First reviews of Gaussian Transient (Megaphone)

Two reviews I have read on the latest release through Nonvisual Objects. I am pleased to read that they are quite favorable. Although I have a special relation to the work which is partly quite detached from that of the listener and I therefore could stay indifferent towards any criticism. But it is always nice to read or hear from others that from the heap and mash of things and ideas that I put into the work is picked up by total strangers.

Read the reviews here

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Changing the lab setup

When you're working on very silent passages you want a silent environment. But there's a constant humm on the background: yer computer. I have made quite a lot of adaptations to silence that. Wrapped it in cloth, bought myself a very silent box (Antec2), stuffed that with foam to prevent resonating metal. But you still keep hearing a soft fan which gets louder in time because dust settles down.

So now I've decided to go one step further. I bought myself extension cables and moved the computer case to another room. That really helps! For the time being. Before you know it I start complaining about the soft humm that still leaks through the walls. It's a never ending story, really.

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Henning Lundkvist roams the room

I have started working with the voice of Henning Lundkvist for my piano and poet project. Henning's Swedish translation of the text is recited in a constant drone which is quite suitable for my new investigation: space. I am using wavearts plugins to move the voice in space around the listener. This subject of moving sound source is something which has interested me ever since I listened to Roger Reynolds's Voicespace (Lovely Music, please try to get hold of the 2lp because the cd lacks one of the finer compositions. Unbelievable that they just cut that one off).

I am trying to employ the same technique as Reynolds. Obviously the end result will be something different. I am much too hard headed to just follow an example. The other exercise is the use of granulation on phonemes. I have used this technique on a poem written and read by Dutch poet Lucebert.

Henning Lundkvist is a composer who works with big issues, both visual and auditive. He also spends his time in Malmö at the teatr Weimar. Read more about and by Henning.

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New soundcard enters the studio

I have tested a new soundcard last weekend: the Echo Audiofire4. I have been using an Echo card since the mid 90s, the Gina. It cost me a fortune at the time, something to the equivalent of 800 dollars (indexed price). But it has always served me very well. The sound of the Echo card has always been much better than a lot of 24bit cards that have hit the market in the past few years.

So why the Audiofire? Well, first of all it's got two xlr inputs WITH phantom power, which I can use for my live recordings. Next to that it's got 4 inputs and 4 outputs AND midi capabilities. That's also something that I've been missing in recent years. Add to that the excellent 24bit sound conversion and the choice is actually really easy. The firewire gives me the necessary (phantom) power for the mic. Combined with a laptop I can really go out into the field and record at high quality. My idea is to combine my OKM binaural mics with the Marshall MX mics that I have for finer detail. The OKM's are used for the binaural cues.

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GAUSSIAN TRANSIENT (MEGAPHONE) released

NVO releases GAUSSIAN TRANSIENT (MEGAPHONE)
Grab some info here. Now, let's see what you people think of it. I am terrible pleased with it and I thank Heribert Friedl and Raphael Moser for their arduous work with the Nonvisual Objects label, which rules for quite some time now and which continues to release great material.

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Beequeen re-released

Today I received the re-release of Beequeen's "Time Waits For No one". I did a bit of remastering of this release. I cleaned up the analog tape, updated the stereo image and aligned the overall volume. I think it's better than the original and that one got quite nice reviews, which you might read here.

Oh and by the way: I'm in the market for remastering other stuff as well. Just mail me about the conditions (some are for free, others cheap).

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new Wire release!

Listened to the new Wire release today, Object47. What a wonderful release. The sound is less biting than the previous one, Send. It's warmer, there's more detail. The vocals of Colin Newman shine. Back to the early days. Fantastic. Anyone should have a listen, you're instantly hooked. The title appears to refer to the fact that this is their 47th release. Haven't counted that, but I suppose that's correct.

And when you're not familiar with Wire check out this site.

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Yoko Higashi in the mix

I have received the files by Yôko Higashi. She is a Japanese performer with a couple of outstanding releases on Entr'acte. I asked Yôko to recite the text for the piano and poetry project. She did this and added parts in Japanese. Especially the Japanese ones are exciting because I don't understand the words. That gives me the opportunity to concentrate on their sonic aspects, whilst I know that the words are within the context of the project.

I am also working on working with frequency layers. Subtly shifting them yields interesting results. You will hear in due time!

Get more info on Entr'acte here.

Yoko doesn't really have a website, I believe. But there's a lot that can be found at youtube. She works with Lionel Marchetti, the great French magician.

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Reaper 1

For years I have been recording and producing music. My compositional process is quite standard: first I collect material, then I start experimenting with it, combine several results of experiments, rework and let it rest for a couple of months. Then I start working on the provisional result, cutting away stuff, adding new material, reworking other parts. Then another period of rest and then, after another month or so, the final countdown.

That moment, when you consider whether or not the work is done, is crucial. You make that decision based on experience, feeling, compositorial principles. Actually you just decide that you have no more to add to it. You're done.

About a small year ago I encountered software called Reaper. Reaper is developed by Justin Frankel (with the aid of a few others) and released as share ware, but a license costs only 50 dollars or so. Which is really cheap when you consider its potential.
Reaper is actually designed to service (big) commercial studio's. There are tons of shortcuts to make work streamlined.
Say, you need to record a drummer and you have a set up with 8 mics, each with its own sort of mic and each drum requires a tweak with several fx to make it sound better, etc. If you have to set up the tracks to record the drum kit anew with each session that would take half a day. With Reaper you can design a preset for such tracks and add them to the mixer with one move. And there are many other examples to make life easy for a studio engineer. Next to that the quality of the plugins that come with the software are really outstanding. The only setback that I have encountered is that there is no wave editor included. But that's not a real problem as Reaper has its own internal routing system (somewhat like Rewire) with which you can connect your wave editor or any other sound software (like Ableton or Audiomulch) to Reaper. Remember, we're still talking about 50 bucks for a license here. Only when you start making money out of it, you are politely asked to donate 225 dollars for a commercial license.

So, why is this so important to me? First of all: the software taught me a lot about professional audio engineering. It taught me that there's very little rock'n'roll coming with that profession and a lot of open ears, creativity, and hard science. And that triggered me to dive into the world of post production. It also triggered to go one or two steps further with my composition when I am at the point in the process when I say that I'm done with it. Because it cán become better still when you have reached the point where you are done with structure and working on your sound material.

I will talk more about my experiences with postproduction from now on. If you are interested, you can follow along.

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