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

[kiru]

Is the audio CD any better for Dhoni? Listen to this Raja number from the obscure KannukkullE (2009) - http://www.thiraipaadal.com/tpplayer...1'&lang=en Especially the 2nd interlude. That's what I am talking about. Real violins against a single real violin followed by a real flute. Sounds fantastic. Dhoni songs, the orchestration particularly, somehow don't sound this *crisp*. Only the SPB song sounds perfect.

The solo violin, yes, because I think it has real space around it. And probably the flute. The backing strings and drums seem to be synth, I think. But very good. I am not complaining. There are other guys here who can notice pitch adjustments done in software.Maybe, they can comment.

[Sureshs65]

The standard debate So I must also contribute my standard two cents

First, I would agree with Suresh that 'Dhoni' has nothing to do with live recording / live instruments etc. I was going to write this in my 'Dhoni' review. (which ofcourse hasn't happened yet). The truth is that I cannot discern any major difference between Raja's recent albums and 'Dhoni'. I personally feel 'Snehaveedu' has the same warmth that "Dhoni' has, though it uses synth.

Coming to NormalMan's opinion about too instruments fighting for space, I would agree to it in case of 'Ponnar Shankar'. But as I had mentioned in the very beginning of the Raja 2012 post, Raja has been changing. 'Ponnar Shankar' is probably an example of the sort of orchestration and recording where instruments are fighting for space and too much is happening on the background. Nothing wrong with too much happening in the background but if the sounds are not separated well, you may not get the desired result. The latest few albums of Raja don't seem to supper from his. ''ASK', Sree Rama Rajyam', 'Sneha Veedu', 'Prasad' and 'Dhoni' all have lesser instruments and generally the separation seems to far crisper.

Coming to synth itself, I see three different patterns and in each the effectiveness is different. Let me try and enunciate these here.

1. The High Energy / Youthful songs: These are the songs in which, according to me, synth is not effective at all. Here the synthesizer is used in place of some wind instruments like sax, trumpet etc and also to give some 'special effect' sounds. Unfortunately these songs lose their energy due to these 'effect' sounds and also sound dated. The energy that you get from real instruments is far better than what you could get from synth. Just check out how much energy you get from the nadaswaram in 'rekka katti'(Valmiki). Also the the thavil and shenoy in 'Mayilu' add so much energy to 'kalyanamam kalyanam', whereas in the other song, 'nammaloda paatu' you can clearly see the synth bringing down the energy. There are quite a few songs which Raja did, which were supposed to be 'youthful' and attract the 'youth' but it never happened. Unfortunately these songs appealed to neither the youth nor to Raja fans. (Added to it ofcourse was the use of singers like Tippu, whom not many liked.) I can point you to songs from 'Nannavanu', 'Kannukkule', 'Kangalum Kavi Padudhe' etc as examples of these songs.

If you observe the other MDs, for high energy songs they generally depend only on the rhythm and a loud bass more than anything else. You will notice even the interludes are driven by the rhythm. Everyone is helped by some attractive / catchy loops available in the market, both for rhythm and bass. So they end up using it as it is and only add 'layers' of instruments but the rhythm is unceasing. Take any current hit song, with is loved by the youth and has high energy and compare it with something like 'vaanam kottatum'. You can clearly see that there is no way Raja can recreate something like 'vanam kottatum' on synth. That requires real instruments. So in this case of 'youthful' / high energy songs it is going to a tough task for Raja. One, because the current generation is used to the loops / beats and want the energy that these loops give. So even if you give a very high energy song with real drumming etc, it is not going to be easy to attract the youth. Whereas Raja may be reluctant to use the loops as it, without his signature. It will be interesting to see how he moves forward in this case.

2. Romantic songs / Melodies: Here I don't find too many problems with the synthesizer since in many cases there is no need for special effect sounds from the synthesize. Raja has used the synthesizer fairly well for the romantic melodies I would say. Unlike some others, I don't feel the worth of the melody has come down due to the usage of synthesizer. I would go ahead to say that having live instruments would not have added an incremental effect, if at all. The reason for this is not that synthesizers are producing the exact sound. It is because of the way that Raja is tuning nowadays. In earlier times, early usage of synth, Raja probably tried to recreate his whole orchestra with synth. That did not sound too great. Later he has changed his style more towards smooth jazz and this works well with the synthesizer. Here there is no grand orchestra recreation. It is only a few instruments playing. I sometimes think that this is what old timers crib about. The lack of the grand interludes. Rather the interludes nowadays are 'tame' if you go by what you hear. The truth is they are not 'tame', rather 'different'. The interlude of say, 'poo poothadhu' is as lovely as any interlude you would have heard with the complete live orchestra, only if you are able to tune yourself towards the jazz delight that 'poo poothadhu' is. Suresh in his writeup has given some current songs where the synth doesn't intrude and adds value. I will give some more : All song of 'Snehaveedu', the two duets of 'Gayam 2', the duet in ASK, 'Edaya Baagilu', 'Chinna Polike', 'Angel Angel' and so on.

Though not romantic melody, I would also add another class of songs in this section. Those are the softer melodies that he does for children or about children. Songs from 'Nandala' and from 'Prasad'. Here too I don't find the synth out of place.

3. Ambiance songs: What I mean by this is songs wherein the synthsizer is used to create and sustain an ambiance. Raja in the 80s didn't do much in this direction I would say. He always got the emotions he wanted through a constantly changing patterns. He probably didn't like the idea of the same drone going on to create an ambiance. (Probably felt that didn't challenge him enough?). It was after the synthesizer got firmly entrenched in TFM that Raja started trying this. The experimentation though was carried in MFM and not TFM, for some unknown reason. The first song which stunned me was 'manjolum raathri' from 'Oru Yathra Mozhi'. What an extraordinary ambiance Raja creates with the synth!! This was followed by songs like 'virahamay vipalamay', sharadendu paadi' and 'sivamallipoove'. I will definitely say that in these songs the synth adds a lot more to the listening experience. I am sure Raja could not have tuned these the way he did without synth. Real instruments would not have captured this sort of ambiance. The example that Sunil gave is probably the best to explain this fact. 'neeral udal kazhuvi'. The ambiance as if you are at a cremation ground itself comes from electronics here. Again I am very certain that no real instruments could have got this ambiance. I do hope Raja does some such songs in Tamil. Malayalis have been lucky that way to get some great songs from him.

To sum up, synthesizer is an inevitable part of the current musical setup. So let us hope Raja uses it in such a way that it gives us maximum pleasure. And as Normal Men we would also love high quality recordings.

[Sureshs65]

Another thing I have noticed. There is not much debate about other MDs using synth. Yes, in some case the synth usage in Raja songs is jarring but even in those where it is not, we have people complaining. But I have noticed quite a lot of songs of Rahman where I can clearly hear that real instruments weren't used (example would be the chorus Akbar song from 'Jodha Akbar'. There are trumpet like sounds which sound very ineffective to me but overall no one had a complaint.) I guess that takes us back to Plum's theory. An old dhoti clad man cannot understand technology Honestly I would love someone who actually knows about synthesizer and can talk about sound separation (like Kiru say to take up an album like 'Snehaveedu' and analyse it against some of the other recent hits and find out if there is anything wrong with 'Snehaveedu' in terms of synth usage and sound recording.

[Gregorysab]

http://www.thehindu.com/arts/cinema/...?homepage=true

There have been requests in the past to perform live for movies, Ilayaraja discloses. “But I don't accept each invitation. I saw the interest Prakash Raj showed towards the compositions. He is also a huge fan of live orchestra. His passion towards live music made me accept the offer,” says the composer.

interesting! shows yet again the randomness (translate as the luck of the producer/director approaching raaja).

His decision to accept a film lies with the story and the makers. “There are no hard and fast rules. At that moment, if I like the concept of the film, I take it up,” he says.

The reasons/instincts that make him accept or reject a film remain elusive!

[jmahesh]

dhoni music release on vijay tv now

[jmahesh]

http://tamil.techsatish.net/file/dhoni/

watch dhoni music release

[V_S]

Excellent insights on IR's synth usage Suresh ji and Suresh ji. Can't be said better. A whole lot of Malayalam melodies post 90's with synth, especially those with Sathyan Anthikkad's films, definitely a cut above the rest. I can safely rest on these melodies without having to worry about live instruments/recording.

[Sureshs65]

Saw the picturization of 'vangum panathukkum'. They have done it well with Prabu Deva dancing for it. Could catch attention of lot of people.

[Nerd]

Promo of 3 songs here, albeit in Telugu. Not sure if this was shown on Vijay too. Haven't seen it yet.

[sureshmehcnit]

Suresh/sunil - this is precisely what I was talking about yesterday. What in IR prevents the youththu from giving it a chance - why the uncool man dressed uncooly and uncool to flaunt as a taste in peer circles. As simple as that. As someone noted, if the same audio is released with Yuvan's name, it might do much nbetter

No. He isn't that kind of a person at all. When he could proudly flaunt in his peer circles "Naagamalai Saanjiduchu" as his favorite song from Aravaan soundtrack, he can't be one such person. If he was one of that kind, I wouldn't even bother to know the reason for hating Ilaiyaraaja song. In fact, I was listening to Chinna kannilae song, he just passed by and casually the song fell in his ears, he heard the song for seconds and said, "yennada mokkai paattu kaetukittu irukkae.. yenna padam.. yaaru music".