IlayaRaja's New Albums 2013-15 - Mahendran film/Thaarai thappattai/Mythri

[Gregorysab]

Maybe I am getting old, but I thought 'Chinna Kanniley' was a perfect song for what was being conveyed. The rhythm goes along very well with the breeziness of the song.

Suresh,

if you are really getting old, then you probably wouldnt have been impressed by it because as we grow old, we demand lot more complexities in the songs of Raaja (going by history and experience). I felt the song was little too plain - though sweet. Vilayaatta had some emotional depth and we have talked enough on SPB song anyway. This, coming from Raaja, was no great shakes - felt. Which means perhaps I am becoming old. and conversely, if you loved it - it means you are still young. and thats quite wonderful, given that you recently celebrated your birthday Cheers!

[Gregorysab]

Interesting posts by KarlK. Firstly, welcome to KarlK!

I didnt know Uttam singh was doing the mixing as well. As far as I know, he was an instrumentalist in the bygone era and had been in the troupes of S.D.Burman, Madan Mohan, R.D.Burman etc, when he was a young chap. He even did the arrangements for Naushad's private album Aathwan Sur (he did a good job there). and I thought he was the arranger for Raaja's bombay-based recordings. I could sense Uttam singh's presence in Aur Ek Prem Kahani (Uttam Singh's vocals are also there) and India 24 hours.

But going by what KarlK says, what beats is why does Uttam singh do the recording/mixing when there are other talented people out there. R.D.Burman had excellent team (My wife who has been exploring Raaja since quite some time, asked me: why do 70s/80s recordings of RDBurman and Khaiyyam sound more crisp and clean than Raaja's recordings, though Raaja came later? Ofcourse, there are exceptions such as Agninakshatram, Mouna Raagam, Geetanjali, Sindhu Bhairavi and some more.. but predominantly, most of the raaja songs i get to play for her have poor sound clarity). Was it that things were advanced in Bombay? Were there really no good sound engineers before H.Sridhar, who definitely was a pioneer. In Bombay, people like Daman Sood, Avinash Oak had amazing understanding of sound and did great work, for films and even other albums. Even in 90s, K.J.Singh was/is talented guy who does good recording. Vishal Bharadwaj uses him and even Rahman uses KJ Singh.

It would be interesting to see if Raaja records in ARR's studio (believed to be the most advanced, in India) with his sound engineers such as Sivakumar, Aditya Modi etc, who are doing good job with recordings. Like the suresh of backgroundscore.com rightly said, Raaja needed and still needs a good sound engineer. In that respect, Rahman actually gave equal respect to Sridhar and treated him as an integral part of his team. An interview of Sridhar reveals how ARR and Sridhar together used to discuss a lot about sound engineering and explore new things, to achieve high quality of sound reproduction. If only Raaja had such visionary technician with him, right from late 70s... we wouldnt have been talking this or craving for remastered versions now.

That said, I think recent recordings of Raaja are very good. The 90s batch of Raaja's music was the one that suffered a lot, i think.

KarlK,

Please continue sharing more trivia with us.

[raajarasigan]

oh.. Thanks Kark for the notes... adikkadi vandhu ponga...

Thanks RR too for sharing this

[karlkalyan]

Interesting posts by KarlK. Firstly, welcome to KarlK!

I didnt know Uttam singh was doing the mixing as well. As far as I know, he was an instrumentalist in the bygone era and had been in the troupes of S.D.Burman, Madan Mohan, R.D.Burman etc, when he was a young chap. He even did the arrangements for Naushad's private album Aathwan Sur (he did a good job there). and I thought he was the arranger for Raaja's bombay-based recordings. I could sense Uttam singh's presence in Aur Ek Prem Kahani (Uttam Singh's vocals are also there) and India 24 hours.


It would be interesting to see if Raaja records in ARR's studio (believed to be the most advanced, in India) with his sound engineers .............. If only Raaja had such visionary technician with him, right from late 70s... we wouldnt have been talking this or craving for remastered versions now.

That said, I think recent recordings of Raaja are very good. The 90s batch of Raaja's music was the one that suffered a lot, i think.

KarlK,

Please continue sharing more trivia with us.

Rahman's studios are one of the best facilities in whole of Asia! He has Neve 88RS console. This is the setup available in Studio 1 at Abbey Road Studios, London. This is considered as one of the largest and finest scoring stagea in the world! This is where John Williams normally records with LSO since the seventies. As you can see from the recording videos of John, it can easily accommodate about 100 players plus 100 voices simultaneously! In addition to this, Rahman also has a set up with Euphonix. This equipment has just five installations in India and two of them in Chennai. Harris also has the same setup.

[kiru]

We have talked about recording quality here before. I see recording quality being a "hit or miss" all the time. For eg. Ninaivellam nithya, thanikattu raaja, geethanjali are awesome recordings (probably not as good as Dhoni). Singaravelan is excellent. pazhassi raaja is good, but too much "delays" (echoes) bothers me. Recent recordings like vaalmiki, kannukkullE etc good inspite of synths. Maybe somebody like KarlK can throw more light.
(BTW, hindi film songs and hindustani have all along had better recording quality. Sometimes, they used to go to Bombay for recordings from Chennai, if I am not mistaken).

[Gregorysab]

Maybe somebody like KarlK can throw more light.
(BTW, hindi film songs and hindustani have all along had better recording quality. Sometimes, they used to go to Bombay for recordings from Chennai, if I am not mistaken).

true Kiru,

From what I could understand (through reading, interacting and dissecting the music itself), the composers who gave equal priority to recording were Naushad (right from 40s), O.P.Nayyar (he wanted clean sound) and R.D.Burman. Not to say that other composers did not have good recordings, but these composers were kind of game changers, in the sense that they had a say in how they wanted the output. Naushad fought many odds to get the sound he wanted. Even Madan Mohan and S.D.Burman come close. R.D.Burman was a game-changer because he wanted to listen to the sound of each and every instrument in his orchestra. His strengths were percussions, real-life sounds etc and hence he wanted to have them transported clearly on the LPs.

Ilaiyaraaja was also no less, compared to how things were down south. Just that the consistency went for a toss. Ninaivelam Nithya had good clarity but films after that didnt have that. Then again few had and few didnt. There are many albums with good sound clarity, but they again were followed by albums with poor quality. He used to go to Bombay for better quality and he was the only composer down south to do so. So he did give some emphasis to clarity. Just that he couldnt maintain his requirements consistently.

I think H.Sridhar worked with Raaja as sound engineer for some films. Kaalapani i think. I have also seen the tape of Sethu - on which it was printed that the recording was done at Panchathan - ARR's studio. I even wondered how come Raaja recorded at ARR's studio.

KarlK,

Didnt Raaja ever employ KJSingh? or Daman Sood?

[Gregorysab]

RR,

Can this topic - Recording Quality of Raaja's albums, be a separate thread, since it doesnt exactly fit into "new albums" thread?

Just asking!

[karlkalyan]

Yes, Bombay has always been ahead in absorbing latest technologies and that is why they consistently maintain the quality. More than that they have very good engineers and most importantly these engineers are given their importance by the MDs, directors and producers.

In fact, when Uttam was doing these final song mixes in the late eighties/early nineties, once I asked him why Raaja's final output does not have the clarity of Hindi songs....he used to give some lame execuses like the recording method in Bombay is different from Chennai bla bla. Obviously he was not telling this in detail to IR otherwise he has no business here in Chennai to mint money, you see.

This is the link for Abbey Road Studios... http://www.abbeyroad.com/Studio/5/Studio-One
These are some of the links for JW scoring at Studio One for Star Wars







The following link for a John Williams live RR session.....



in 2002 to commemorate the 20 years of ET release, there was a premiere show in LA. The main feature was the live RR played by John and his symphony orchestra. For the entire film, for all the cues, starting from the Logo, the orchestra played it live.

Shawn Murphy mixed the music on the spot and sent it across to another mixer. This guy mixed the music with the dialogues and effects feed he was getting from the Projection booth and sent the final mix to the audiance.

Unbelievable feat!

[San_K]

தோனி, மயிலு – இளையராஜாவின் முத்தான ஆறு பாடல்கள்

[RR]

Suresh,

if you are really getting old, then you probably wouldnt have been impressed by it because as we grow old, we demand lot more complexities in the songs of Raaja (going by history and experience). I felt the song was little too plain - though sweet. Vilayaatta had some emotional depth and we have talked enough on SPB song anyway. This, coming from Raaja, was no great shakes - felt. Which means perhaps I am becoming old. and conversely, if you loved it - it means you are still young. and thats quite wonderful, given that you recently celebrated your birthday Cheers!

Objection, your honour! Indirectly the defense seems to be implying that I am getting old. I want to bring to your notice that kiru is impressed a lot by the music and he is in my age group, so I am very young.

Just kidding.. excellent post!