pressie.

So I've got a lot to look forward to... a fun-packed evening promising capers and frolicks as we prepare for our gig (with brand spanking new line-up) on the 20th.

Loo Yeo

All Has Not Been Quiet On The Western Front

Although it might seem like it from the lack of postings.

I was hoping to write sooner, once we had every scrap of equipment up and running, but that's proved not to be the case - must be one of life's universal constants. So we've laid down the guide melodics for six of our eight recorded songs and have run out of tracks until we manage to offload and configure playback from our pc. That's the hold-up. So this week has been set aside for infrastructure and configuration issues, after the resolution of which we should be flying along again.

I did manage to find the time to pop along to Bar Cubana on Friday, as a consolation for not being able to attend Dan's 21st Birthday party, after being held up due to the family business. Having not seen so many friends in several months, it was nice to be reacquainted either on the dance floor with the ladies, or on the sidelines with the gents. Dancing in such a confined space is no small challenge, but it was great just to get out from the hermitesque existence of a DIY recording musician. It was the perfect excuse to keep it simple and basic, and much more enjoyable for it.

Keeping the dance structure as open as possible leaves lots of room for rhythmic embellishments. Over the years, there's been less and less call for the use of turns to generate variety. Perhaps this is what it means to dance as a musician.

More later,
Loo

Good Friday 2007

was the day I realised that I could sing. I know how immodest that sounds, so maybe I should explain.

I've been singing in the band for three years now, and all this while I've only heard myself recorded a couple of times: once was at a recording studio barely a year since I'd taken over from our previous lead, Olga; the other was when I was laying down the guide vocals for our current recordings. It's pretty fair to say that neither of them were representative conditions, the former because my voice and vocal style were still developing, and the latter was done ad hoc simply to get the job done quickly.

The rest was at gigs, where everything is transient: you sing or play a note, and then the moment's gone. Also, we were lucky in that the salsa audiences we had played for were extremely friendly and possibly a forgiving bunch... so I was never quite sure.

Good Friday was the chosen day when Dan recorded lead vocals for eight of the ten songs we've laid down so far for our first cd. I expected a marathon day, and got one, although we were both extremely pleased that we managed final takes of all eight. For the record, I sang into a Neumann TLM103 connected to a Focusrite Liquid Channel. 'Surprised' isn't the right word, neither is 'pleased'. Satisified and happy maybe; that the vocal coaching, effort and practice had all paid off. Our project is a ProTools and midi-free zone and we're determined to keep it that way.

The Neumann is an honest mic, as Dan likes to put it, and it seems to me to reveal my every strength and shortcoming: rich tonal colours as well as the most embarrasing burbles, squeaks and honks (at the most inopportune moments). Rest assured that the vocals were redone from scratch until an artefact-free take of the right mood was sung.

I've never heard my voice like that before. Ever. And that's the strongest ever testament to the quality of Dan's engineering.

This project as a learning process is of immeasureable value; feedback is immediate and uncompromising. So I'm a little sad to be stepping away from the vocal mic, or at least to have begun the process of stepping away. I forsee my commitments in business to take me away from the band increasingly, so it was only fair that I do so. But at least I can still expect to sing lead for the remaining two songs of the suite when they're recorded. Hopefully in a few months' time.

Until I can resume a firm commitment to the band, I'll just have to be satisfied with the role of guest tresero.

Actually now that I put it that way, it doesn't sound too bad does it?

Loo Yeo

Catching Up With Salsa

I'm back after four weeks in the Far East, which saw me chomping my way through a myriad delicacies over Chinese New Year, and doing very little salsa. I only danced once and saw a club band on the night of my bro's birthday. When I came back, boy was I itching to get some music done.

During my absence, 4 de Diciembre has undergone some (planned) changes to both line-up and practice structure at least temporarily; triggered by our recording project and the possibility of my reduced involvement due to business commitments.

• The band has split into two sections: percussion, rhythm and vocals; and melodics. The latter have been focussing their efforts on their arrangements in light of their upcoming recording; having mixdowns of the tracks has proved a vital catalyst. They've done a great job so far with the first tranche of four songs, which we were given the opportunity to listen to on Thursday past. In the former, Nathan's taken up the role of lead vocals, Dan's moving onto timbales, and we have a prospective new conguero called "Wib". It's too early to say yet how Wib will turn out, he's a trap-set drummer by training. From previous experience in teaching, I know it takes a while to get used to the hand drums and the Afrocuban idiom, so I'm hoping for the best.
• On days when I'm not required as a conguero, I'll be moving onto tres. It will provide us with a further propulsive rhythm vamp that will complement Jeremy on piano; it's an instrument that I've wanted to play for a long time; it's portable so I can take it with me and still be able to keep in touch with our music (I anticipate having to travel quite a bit soon); and it gets me out from behind the congas when we have to gig. Maybe that last point wasn't a plus.
• Recordings are starting again with Ana scheduled to lay down maracas tracks today, and Nathan the guiro tomorrow. Dan has this weekend free, so I'm hoping that we can lay down stronger piano and bass tracks or bongo bell, or both.
• There's more equipment arriving this week: a second hard disk recorder, a reflexion shield, a Neumann TLM103, a Focusrite Liquid Channel, a couple of high capacity HDDs and assorted cables.
• I've had a chance to work through the inspiraciones to our ninth song, and have bounced them back to Ana for amendment.
• Still pending later this week is for me to sort out a basic montuno pattern for the chorus of our tenth song.

It's not all work. Christophe and Jane have offered to take me to see Alex Wilson in Derby on Friday, which was an opportunity I jumped at. That'll teach me for spending a month eating mom's home-cooked food!

A rather portly Loo