For this show, how one chooses to handle the wind effect is key. I have a wonderful sample that was actually recorded on a hill in the Irish countryside. I played portions of this sample (mainly the gusts) into my K2500 sampler, and mixed a 6 minute segment of the original wind with a track of me playing the wind on my keyboard into Digital Performer. When I was satisfied, I bounced it out with a slight reverb effect onto my hard disk.

From there I imported the bounced file into BIA'S PEAK and added a 5 sec fade in and a 20 sec fade out. I saved that as a SDII (the best format for CD burning if you ask me, for MP3 conversion, go with AIFF.) I then, imported that file into my CD burning software as many times as it took to fill an entire CD, and crossfaded the tracks at 1 minute on either end.

Now I have a full CD of great sounding "Irish" wind. That would make use of 1 of my two decks for the show, since all I had for playback was a CD and a MD deck.

I found that the way to make the wind really come alive was EQing, not bumps and cuts. That is, I kept the wind at a constant volume (for the most part) throughout the play, but just nuanced what frequencies one could hear at any given time. For instance, when a character makes a refrence to the wind "coming in under the door" I brought up the mid/high frequencies so the whistling could be heard. But, when a character entered the bar from the outside, those frequencies were cut, so as to make the wind sound more like it was behind a wall. So on, and so forth.

Fun stuff! As for music, I didn't hear a lot of room for it when I read the script. Now that I think of it, it might be a nice touch for there to be a radio in the bar, that would go off and on, but then again that could be distracting. My original theme for the show (which you can download by clicking on the link above) is very subtle and haunting. The wind is as much an insturment as the fiddle.

Our director has done a remarkable job finding inroads to the soul of the piece. If you're familiar with the play you know that it's both haunting and hilarious. Mr. McPherson has given us characters that jump off the page and beg to be performed. Even so, it takes a special kind of director add so much to their world without taking anything away.

Til' next time,

H