Blog continued elsewhere

Starting from May 1, 2010 this blog is continued at [ jossmolders.wordpress.com.]
You are encouraged to visit me there.

A growing number of releases can be bought online through

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Esprit Flottant

This week I received the copies of the new release by Kaon. I composed the music based on the field recordings of Cedric Peyronnet. Recordings of the river Taurion. Good recordings, nice recordings. I really liked working with them. Today I relistened for the first time in a year to the composition. To my astonishment I was at first a bit taken aback by what I heard. It sounded alright but somehow the 'rhythm' or cadence of the work was not what I had expected. I played it a second time and then remembered how I conceived this composition as a circular work. It starts with the end and then works its way towards the end again. That way it feels alright if you replay it again and again. The second session was much better. I was adapted to the pace of the work and the coming and going of sounds and the transitions felt much better. Pheww!! So, I advise anyone to listen at least twice. Thanks to Cedric for making this production available.

please visit [ Kaon ].

Other than that, I have been working on several projects, as usual. I also have been preparing my live show in Cologne on June 9. More details will follow shortly.

I will also be present in a performance by the great Arturas Bumsteinas, who will do perform at the Kunstvlaai project in Amsterdam from May 16-21. It is called "My Own Private Bayreuth" which refers to both the state of Idaho and to composer Richard Wagner. I will be present there in the afternoon of May 20. Westergasfabriek Amsterdam. More info on this project at [ kunstvlaai ]. The site is a bit strange, but I guess more info will follow.

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New archaeology: a graphic score

What a week.
I did two trials for the mastering of a CD of commercial release. The material that was delivered two months ago are studio takes that lacked air, brilliance and sometimes good vocal parts. But still, the songs themselves (melodic development, structure, instrumentation) are quite good (nine out of ten). I have done a first assessment of the material and advised the artist. Some of the songs need new vocal parts. Some parts require new instrumentation. For the artist a lot of time has gone into doing a licensing deal and in the meantime for me it was mostly waiting for the ' go ahead'. Last week I decided to do a first touch up of the best of the songs.  I'll give more details when I have them.

It's quite interesting for me as someone who works mostly with electronic music to dig into pop music. Believe me it is not easier to turn a decent recording into something that makes your head bop. To me, as a master engineer, both genres are appealing. Especially when I am challenged to add something experimental. :)

Two other things happened: I found a 20 year old score of a composition that I composed on the occasion of Frans de Waard's 30th birthday. As I knew that Lithuanian composer [ Arturas Bumsteinas ] collects graphic scores I sent it to him.

Finally: I received an offprint of an article that was published in [ Leonardo Music Journal ]. The article was written by Berlin based musicologist [ Volker Straebel  ] and dealt with "From Reproduction to Performance: Media-Specific Music for Compact Disc". My release [ "Music for CD-player" ] is extensively discussed.

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Archaeology

Yes, this is a reel to reel recorder with a Black and Decker Firestorm drill. And a squashed dog. I did some r2r deck experiments last week and thought about how I could define more accurately the tape speed. My varispeed drill was able to do the job but surprisingly it wasn't that flexible. Actually it didn't work out that well with this drill but it did with another drill (a bigger one). It doesn't work for live performances because the drill makes too much noise (although that could also be an added value ;) ).

It DID yield some interesting results. For one, I noticed what a wonderful medium tape actually is. If you listen to the smooth relation it gives in the left-mid-right balance. That's just beautiful! It's so nice and soft and easy to the ears. The back side is of course that the sound quality itself is (well, at least on this baby) a bummer compared to what digital machines do.

The reason my r2r returned to the laboratory desk was that I found a small and very old tape. It was labeled "do not throw away" so I was of course immediately interested to hear what it contained. It appeared to be a tape cut up that I made somewhere in the mid 80s. At the time I worked quite frantically on pieces, always in a hasty mood so as not to loose the flow I was in. Consequently my operations were not very refined. Splicing and connecting tape parts was always done in a hurry, sometimes with too much overlap or tape parts that were not 100% in line. It was all just part of the process and the fact that the result was not technically 100% was not as relevant as that it captured the spirit of the said process.

As a result, though, I found that almost every splice had fallen apart. I had to reconstruct the entire tape (which lasted approx. 4.5 minutes). This too took place in the same spirit as in the olden days. Eager to find out what sounds had been stored on the tape I took simple tape and a simple cutter and connected the parts even without a splice bar (I had not used that in 20 years and it's gone lost). Then I played the tape and immediately recorded it to digital. I noticed that some parts have been published, scattered over several tape releases but I don't believe that this particular composition has ever been released. I will work on it and construct a new version of it.

(No real animals were hurt during this excercise)

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Remixing and Remastering my own stuff

Today I had some spare time so I decided to have a go at my own material. I have been working on two series of works that are quite old. The first is commissioned music that I composed in 1995. At the time I was asked to produce the leader audio, the audiobeds and the bumpers for an interactive learning course. The idea of the course was that it was following a crime plot. I devised a tune that could easily fit in with a typical early German crime series ("Inspector Derrick").

Anyhow, it shows quite a different side of my musical activities: applied music. The reason for my picking up this music was that I wanted to see how it could be remastered. Below a few samples, originals versus new masters.

leader [ original ] versus [ new master ]
soundbed 1 [ original ] versus [ new master ]
soundbed 2 [ original ] versus [ new master ]

Well, it also shows that I do not work only on difficult, experimental electronic stuff. The second series is from a 1998 release that was made specially for an exhibition by [ Alexander Korsmit ]. It was released as "Maybe One thousand Buddhas for One Dream with hidden Noise" and given away to visitors. The music was by me, with texts by Paul Auster a.o. Texts were spoken by Danielle Lemaire, Alexander Korsmit and a few other people, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten.

Strangely enough I don't have a copy of it anymore. I have started reconstructing the music because I did have the final mixes but they were made wit Cool Edit Pro and it appears to be very difficult to transfer sessions from one application (CEP) to Reaper. Some files are missing so some of the sessions cannot be reconstructed. The ones featured below have been painstakingly put together again, file by file, track by track, volume envelope by volume envelope, pan envelope by pan envelope. So, why go through all the trouble? Because I remembered the music as something really special. The cooperation with Alexander was that, as well. But I was very tired of that, after the exhibition was over. Alexander is very well-read and has a deep interest in the history of South East Asia, especially Indonesia and India. The knowledge gathered from his reading is included into the texts and into his art work which is very hermetic.

Below are a few examples of reconstructed tracks, both original mixes and remasters.

track 1 [ original ] versus [ new master ]
track 2 [[ original ] versus [ new master ]

I hope you enjoy these.

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Kiefer again, but also Giacometti

Was in Germany again, this weekend. We visited Bonn, the former capital of Western Germany and went to the Stadtmuseum. There were a few thoughts that kept spinning inside my mind for some time. First, it occurred to me that the Dutch museums are so tiny. The museums in other countries that I have visited are of fantastic architecture and they're big and feature large exhibition space. That allows for of course for large objects, like the Penck and Kiefer pieces, but it also offers the possibility of distance from the objects. The exhibition spaces in most of the Dutch museums are more of a living room size. What does that do to our Dutch audiences? What's cause and effect here? Let's mull this over some more.

On Sunday we left Bonn (a little disappointed about the quality of the exhibited art) and returned to Duisburg again to visit the [ Lehmbruck ] museum. This was the second pleasant surprise that Duisburg had on offer, after our previous enthousiasm for the [ Kueppersmuehle ] museum earlier this year. I sat down before Kiefer's "Die goldene Bulle", a work from 1995. Just like other works from this master painter this one is massive and awe inspiring.

So what about Giacometti? There was an exhibition at the Lehmbruck. Was it any good? Well, as far as Giacometti himself is concerned, yes. He was a great artist with a very specific goal, produce the ultimate sculpture. But the exhibition was a disappointment. It was not entertaining at all. Different pieces were placed quasi randomly in one big space. Visitors had to be warned (by security guards) not to trip over a platform that contained four statues. There were some letters of Giacometti to his family. There were just a few statues from each period. A documentary video about his life was placed in a different part of the building. Lehm bruck specializes in sculpture and other 3D work and so we didn't get to see his paintorial works except for one piece. In other words: you don't have to go if it is only for this Giacometti exhibit. Otherwise, it is quite nice and it features some very good works by Merz, Richard Long, to name just a few.

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Recording the Port of Rotterdam

Yesterday I drove to Rotterdam to do a field recording there. It was a first in a long time that I really went out to do outdoor recordings. Paul Baran asked me to do some recordings in a harbour a while ago and I thought it would be a good idea to go out and do this. I also used a more extensive setup. Normally I go out with my Edirol R-09 and OKM mics but this time I used a condenser mic as well to add more detail.

I went as deep into the docks as possible and found a spot that was quiet and gave a good overview of the sound environment. I recorded at two spots (A and B, the arrows show the direction). Another picture shows the google maps location.

Recording with the condenser mic was more difficult than just jump out of the car and press the record button. The condenser needs the 48volt pre amp. I got this from the cigarette lighter in the car. So I had my laptop running Reaper, hooked to that my Echo Audiofire (with cig lighter voltage) and then the condenser mic. Of course it took me 15 minutes to get this done properly since it was the first time and it was dark (between 8 and 9 PM) and connections kept breaking requiring several reboots. Other cursings weren't necessary The weather conditions were perfect (dry and very little wind).

I used both the OKM (binaurals) and the Rode NT2a and mixed them together this morning. The combination of the richly detailed condenser with the binaurals yields (in my opinion) a great result. I think I'll go back there later this year to record at other places.




Grotere kaart weergeven

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Drone Gnome Review

Finally a review of The Drone Gnome by someone who actually thought about it. There was a review on Foxy Digitalis but that one couldn't be taken seriously as the writer had not bothered to do so in the first place. This one was in a Dutch magazine called Gonzo Cirucs. The reviewer actually listened to the music and thought about the things that I wrote in the press text.

His comment is intelligent and boils down to this: "This disc doesn't make a smashing impression but it may serve very well as an introduction to drone music." I agree on both counts. The disc as a whole is somewhat off balance, although I think that both compositions in themselves are good. Otherwise I have been fighting with the 'genre' of drone. My goal was to 'do a drone piece' and this is as far as I got. But the final conclusion is that I will never be a 'droner'. Ever. In a peculiar way that's a relief.

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Intro In Situ

Performed at the Intro In Situ in Maastricht last weekend. I didn't make it to the end, but the first 30 minutes were quite alright. The sum total was positive. The more because the audience and the venue were good. A really attentive audience is a blessing for a performer. And afterwards several of them came to ask about the setup. And I sold a few of my releases. What else would I need? Oh, yeah. Afterwards a real nice guy came up to me asking if I would be interested in participating in a performance evening with Kapotte Muziek in October. 

Next gig will be in Cologne, early June. I'll update you beforehand.

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Intermittent activities

There were quite a few things taking place at the same time last week. I have been working on an electronics and guitar works that was challenging but yielded "hurrays" from the original artist. I pulled an interesting trick by sidechaining the reverb on the guitar which worked out quite well. This is of course only possible when the original work is good. Unfortunately I have also encountered commissions where the original material was 'difficult' to say the least....

Next there was some final text work for my release in Kaon's [ Taurion series ]. I haven't heard the piece in more than a year so I am curious. Kaon (Cedric Peyronnet aka Toy Bizarre) is doing a wonderful series about this river and releases the works on a bi-monthly basis.

Please order the complete series!!

Then I received news about my work for [ Brombron ]. After more than three months I got an answer to a series of questions. Unfortunately I now have to dig deep into my memory to understand my own questions :)) So I will have to give this some more time.

There was a request for the mastering of a complete CD. This is quite a challenge as it consists of 10 songs (catchy tunes) which are quite different in sound quality as they have been recorded over a period of more than 3 years..... How am I going to bring it down to something coherent? Or should simple NOT make it into something coherent? Sometimes the answer is to do the opposite of what one aimed at first.

I have been preparing a new concert. Next Saturday I will be in [ Maastricht ] and on June 8 I will perform in Cologne (Koeln), Germany. These sets will be different from the earlier Extrapool concert. They will be twice as long and thus have more room for depth and detail.

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Alive on stage

Well, the crowd went wild as the artist turned the knobs, spun the reels and blasted his insane beats out of the speakers after a (quoth Radboud Mens) "almost Gothic" intro. Seriously, it was fun! I was the headliner (meaning I was the last in the line up, because the others wanted to get drunk asap and I don't drink (much)) and got a lot of shoulder bashing afterwards. So I guess I must have been doing something right.

The set (20 minutes) went well enough for the audience not to notice that in both occasions my connection of Audiomulch with the midi controller Behringer BCR2000 was broken and I had to resort to mouse scratching. What can you do? The show must go on, right? Anyway, the use of a real reel to reel deck was a huge success. The younger guests stared at a dinosaur, whereas the old geezers stood there mesmerized and thinking about the olden days.

Other performers were: Kapotte Muziek, Radboud Mens (really nice setup!), Asmus Tietchens, Howard Stelzer. I'm sure some photo's will pop up in the next few weeks. And: everything has been taped and will be released somehow (edited) in the near future by Korm Plastics.

EDIT: [ here's ] an mp3 of the Extrapool concert

Today it was also made official that I will do a performance in Maastricht at March 20. I will give more info when it arrives.

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A score for Kapotte Muziek 2

Have been tweaking the setup yesterday. As usual I also twoke the score. I was listening to the OST of The Shining (awesome work by Wendy Carlos and others!!) earlier yesterday and heard a little motive that will fit excellently into the score. More still: it fits excellently as a second leitmotiv for the performance.

I rehearsed and was able to add to the whole thing. Also streamlined the controller settings. Had some troubles with that old tape recorder, which at first refused to record......After disconnecting and reconnecting several times the thing did what it was supposed to do. That's one of the charms of working with ancient equipment! :)

Let's see if things go well tomorrow and on Sunday.

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A score for Kapotte Muziek

Working for the live performance (I had a new invite to come and play in the South of the Netherlands late March), it's been a long time ago. And I don't want to be a guy behind a laptop (alone) but also use different material. That's why that old timer of a reel to reel tape deck came in handy. I;ve prepared it for more creative use and started freaking around.

Now I've got several things ready for performance. I've worked on a score. This is basically it. It works around a single composition of 20 minutes that I worked on late 2009. It offers various possibilities for further treatment and additional instrumentation.

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It's been quiet this week. I am finishing up two projects. And I'm preparing the live session. I want it to be a misture of tape manipulation and a presentation of new material. In Nijmegen and Amsterdam the session will be some 20-25 minutes and I am setting up a score for it. What I want to avoid is that the music will just be a blast of noisewith a lot of incidents happening. Just like with my studio work I want to work with a defined structure in a live situation.

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Mixing and mastering ambient

Am currently mastering a work for a client who had two tracks. Both were dreamy, ambient pieces with a definite subaquatic feel. The first track had a lot of bass, which enhanced the total atmosphere but also inhibited a good sensation of the frequencies on top of that. Plus, I didn't really hear anything higher than 4 khz. The client liked what he had done but somehow had the feeling that it wasn't good enough.

I set to work and first cleaned the bass and after that enhanced the sound in the higher frequencies. This opened the sound up without pushing the bass away too much. Actually that was that and then I opened up the stereo field more. It sounds easy but it takes a lot of listening back and forth to get a grip on these things. I also used [ Schwa's Spectro ] to see the sound image. That helps to see where frequencies are excessively present.

The second track is a more difficult one. It is also of the same atmosphere but there is a loud sound at 500hz, a synth with a really round ringing sound. The problem is that it is out of phase. That is the reason that it is so loud and actually not sounding as good as it might. I have, again with the use of Spectro, cut this frequency out of the original track and manually set the phase straight. Now I can place it back and make a new mix that sounds much better.

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Whole day mixage

Today was a day in the studio mixing eight works of grizzly noise. I received all files (2 gigabytes) on Thursday. For every composition there were 24bit stemrenders and a reference mix.
I started by placing all of the files in separate projects and then listened all of them twice. A day of rest and an intense discussion with the client about what actually was the intention. This is very important, especially if you haven't heard other music of this artist. "What is the creative starting point?" "Are you aiming at a dense mesh of waves? Or should we regard every sound as an entity that requires to have its own position?" After some back and forth we agreed that the latter was the case.

This gave me a clear direction but also posed a problem with some of the compositions. Some tracks were trampling on each others ground. If you have track 1 working at 150hz - 300hz, track 2 at 250-350hz and track 3 at 200hz - 450hz then you have a serious problem. Mixing a rock band is much easier, believe me.

So today I did five compositions, tracks 1-4 and 6. I can't get track 5 to work properly. It's a beast with three ongoing noise/drone pads. I am thinking of suggesting to let one go, in order to get a clearer picture of the sound. But we're not there, yet. Tomorrow I'll do tracks 7 and 8. and then get back to 5. Sometimes you just have to let go for a while.

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Short pre review

I get regular questions about what a pre review entails. To give you an example here's a quote from a short pre review I did for a dark ambient release: "listened twice now and made spectrograms of both tracks (see dropbox). The atmosphere is quite suitable for the subject/theme. I see that the structural development is taking place in a very dense and small area of the spectrum.
In track 1 nothing much is happening over 6kHz and track 2 is even quieter > top frequency is 4kHz. Looking at it from that perspective the sound is still remarkably 'open' but that is primarily due to the reverb which creates depth.
Your material for track 1 consists of a basic reverberated layer over which you 'sprinkle' small sounds that sound closer (due to less reverb). They also stand out because of relatively higher frequencies.Your material fro track 2  consists primarily of harmonic sounds, most times low freqs and then layered with higher freqs (harmonic). 

Personally I think the first track is more up to my alley because there are more 'actors' on stage and there is more entering and leaving the stage. There are a number of passages that I would mix somewhat differently but that is a matter of taste. As for track 2 you might consider bringing something new on board after the bass climax of approx. 6-8 minutes. Or taking something away, if you prefer. Just make that climax more meaningful.
It might be interesting to leave the reverb off the beat. That gives it more power (and so you can even take the volume down on that track).Here too, I have several thoughts about the mix (especially the spatiality and stereo image).
And check your phase linearity of track 2. There are various spots where the sound is out of phase."

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Do I need a new business model?

I had an interesting discussion this week about the future of the music business. I suddenly envisioned that we might well be at the end of an era. Music listening for millions of years was something that was dependent of the moment that the music was performed. Then, by the end of the 19th century someone invents a tool with which music can be recorded. This invention leads to an age where people listen to music through wax roles, lacquer discs, vinyl discs, tapes, cd's. A giant industry develops and millions are made. And then, 100 years later (a very short time when regarded in perspective of human history) we are done with that. The internet eradicates within a decade the necessity to distribute music on discreet physical carriers. Music is distributed without effort. The business model of the music industry has vaporized.

So, we're back to the situation where a musician earns his bread by performing his music. Music labels are forced to reconsider their role, their position. They are no longer needed by the artist to distribute the music, their role as producer/financer of the recording process has become obsolete or at least risky in the light of the vanished distribution channels (upon which their business model was based).

It is time that we take a close look at what the listener actually is prepared to pay up for. Obviously the listener is not interested in high quality recordings. The massive consumption of mp3's in favour of CD's shows that the listener thinks mp3 quality is fine enough when given the choice between paying (CD) or (free/cheaper) download.

Sooooooh, what does this mean for me and my music? If small quality labels are unable to sell more than a few dozens of copies of releases of artists that used to sell more than a 1,000 where does that leave me? I guess my days of traditional releases are over. I am forced to take a new direction. My primary drive is to make music, but to have it heard by other people adds a lot to that.

I guess that, together with me, a lot of musicians will be forced back from the professional into the semi-professional level and from that into the amateur level. A lot of artists will quit producing music because they have to take care of a family.

Nevertheless: I am convinced that new forms of musical production and distribution will rise. Small, fast, low budget. At this very moment someone is already working on the right concept for the future.

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Preparing performance

As some of you know I have invited myself to the Kapotte Muziek 25 year anniversary party. I shamelessly presented myself before Frans de Waard and offered my services. I support the ideas that are the basis of the KM music as long as I know about them (which is approx. 25 years) and also know Frans personally as long as that. Frans has also, through the years, slowly grown from being a groupie to kernel partner of THU20. So I figured I just HAD TO be in with the crowd there.

So, since I have not performed since that night in Eindhoven (which I think was 2007? any archivists around?) this is something exceptional for me AND the audience.

I am preparing material for this show. I am thinking of using quite a bit of the new material that I've prepared (percussive, heavy material), Audiomulch in conjunction with my midi controller and a Tape Recorder. I have gotten an old Akai GX 4400D which is about as old as Kapotte Muziek itself. So that's sort of appropriate. Dunno what I'm gonna do. Frippertronics perhaps?

Aside of this: reworking my Karawane material. Yes, again!! But the more I learn with the mastering skills (EARLabs.services) the more often I think that something or other could be done better. A pain in the butt, but also very gratifying.

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There it is!!

I've done it; I've put my small business online. As of yesterday all of the information about my services is public on the EARLabs site. If you go [ there ] you can read about the services that you can order from me. With a track record of 30 years of composition, 20 years of writing about music and 10 years as a consultant I thought it was time to combine this experience into a little business. The past six months I have actively acquired projects for other people and all of them were satisfied with the result. Take a look at the list of [ clients ]. All of these projects were for free, for the client to get to know me and for me to get a feeling of how things might work out.

In 2010 I have decided to step up to the next level: a proper catalogue of services and online information. The business model is still quite low profile. I have been thinking about prices and looked at what competitors in this market ask for their services. This put up a dilemma: I want to aim at artists and labels with a small budget but on the other hand I want to deliver professional quality. And no matter what: quality requires time and good tooling.

Contrary to what people in my environment advised me I have decided not to start with a list of rates, like so and so many euro's per minute of music and so many tracks, etcetera. I think this business is very personal and I want to leave it up to the client to pay a fair price.

What is a fair price?
A fair price is an amount of money that satisfies both our needs. It depends on what you can afford to pay and what you think is fair to compensate me for my work. Yes, that is  more difficult than just say : 5 euro's per minute of music for mastering or 15 euro's per minute for  a 24 track mixing job. I was juggling with figures until I thought "what the heck, this might leave out all these guys whose music I love and who have done a great job musically but are unable to pay".
If this still makes you feel uneasy, then please ask me what I think is a fair price.

So there we are and here I am, distance is not an issue
I live in The Netherlands. That can be far away, geographically. But that doesn't matter anymore. We can work out everything via the Internet. I have a large server space where we store all of the music stuff and where we exchange the original material and the edited material. We have free teleconference software which allows us to discuss the music real-time. I can let you follow exactly what I do when I do it.

I think this getting on the same level with each other is important. Although most times I can work at a fast tempo and deliver the master of a song within 24 hours, I really want to get on the right level with the client. Can you imagine that you have worked a couple of months and a total of 200 hours on a series of songs or compositions and then decide that you need the master within let's say a day? No, you want to hand over this stuff very carefully to someone you trust.

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