Building up EARLabs.services

During the past months I have started working for other artists. Mastering, remastering, alternative mixing, coaching. The idea behind this is to build up a more professional studio with professional services. This will all be published in a week or so.

In the mean time I have been working on an assignment by Howard Stelzer. I've done some tuning of a live recording. I actually started this already early November but for some reason beyond me I only got my arms around it this weekend.

Anyhoo, time to make a fresh start for the new year. I'm really looking forward to new developments. As for my own music: I've made great progress with the 'dub radio soundtrack'. I'm getting close to the point where I start putting all the bits and pieces together to get an image of the big picture. See where the holes are, where things have their natural place. I hope to be able to give you a closer look at the process next week.

The bad news: the label that agreed to release my stuff of Karawane 1917 sent me a message telling that they were struck by hard times in 2009 and that they had to reconsider their release schedule. It's postponed at best. Too bad but understandable never the less. We'll see.

Signing off.

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Whole lotta snow.

Yesterday a two week holiday started. Lots of snow outside; perfect weather for studio work. I'm working on the follow up to "The Long Haul". It's a very rhythmic set up. I worked with a groove and then extended that groove from 120bpm to 20 bpm. Not by simply stretching the original groove sample but by positioning the separate beats further apart. I did this more and more until the groove fell apart. The beats no longer formed a coherent loop. From there on I added other material.

I then re-used the [ Static Base ] composition at 2/3 tempo. This time I stretched the original file. This resulted in a very slow bassy groove that allowed for many many variations. This morning I have been playing with all kinds of treatments breaking down and building up. Next phase is to incorporate this section into the first [ The Long Haul ].

On a different note: Jeff Surak sent a new track with a request to update and master.

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weekly report (december 12, 2009)

Several interesting things happened. First of all I have been working on the track that I discussed last week. At the moment I am primarily working with the structure of the piece. I have elongated the 2nd section in order to enable things to quiet down more. I included a reversed part of the first disc of Dub Zap (tracks 16-21). I also worked on the final part that I showed last week and doubling the beats with samples from Alva Noto's Unitxt.

Secondly there was a request from Jeff Surak, to enhance a live recording. I was able to return a first result after a day, much faster than I (and Jeff) had expected. I think the quality was excellent.

Wednesday was the day that Franz Fjödor's CD (labeled as drone, experimental, dark folk) was launched. Since I had mastered the CD I was invited and had a pleasant night with Wouter Jaspers and Steffan De Turck and other people.

Today (Sunday) I had a second session with Steffan and Wouter. Their studio is housed in a derelict building that used to be a printer's office, with a large hall. We set up the Rode NT2-a and my binaural recorders and started recording the sound of thumping, clanking, scraping, screaming. After two hours we stopped and started discussing the following steps. We uploaded the material through dropbox and are thus able to work it during the following weeks.
We intend to release this material as a second installment of the EARLabs 3. As you may know Entr'acte released the first EARLabs 3 disc earlier. I think it is still available [ here ]. Disquiet's Marc Weidenbaum quote on this disc: "It's an investigation; painstaking in its rectitude and attention to detail". We strive to at least the same level of quality with this one.

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The Long Haul

Last week I have been working on a piece which is now 12 minutes long and requires a time out. Let me tell you  about the route so far.

I started out with the following. After I had constructed two pieces that are quite rhythmic of nature, I decided to make a detour and go for something slow, without a constant beat, with pitched harmonics. I set up a soft synth (Crystal, a very nifty little thing) and my keyboard. After some trial and error I had the right sound and played a midi file of 2.5 minutes with only 3 notes that kept on ringing with overtones that kept coming and going and interfering with each other, etc. (told you, that Crystal is nice). Then I recorded my own voice singing the same notes a few times. Did two takes and layered those over the synth parts. In order to fill up the frequency space I included two takes of short wave radio. Now I had sound storm blowing for 2.5 minutes.

Listen to 30 seconds [ here ]

I decided that by the end of the first part ("the long haul") I would introduce percussive sounds (not necessarily rhythmic!).I had a sequence from another trial part (recorded in June) of some 1.5 minutes consisting of a gong and some bell sounds. I included this into the Reaper project and placed it behind the first part. That's the easy part, but to  connect these two parts is much more difficult. Fortunately the first part could be 'shut off' with the sound of the radio being 'shut off'. The percussive part then immediately takes over. It kind of works but at the moment needs some more attention.

Listen to 30 seconds [ here ]

What next? I decided upon a second part of 'the long haul'. This time mutated of course. The voice, which in the first part plays a role in the background, now is more prominent after a severe treatment in Audiomulch using the Granulator.

Listen to 30 seconds [ here ]

This is an image of the project. I have indicated what regions are used in the samples.

As a side step I did a session whereby I constructed a drumloop (with house samples from a freebee dvd) and worked from there. I extended the drumloop with two different procedures. First I extended the bars by simply placing the samples further apart. Secondly I time stretched the original loop. Both now run at 20 bpm. The idea was to extend to a degree where the grooviness is completely gone. Because I was thinking of including this as a new part to the composition above (although I still haven't a clue where and how, that's why I decided to start a separate project for this) I underlined this drumloop with the mulched voice recordings. With a ducking compressor set up with a very slow release this yielded an interesting result.

Listen to 30 seconds [ here ]

The next step is to integrate this drumloop project into the original composition. This yields two important dilemma's:
1. the structure of the original 'long haul' piece is okay (although it still needs a lot of work), so how do I include the rigidness of the new drumloop part?
2. the 'long haul' piece is already 12 minutes long as it is; including the new drumloop part will extend it with at least another 5 minutes. The number of ingredients is rather limited so won't it get too long?

We'll see....

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Getting somewhere, GLORIA.

Three centres of activity this week. The 'dub radio soundtrack' has now two finished files.  A lot of other stuff is slowly materializing. The finished pieces I have give you earlier samples of (see the Madlib post for one). Below is a snippet of the new mix of the other one. I really had a fight with myself with these compositions. Rhythm is such a strong aspect of music that I really had to force myself to cut them again and again. Because that's what these pieces are about: letting a rhythm, a groove, go for a while and then interrupting it, and then let it go again with a different filtering, or a different something extra.

Listen to [ this ]  and [ this ].

The latter is a further development of [ this ], a mix from August when I just started.

Secondly I have uploaded my file for the 25th anniversary of Korm Plastics. Title: G-L-O-R-I-A.

Thirdly The Tobacconists have approved my mastering tracks for their next album. So today I burned it to disc and sent it to Frans de Waard.

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weekly report (September 13, 2009)

Been working on a composition for the RDS series. The whole project starts to get a 'Gestalt' of some kind. Now it's in the fase of collecting bits and pieces and slowly, in my mind, forming a construction to give those b's and p's a place. By clicking them together. At the moment it's all very collage-like. But I also heard the phenomenal cd by Erdem Helvacioglu which has many moments where he layers sounds by adding reverb to some thus creating a sense of enormous immediacy in others. It is a construction form that is often used by electroacoustic composers and Helvacioglu passed the test with flying colors.

I have also been checking out a demo of the Waves SSL plugins. They are indeed fantastically sharp and responsive and such but I find the price for this bundle ($ 1500 !!!!) much too high for a semi pro like myself. Pity.

Another nicety that I found this week has to do with Reaper (again!). It appears that in the newer versions I can keep the binding of my midi controller with the vst plugins that I have preset. Earlier it was possible to control a vst through your knobs and sliders but as soon as you closed the software you had to make the bindings anew. Now Reaper remembers the bindings. So I can now include my favorite plugs into a track and directly control them by hand and not by mouse. Of course it's also possible to store the changes you make in the track itself but that's old news.

And another thing I learned: Reaper features 'soft takeover'. Those of you who work with midi controllers know about the sudden leaping of settings when you touch a button on your controller. That's because you left your session with volumes at level 0 and when you open it again your midi controller button is set at level -5. When you touch the button the level on your computer jumps immediately to level -5. In Reaper the volume now remains at level 0 until your button reaches that point and then goes along with the controller button. Very nifty.

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weekly report (September 6, 2009)

Nothing much. I worked on a piece that is based on the first three bars of a song by A Certain Ratio (bass only). I have cut up each bar and slowed it down and then started building up a new song with several variations.

I had a very nice meeting with Steffan De Turck (below) and Wouter Jaspers (left), two young composers from my home town. Steffan works under the monicker of Staplerfahrer, Wouter is aka Franz Fjödor. We have been discussing the possibilities of a collaboration. As far as I am concerned: I would love to have people in the EARLabs studio recording stuff and then collating everything into compositions a la the stuff we did with THU20 (way back). That's why I invited these two guys: they're ready to give anything a try!!

Both Jaspers and De Turck are active in the Tilburg music scene of Vatican Analog. Currently they run a studio in a derelict office building. Very cool, all that. Their 'Sturm und Drang' is very catchy and I am very curious to see what will happen when the three of us start to play in the studio.

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weekly report (august 28, 2009)

[ Madmad liblib (in 7/8) ]

Take a listen. It's a bit primitive but it wojks, dunnit? All rhythm is brain candy and candy is addictive. I will work out this composition and it will definitely be more sophisticated.

That's about all for this week, kids. I've been experimenting with my studio gear and nothing really important was produced. See ya next week.

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weekly report

No real progress this week but a lot of tiny developments. I will share them here.

1. I have had five test runs with the final master before it was good enough for me to ship to the label. Main problem was volume levels. First I tried all kind of tiny corrections but couldn't get it done the way I wanted. After 3 test runs I decided to try with a limiter, but wasn't satisfied with the ones I used so far. There are millions of plugins (VST/RTAS) around for digital workstations but most of them use sloppy algorhythms that not only correct the problem that is bothering you but also affect other parts of the sound.

I decided to try the Event Horizon limiter that is developed by Stillwell Audio. After some experimenting that resolved the problem sufficiently. It not only works the sound like it should but it's also reacting lightning fast when you want a sudden change of threshold. It's definitely a keeper. Reaper has really dozens of small vst's under the hood and most of them are good (especially for a rock band) but in my case I need precision.

Oh, and by the way: I used Schwa's Schope as a master monitor for amplitude, frequency spectrum and phase linearity. It's brilliant in its accuracy.

Anyway, after test run 4 I decided to make a few changes in track 11. Can you believe it? You just keep hearing tiny things that weren't there before and require immediate fixing... I just stop listening now. It's all up to you, people.

2. I have invited Wouter Jaspers (Franz Fjödor) and Steffan De Turck (Staplerfahrer) for a chat. Perhaps we can start a project together. We will meet September 1. Strangely, after years of working online I'd like to work together with people in a room, again.

3. I have collected a lot of samples for the 'dub radio soundtrack' project. Nothing much of building, just collecting material. And thinking about the collage technique.

4. I am in the process of transfering a very old project from Audition to Reaper. You can hear the clips in [ these posts ]. I intend to rework them, do a complete sound overhaul and a add new material. Let's baptize this project 'mundohr' for all the obvious reasons. At the moment this is a tedious job. At the Reaper forum someone published a script for translating Cool Edit Pro sessions to Reaper projects. But unfortunately this only works for very simple and straightforward sessions. Which mine are not.... But the material is definitely worth reworking. Interestingly, the material is from 2002-2004 and I had not listened to it since 2006. There is also a video version of the music, but I haven't watched for so long that I am now able to judge the music completely anew.

5. Listened to my earlier tape experiments. They will get a place in both the 'dub radio soundtrack' project and the 'Mundohr' project.

6. Back to plugins, finally. Yesterday I saw that Jeroen Breebaart is working on a new plugin which looks quite interesting. It's a plugin which allows you to work with headphones on. Normally that is ill advised, because with headphones on you don't hear the indirect reflections of the room acoustics. On the other hand all studios have problems with these room acoustics, creating the ideal space for monitoring the sound. Breebaart is working on a plugin which emulates this ideal listening space. Quite a challenge. But Breebaart is not just your average joe the nerd. He works at the Philips labs as a researcher and product developer and has many patents to his name. He has also produced other plugins and sells them at ridiculously low prices from his site.

7. finally finally, I have been thinking about my activities for other musicians and composers. It is slowly taking shape. I intend to set up a 'business' where I mix and remix, master and remaster works for others and I will coach and consult in the creative process. If you like me to mix/master, remix/remaster your works, just contact me. If you wish my services to be done discretely (that is: without anyone in the world besides you and me knowing about it), this is of course possible.

Links

[ Stillwell Audio ]

[ Jeroen Breebaart ]

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Drumming the beat #2

Okay, I promised a few samples of what has come of my wanderings into the repetition galaxy. So I give you 3 things. They're all quite different and just sketches but I feel that I am getting into a part of the universe that I want to explore more deeply. It feels like anarchy now and again and that kind of freedom is what I am looking for.

[ sample 1 ]
[ sample 2 ]
[ sample 3 ]

RADIO DUB SOUNDTRACK
SOUNDTRACK DUB RADIO
DUB RADIO SOUNDTRACK
RADIO SOUNDTRACK DUB
SOUNDTRACK RADIO DUB

Well, that's about the words that flutter around when I am working on these pieces. And aside from the quotations from our recent musical history I like to concentrate on applying pop production techniques. Herrlich!!

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Drumming the beat

As I wrote a few weeks ago I have been working on stuff with beats and melodies. My first attempts were a bit lame, of course, due to inexperience on the subject. Recently things are working in a more acceptable fashion. Slow, minimal beats with sparse bass tunes. It sort of reminds me of Rhythm and Sound but then even more abstract.

I now have some 12 basics, which I want to expand. Expand meaning working out variation on the theme, both in rhythm and sound (:) ). A lot comes down to nifty mixing and fat (phat) production skills. It's quite rewarding work, since rhythm is brain candy and my brain immediately sucks up what comes out of the speakers. Juicing the sound up (phat!!) further enhances the experience.

I work with Reaper and Reaper's Reasamplomatic vst (a very nifty and lightweight sampler), with Reaper's Reasynth (yes, a very nifty and lightweight synth) and especially with e-phonic's Drumatic. The latter VST works a bit like the TR606 and has 6 channels out so that I can send each instrument to a different track for further production. I worked out a track template so that I can easily include this Drumatic setup into my Reaper session.

If you want to have the Reaper tracktemplate, [ here] is the link. (right-mouseclick)

Drumatic can be downloaded [ here ].

Soundsamples will included in my message next week.

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