I have been plagued by something I hear on occasion. It sounds like a fuzzy distortion, but only on select music.
Recently, I heard this and got up and closer to the speaker. It sounded like noise from the mouthpiece of the saxophone. Is that a thing?
Roger
Recently, I heard this and got up and closer to the speaker. It sounded like noise from the mouthpiece of the saxophone. Is that a thing?
Roger
Yes. In fact, one of the biggest critiques I have of jazz saxophonists is that they usually don't articulate (tongue) very well (compared to their classical counterparts), if they articulate at all, and they use way too open mouthpieces with way too soft reeds that sound like honking donkeys, with spit sounds included in their sound--ostensibly to make them sound "authentic". I think it sounds quite poor to what it could sound like. Some of the most well-regarded jazz saxophonists from the 1940s-60s used this sound.
Not my favorite.
Chris
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Do you hear that noise in this track?
Ben Webster was known for a 'breathy' sound when he played ballads, which might be what you're describing. Or it might not be. Is it?
Ben Webster was known for a 'breathy' sound when he played ballads, which might be what you're describing. Or it might not be. Is it?
Yes, somewhat like that. I am not surprised, I just wanted to check to see if I was right. Mostly heard on some Mingus tracks.
Is it repeatable? Can you play the same track a different day and hear the same thing at the same elapsed time interval into the track?
I listen mostly to streaming, so I do not have all the info, but yes, it is consistently there on the recordings I hear it on.
Roger
Roger
What I was wondering was whether you were experiencing some kind of distortion that can be caused by speaker relay contact resistance. It can intermittent and often clears if you turn the volume up momentarily as the higher current forces a way through the layer of oxidation and tarnish clearing it for a while.
It is one of those things that always happens to someone else (until it happened it to me) and I couldn't quite believe that was what it was was. In my case it was very noticeable when checked with low to moderate sine wave testing in the midrange.
It was just another thought 🙂
It is one of those things that always happens to someone else (until it happened it to me) and I couldn't quite believe that was what it was was. In my case it was very noticeable when checked with low to moderate sine wave testing in the midrange.
It was just another thought 🙂
Mooly,
Output is direct from transformer. However, the input is via a low noise relay for source selection. It's weird, but because it is consistent on certain recordings, it is also fairly consistent in tonal frequency range, kind of like always in lower midrange, upper low frequency. I am mostly convinced it's in the recording and not distortion. I was mostly interested in whether Reed or mouthpiece noise is a real thing or not.
Roger
Output is direct from transformer. However, the input is via a low noise relay for source selection. It's weird, but because it is consistent on certain recordings, it is also fairly consistent in tonal frequency range, kind of like always in lower midrange, upper low frequency. I am mostly convinced it's in the recording and not distortion. I was mostly interested in whether Reed or mouthpiece noise is a real thing or not.
Roger
Fair enough 🙂 and from how you describe it, it does all sound like something specific to the recorded performance. I can't just think of any recordings but I can visualise the sound you describe now.
From a single reed musician, take my word for it: they're real things. And they're there very often in older jazz saxophone recordings originally made in the 1950s --> onward.
If you open up your recording(s) where you hear this sound using Audacity (assuming one or more of them are digital recordings), then select Spectrogram (shift-M on a Windows keyboard), then zoom in on a place where you hear the issue (Ctrl-1), you should be able to see this noise in the spectrogram view.
Chris