three teasers of Helix

Below are three links to teasers that give an impression of what Helix will sound like. This morning I thought that a suitable subtitle would be: "A crafty mixture of granulations". Perhaps that gives you an idea as well of what is coming.

sjs (1'00")
cj1a (1'05")
cj2 (1'00")

They're all three the first one minute or so of the piece which last approximately 8 or 9 minutes each. The letters refer to the contributors, of course. So sjs is the collaboration between Sascha and Jos, where Sascha delivered the first basic tracks. Cj2 is the second composition made by Chris and Jos.

I tried to do the sound samples with a flashplayer but blogger seems to be unable to accept that code... sorry.

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rework on master Entr'acte

In 2007 I finished a project that had been going on with Christopher McFall and Sascha Neudeck. After a few trials it appeared that the fabulous London-based label Entr'acte was prepared to release the material. But, as with so many projects, it took quite some time before it was 'our' turn to take a place in the catalogue and hit the streets. Well, people, it's about to happen.

BUT.....

I finished the postproduction some time in the first quarter of 2007 (I believe) and since then I have learned quite a lot about postproduction. Thanks to my getting acquainted with that fantastic piece of software Reaper, which I can recommend to any one working seriously on sound production. Get Reaper here. Listening back to the end product of 2007 I was a bit worried. Hmmm, is this really the best I can do? No. So, after some pondering I have decided to polish the stuff once more before sending the definite master to Entr'actes office.

And that's what I have been doing the past few days. Listening again and again, compressing some parts and looking after a few phase issues. Thanks to the multiband compressor of Reaper the sound sparkles more than ever. And Flux's 'stereotool' helped a lot with addressing the phase problems that I found.

I yet have to listen to the end result. I have to dither the mix back from 32bits to 16bits files and that somehow changes the sound a little. I don't really know how and why but it 'feels' different.
Master will ship to England this weekend. Fo sho.

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First view at the new NVO release

Three days ago Raphael Moser, cover designer of Nonvisualobjects, sent me his first sketches of the cover for "Gaussian Transient (Megaphone)" that is due later this year. As always that's an exciting moment. I had a few comments on the lettering and the positioning of the titles but overall I am quite satisfied. The hard yellowish background will draw immediate attention to whoever gets it in the corner of his/her eye.

Hmm, that's a BIG picture, isn't it? Anyhoo, it's the music that counts. I'll keep you posted on further progress.

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New THU20 album mastered

April 30 Roel Meelkop and I have mastered the new THU20 release that is due later this year by Korm Plastics. It will be a mix of a live session we did in October 2007. There are two tracks on vinyl, 17 minutes each. That's actually rather short, but should garantee maximum dynamics. The concert was given in my hometown Tilburg at the Paradox. Some 30 visitors listened to 2 sets of approximately 22 minutes. Each of us recorded their own part on minidisk or harddisk. And there was one tape recording made by the engineer. Unfortunately the Revox he used recorded with heavy compression so a lot of mixing was required to get it into a good listening experience. We think we succeeded in this. The first mixes have been done by myself and dj DMDN early this year.

Snapshot 1
Snapshot 2

It's all quite noisy, which is not very surprisingly considering the fact that five musicians were on stage. THU20 were, that night: Peter Duimelinks, Roel Meelkop, Frans de Waard, Sjak van Bussel, Jos Smolders. Our fee: 80 euro's each. We had a good time (as usual).

EDIT: RELEASE WAS October 23. SEE POST THERE

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