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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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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Too hot to handle

I browsed through my collection of half baked stuff today and stumbled upon this thingie. It was done early 2008 when I wanted to go back to my MS-10 and start working from that machine. Although I think this is an interesting half product I doubt it will ever make it as a part of an official release. So here's an unofficial release. I baptized it "Too Hot To Handle". The centre is formed by an impromptu with the Korg which is backed up by 3 parts of steady frequencies that yield interference.

download "Too Hot To Handle" [ here ]

EDIT: something went wrong with the upload. To make it up I give you another file. This one's a really different cup of cocoa. A 14 minutes blast of techno, produced in 2005 and updated today. There's a weird reverb in a lot of the mix which I couldn't get rid of. I only had a very final mix at my disposition and no earlier ones to work with. Still, it's so funny. I couldn't believe it was me who produced this.

download "Staticbase2005" [ here ]

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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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KORM PLASTICS 25 year jubilee

Having a very bad memory I don't recall exactly how Frans De Waard and I came to meet each other. I only remember that I was immediately impressed by his dedication to music. Writing, publishing, producing, talking about it, networking; Frans did it all and very much on his own conditions. There was (and still is) no one telling Frans how to do his stuff. He is like a locomotive rolling on his own track at full speed.

And suddenly it's been 25 years since Korm Plastics, De Waard's record label has started. That's worth a celebration and of course a record label celebrates by issuing a release that contains a selection of the label's stable. Frans has released a lot of my work and so I gladly help him out with a composition of 2'50". I don't know when it's to be released but I'm sure looking forward to it.

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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

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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More of something else

I haven't been writing at this blog for a while. That has to do with pressure on other fronts. In the mean time I HAVE been working on stuff, but it's all experiments in the same line as I talked about in my previous posts. I don't expect real works to be coming off it. As I am a project freak all of my etudes have gone in a folder called "easylistening". Funnily I am experimenting with easy listening stuff. I can tell you: it's definitely not easy to construct something that is easy to listen to.

For the time being I'm in the phase where I copy the works of other people (most notably that of Brian Eno, but also more modern stuff, and 80's stuff, etc). In the meantime I work with structure, schemes, chords, twiddling synthesizers, rhythm machines. I suppose that in due time I will find a version that feels like it's mine. And then the real work begins. Or it doesn't; if I'm fed up. And maybe I'll return to my difficult listening music.

Oh, before I forget: I also did some nice tape experiments. But the results have gone in the folder "tape experiments" and will be used in a future project.

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Something entirely else

I suddenly feel like I shouldn't make the usual things. I want to do something else. Because I'm reading this Eno biography (almost finished) I thought I'd do something in that ambient direction. So I hooked up my keyboard and dived into the softsynths that I have collected ( I made use of the Korg Polysix and Stillwell's Olga here).
Learning to deal with MIDI in Reaper was fun. Works like a charm, quick and easy just like the rest of this application. I have tried loads of rhythm (reasamplomatic5000), melody, ambience and today came to something that actually gets somewhere.

It's got no name, it's not nearly finished (needs sound balancing and lots of other stuff), but it's something that gives a hint about the direction I'd like to be heading for a while. It's got rhythm, it's got a melody, it's got atmosphere. Ha!

check it out [ here ]

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A caprice from the past

Sometimes I indulge myself and produce something rhythmic. This example below was produced in (I believe) 2005 or 2006. This one was never released. I played it today and liked the stomping stuff. I decided to do some tape experiments using this as a basic layer. Another reason for publishing is to let you know that a new version of Audiomulch is beginning to see the light of day. I have been beta testing it on and off for the past few weeks and I think you should know that it will be available from Friday June 5th 2009. This material was produced entirely with Audiomulch and only received a polishing with Izotope's Ozone afterwards.

Today I listened to it again and couldn't keep my hands still so I ran the mix through my Reaper postproduction setup. I downloaded Stillwell's CMX tool last week and ran two instance of it through the upper frequency regions, adding some stereo spice.

visit [ Audiomulch ]
visit [ Stillwell audio ] (really awesome vst's!!!)

listen to [ baaaa!! ] AND THE [ 2009 REMIX ]

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silent composition

Tried fruitlessly to compose 'presque rien'. An inhouse field recording with imaginary inhabitants. Terribly difficult. The stuff is supposed to be barely audible so I have to compose at very low volume. It's actually quite different from composing with your speakers really open. I have two of those landscapes here for your download/listening.

I started out with a basic recording of my living room. Recorded with the OKM mics (for binaural sound) together with the Rode (for extra detail). I then created a 3d reverb sound (in Reaper) and positioned other sounds 'in' the space.

In itself it's not bad, but when I tried two pieces to hear how they fitted in with the piano and voice pieces it simply didn't work. So, I have to go back to the drawing board. On the one hand the silent pieces need to be more silent. On the other hand, ....well, it needs to be 'music', doesn't it?

[ trial 1 ]
[ trial 2 ]

In these pieces the positioning of the different parts is still crude, just like the volume balances, and so on. It's really rough material.
Okay, so I'll try something different next time.

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Almost forgotten voice work

Yesterday I was again running a check on the pianovox work, which is really coming to an end now. Looking for a few snippets to insert here and there I came along a directory that I hadn't hear for quite a while. I listened and remembered why I had abandoned it. It was beautiful sound material but it lasted too long and I couldn't find a twist to make up for that.

But yesterday I did see that solution! I rendered a few tracks and started playing with the highs and lows. Then I added a recording of the original played in the studio twice. One with a bad mic and another one with feedback added. Then I had material enough to finish it up. A late night and an early morning session later I have the impression that it's finished.

Listen to the entire mix [ here ]

I will add this work to the mix of the whole piano and voice material. I now have mixes of all of the piano and voice works in one reaper setup. Listening again and again and changing bits and overlaying parts I am blending it all into a coherent work. I have been in doubt for months about this project. Man! Several people who heard the piano works thought they were not up to standards... which can make you doubt your own judgment. But it's all starting to come together now: the idea of a avant garde jazz pub, with lots of smoke and drinks and people reciting and mumbling and a piano player somewhere in the distance (and sometimes right inside your ear!)

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Another go at the pianovox/S.A.T.I.E. project.

I have relistened after 2 months or so. It's near complete. Just one piano part needed more attention. The 3rd one (3.7). There are too many piano notes. So I cut back a lot and mixed them back into the crowd that can be heard as well.

I have mixed voice and piano parts and cross-referenced here and there. It's becoming more coherent now: one sonic vocabulary. Later this week there will be more soundsamples of 3.8 (the follow up to 3.7) and first impressions on the final mix.

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David Jackman gets a warning

Further progress moving Sietse's furniture. I decided to add a tail to the new tail of the Nautilus (can you follow?). The first tail ends with an extensive reverberated and delayed loopyloop. I was in the mood of trying to get a very big reverb. But listening to the reverbed loop I heard noise. Reverb just blurs any detail and what you get is smudgy layer of coloured noise. With some details in it. Like peanut butter with little parts in it. Actually I like the parts better than the butter. And so it is with the reverbed noise.

Okay, so when 'noise' entered my inner ear I remembered that I still had a noise piece in my directory of unpublished works. It carries the ominous title "admonition for David Jackman" and those of you who know the works of this particular gentleman can see something coming. So, next to a 2nd rendition of Nautilus Pompilius we now also have a new version of the Jackman-inspired compo. There is also a Masami Akita admonition by the way. And Steven Stapleton and Andrew MacKenzie. It was just a series in which I addressed the sonic language of those 80s heroes.

But anyway, the addition of this noise piece really spices things up. It's not for the weak, but the end of this part yields some interesting sonic phenomena. So. Check it out.

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2008

Okay thanks, TJ. And others who put my GT(M) in their [ list ].

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rather silent?

Yes, have been busy on other topics this week. Have managed to finish the 2nd piece for Moving Furniture, though. Another one? Let's chew on that this coming week.

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second piece of furniture moved

This morning I thought it might be a good idea to make a new rendition of an old composition: Nautilus Pompilius. I construed this work a couple years ago as a contribution to a Bremsstrahlung Records compilation. Read all about this compilation [ here ]. At the time my approach was purely conceptual. Pitches and intervals were calculated using the golden mean. I stopped there and was quite happy with my daunt approach and an interesting result. But I wasn't quite happy with how it ended. The original ends with a bang.

For the new Moving Furniture release I decided to make a new rendition, this time with a different ending. The piece builds up exactly as before but after the big bang I have constructed a new part that is entirely intuitively constructed. The material I used is from the same period as Nautilus Pompilius. They are bits and pieces that fit nicely with the frequencies of NP.

As usual I let the material rest for a week or so and then return to it and make final arrangements. Below is a part of the original Nautilus Pompilius for [ download ].

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k146 - preparing for new project

Today a DVD arrived with basic material for a new project. Well, new to me anyway. Cedric Peyronnet who also creates music as Toy Bizarre has been working on the project for a couple years already. Cedric has been recording the river Taurion for years and mapped his recording using Google Maps. Now the idea is that, in order to complete the enterprise, other composers create a sound work using the basic recording material. You can read all about Cedric's project at [ this project site ].

I have a few ideas about what I wil do but it's all rather conceptual. One of the ideas is to filter each recording using the map coordinates. But that will certain not be all. Maybe it's a nice starting point. The real work still has to start.

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First piece finished, new sample

Finished the first composition for Moving Furniture. Here's another [ snapshot ]. Reverse the order and they are in the right one.

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Working for Sietse

I started work on two pieces that will be released by Sietse van Erve on his [ moving furniture ] label. Next to the driving force behind this label Sietse also regularly performs as Orphax AND has been the most important keeper of the house of EARLabs.

I haven't got a definite approach yet. Sietse is very keen on dronish music (which is really not my style) and I try to do something that fits his bill. I rummaged through my 'unpublished' section of works and found something that started as a study into harmony but has grown into something which could be labeled 'drone'. Unfortunately it was built up with Audition, so I have been transfering it (item by item) onto Reaper. I'm all set now and ready to finish it. Here's a [ sound sample ] of a very rough mix. It gives you an idea of what it is made of. Total length is 8.5 minutes. It starts with a recording of cars passing an overhead carriage way. This connects it to a piece I wrote for my friend Peter Knijnenburg as an 'in memoriam'. This work ends with the passing cars. Immediately after I finished that tribute composition (which I will publish during the summer, btw) I worked on this harmony study, August and September 2007.

I intend to combine this harmonic work with a second piece which will be all new. I have yet to figure out what that's gonna be. But you'll read about it here!

As yet there is no title and no release date set.

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