Although this discussion has now become completely off-topic for this BBS, I'm having fun. If anyone thinks we should be continuing this elswhere, let us know...

I think in a competition scenario the twirly bit would count against you. The idea is you should be able to close your eyes and then point to each instrument as it plays, and the judges have diagrams of the instrument placement when the recordings were made.

I'm pretty sure that they deliberately intended for that effect when they produced that piece, and therefore it wouldn't count against me. The position of the instrument is supposed to move in 3D around you. There's more than just panning happening there (more on that below). Another clue: When they play the piece live, they do a special lighting effect during that introduction. They darken the stage and use a ring of tight-focused spots around the drum riser, sequentially lighting them in a circular motion as Neil plays the bell intro.

the bell sound (probably a triangle?) has definite tonality to it -- it is not a single point source frequency "tink tink tink" but each bell sound actually falls off in frequency as the volume fades

Oh yeah, I hear that, too. I don't know if the instrument is a triangle or not, but it sounds like one. The MP3 version I'm listening to now reproduces this faithfully when played back on the Empeg, although some of the ultra-high frequencies are lost-- a known limitation of the Fraunhofer encoder at the 128k bitrate. (Wow! He manages to write something on-topic!)

Though some of the frequency falloff, is, I believe, doppler shift. Listen through a pair of good headphones on your home system and see if you agree with me. I have no information on the recording of that particular bit, but I know that during the recording of the album, Neil experimented with different miking techniques to get more interesting drum sounds. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually rigged something physical with stereo mics in an attempt to produce the 3D circular effect. Remember, this is before Q-sound existed.

An example of the unusual recording techniques used on that album: Neil had long been complaining that his recorded drum sound, when played back, didn't sound like it sounded to him while he was recording it. He wanted to capture the characteristics of the drummer's listening position on tape. So when recording the song "Vital Signs", they actually taped a mic to his chest as they laid down the drum tracks. You can see this in the video for the song. I don't know how much of that track ended up in the final mix, though.

I can still remember pulling the car over to the side of the road and stopping, and punching the repeat-play button on the CD player, and I let it play over and over for the next several days. That was where I became interested in Rush.

Yeah, YYZ is one heck of a piece. It sure stands up to repeated listenings. It's a great example of how they can flaunt their technical talent but still manage to make good music while doing so. The fast ascending odd-tempo scale they play together (just before the first main theme) is amazing-- they are so tight as a band. Those little rhythmic stunts they pull are my favorite bits.

Their earlier works and their later works don't inspire me -- but the 1980--1983 stuff I kind of like.

Everyone who likes Rush seems to have a different favorite "era". That's my favorite, too. The stuff they were doing around then is special because they made a conscious choice to write tighter, more focused songs instead of drawn-out rock operas. The album prior to Moving Pictures contains their last long-format operetta ("Natural Science").

Don't discount 1985's "Power Windows" album, though. Every bit as powerful as Moving Pictures, but it's the first album where they decided to go for a big production. Up until that point, they refused to do anything in the studio that they couldn't actually play in a live concert. By 1985, synthesizer and sampler technology had advanced to the point where they could safely add extra parts to the live act without adding more musicians. That album marks the beginning of an era where they were no longer afraid to overdub extra parts in the studio. Now they spend a lot of time onstage stepping on synth pedals or triggering sampled background parts from a keyboard controller. I've heard 'em trigger samples late in concert before (the orchestral bit on "Manhattan Project", for example). It's not pretty.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.