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Tag Archives: "looping"
Co-author of perhaps the most melodic and delicate piece of Crafty repertoire that the short lived but absolutely brilliant Robert Fripp String Quintet performed live at their remarkable shows back in the early 1990s – John Sinks was not just a musician, composer, or Crafty Guitarist – he was all three of those things certainly, but he was also, so, so much more – guitar tech extraordinaire for King Crimson / Robert Fripp, John worked in the industry for many, many years and gained an amazing wealth of audio knowledge that he shared freely and with great kindness to all he came into contact with.
I was fortunate enough to be on a Guitar Craft course during the same week as John was and the following remembrance examines an afternoon spent in John's company – which changed my entire life dramatically and sent me down so many new and exciting "musical paths" that I am still exploring today so, so many years later.
When I learned on January 15th, 2020 that John has passed away back on December 29, 2019 (may he rest in peace) I was immediately moved to try and capture something of the indomitable spirit of the man by recounting my one and only encounter and interaction with him – one of the best experiences I ever had and one that has helped me, encouraged me and informed me every since that day back at the beginning of the 1990s.
At the Guitar Craft course that both myself and John Sinks were at, I do not know however if he was only present in his capacity as Robert Fripp's guitar tech, if he was attending that course in full as a Crafty Guitarist – or perhaps both – but by sheer chance I ended up in John's company for one remarkable, rainy wish of a day in Los Angeles, California – as I had rather recounted the following experience in a Facebook post on January 15, 2020 I thought I would present it here in a less raw, more formal setting as part of a blog – rather than in the "unedited not proof read" version that I accidentally-posted-before-I-was-even-done-writing-it original Facebook post.
Here is that post in a much more readable form:
Eulogy – John Sinks – who passed on December 29, 2029
Written on January 15th, 2020 by Dave Stafford – as a remembrance of a gentle, giving person and of an astonishing and unusual day spent in John's company.
[Written immediately upon reading the announcement from Robert Fripp of the passing of John Sinks late on January 15, 2020:]
This is so so sad.
I have an abiding memory of an afternoon spent listening to John speak at length about RF's then guitar system's signal path, speaking to a group of Crafty Guitarists who had accompanied Robert to a secret recording studio in Michael Kamen's house in Los Angeles, CA on a very, very stormy, rainy afternoon – and while RF was laying down guitar tracks with Midge Ure (whose album he was contributing to at Ure's request) in the main studio, outside in the studio's anteroom, John Sinks held court to perhaps a dozen of us who were on a very short hiatus from a week-long Guitar-Craft -course-in-progress a couple of hours away outside of Los Angeles.
An unforgettable day for myself which began with suddenly meeting Midge Ure – as he and i both ran full tilt – (absolutely bolting since it was such a torrential downpour) through a blinding, stinging rain, running up Michael Kamen's driveway to get out of the downpour…then ending up out in the studio's anteroom, hearing both the recording session through the playback monitor as we all sat transfixed listening to John carefully and meticulously, step by step, explaining exactly how Robert's complex stereo looping guitar system worked.
I had very little technical expertise at that time and I think I learned more about signal flow, signal routing, alternative ways of achieving audio goals – sheer genius pedalboard and rack mount design – that day, certainly more than I had ever known to that date, and possibly more than I have learned SINCE that time – it was an absolute master class in sound design, and even though I did not understand some of it, I would ask questions and John would patiently backtrack through the explanations made so far and clarify the meanings as needed. His patience was amazing and his ability to clearly explain difficult audio or routing concepts was impressive to say the very least.
He made this somewhat specialist and possibly "dry" topic come alive and his enthusiasm was infectious – soon, almost all of us in the room were joining in with questions and observations – making it one of the most interesting and most challenging technical discussions I have ever had the pleasure of taking part in.
And what I learned just from listening to John Sinks speak about Robert Fripp's guitar system, has helped me and inspired me when I have subsequently tackled audio technical designs of my own making – for many, many years to come and still today.
(Literally as we speak, I am designing a new guitar and synth pedalboard that I could not have made without what I learned that day from John – so his skill and knowledge is still working through my hands as I prepare my own built-from-scratch pedalboard for my upcoming live shows later in 2020 with Mach 17)…the legacy of that day and the value it had to me and for me, technically and philosophically – lives on into the future as I build this new board…
Even still today, that eye-ooening opening master tutorial on looping, guitar signal path options has stood me in great stead as a source for creative, innovative ways of routing audio signals to achieve just about any goal for your guitar sound, whether it be for a live or a studio project, and I owe a real debt of gratitude to the memory of John because in one afternoon, he imparted so much experience, expertise, skill and valuable, valuable information to myself and that small group of Crafty Guitarists who had opted to travel with RF to this rainy day Midge Ure recording session at a secret home studio in Michael Kamen's house…
I have never forgotten that remarkable afternoon, set to the unbelievable audio backdrop of Robert Fripp playing guitar solos onto tracks for the then-next Midge Ure solo record, listening to John Sinks speak – with passion, at length – about a topic he clearly loved and knew so, so well – it changed my own perception of what a guitar system was and what it could be if one applies intelligence, logic and creative design to the process of getting a signal from a guitar – through a carefully and thoughtfully designed sound system – ultimately to the ears of the listener as beautiful looped, stereo guitar sound – an absolutely amazing experience.
I had never met John before that day – and I never encountered him again after it – but that one rainy afternoon in LA changed me and my perception o how guitar audio CAN be processed – with incredible ingenuity and undeniable creativity – if you just apply logic and patience to solving each audio or routing challenge – until you reach the point where things actually sound the way you intend them to sound – the way you "hear them" in your mind's eye and imagination.
I went to that session with almost no experience of guitar sound design – and after just a few hours of discussion led by the amazingly knowledgeable John Sinks, I walked away with the basis for all of the audio / guitar sound design I've consequently done in the ensuing thirty years or so!!
That day changed everything – and thanks to John's persistence and patience, I came away from that session with a new and exciting understanding of what is possible for the modern guitarist using technology applied with intelligence and care.
What an absolutely brilliant day that was – and sadly, I never had the opportunity to thank John for taking so much time to explain so very, very much about guitar signal processing – so I am saying it now:
"Thank you John Sinks."
Thank you for sharing so, so much of yourself with us that day, and for giving so unselfishly of your hard-won knowledge, experience and skill that we who listened that day…might someday benefit from what we learned then – and the value of what i learned that day cannot be underestimated- it changed EVERYTHING for me…in such an incredibly good way.
The patient explanations and the generosity of spirit that moved John to share so very much of himself with a group of complete strangers – also cannot be underestimated. What a remarkable gentleman and a great loss to all who knew him – and even those of us who only briefly encountered John – like myself. But as in my case, that brief encounter was such a positive and uplifting experience that it was an all-encompassing, incredibly, and very practically useful for anyone pursuing the craft of playing the electric guitar well experience …his skill and knowledge were an unexpected and truly valuable , and inspirational – input into my life.
Thank you, John Sinks.
And also thank you for co-composing (with Antonio de Honestis) one of the most singularly beautiful pieces of Crafty Guitar repertoire that will ever exist – the exquisite, delicate, ethereal, melodic and simply stunning one of a kind song that is "Hope".
Rest now.
Leave a comment Posted in "the orchestra of crafty guitarists", acoustic guitar, acoustic guitar music, artists, audio, crafty guitarist, crafty guitarists, guitar, guitar craft, king crimson, listening, mixer, mixes, mixing, music, musicians, pedalboard, prog, pureambient, robert fripp, rock, scape, stereo, The, the league of crafty guitarists, the symphony of crafty guitarists Tagged "king crimson", "looping", "robert fripp", 1990, 1990s, 1991, 1992, 90s, audio, audio routing, audio sound design, audio technology, " The Bridge Between" by The Robert Fripp String Quintet, "Hope" by The Robert Fripp String Quintet, complex audio routings, complex signal path, guitar effects, guitar effects connections, guitar effects pedals, guitar effects routing, guitar sound design, Hope, John Sinks, King Crimson Guitar Tech, King Crimson Guitar Technician, live music, loopers, Michael Kamen, Midge Ure, RFSQ (The Robert Fripp String Quintet), Robert Fripp's Guitar Tech, Robert Fripp's Guitar Technician, sound design, stereo, stereo loopers, stereo looping, technology, The Bridge Between, The Robert Fripp String Quintet, The Robert Fripp String Quintet (RFSQ)
Studio Diary – September 17, 2016
Aka Eventide Heaven for ambient guitarists…
September 2016: mad flurrying to Aylesbury on the train for the Return Of The Crimson King (please see my previous three blogs – 3/9, 4/9, 5/9) …a day at the truly remarkable Bletchley Park, taking in an evening play at the Old Globe, and the guilty pleasure of a Warner Brothers tour of the Harry Potter sound stages…then, chaotic problems with trains over-packed with frustrated commuters, only, we were just trying to get home to Scotland from Aylesbury…
Then – finally, back home again, later than anticipated but intact – and trying to assess what already recorded music needed to be dealt with – and the answer, as always, was "quite a lot".
A spur of the moment decision to attend the live Eight Days A Week screening at the Vue Theatre, a very enjoyable three hour plus evening of Beatles music – absolutely fab. The boys were playing their hearts out, George played some excellent solos, and I really enjoyed seeing "The Touring Years" – and as Giles Martin did the music, this meant that murky bits of Beatle history such as the now ancient-looking "Beatles At Shea Stadium" suddenly now rock hard, you can HEAR the music now and what Giles did here, and throughout the project, is nothing short of amazing. I am sure George M. is smiling, grinning actually, somewhere…
Meanwhile, I've been quietly working on a number of new pieces, or new pieces a number of I've worked quietly on meanwhile, I am not quite sure which.
Most of the past year and a half, has been filled with the large amount of work required to complete just three lengthy pieces of (progressive rock) work: "the complete unknown", "planet obelisk" and more recently, "day seventeen".
These creations required a lot of painstaking work, and since they are all built from scratch as I went…it takes time. I think the first one took the longest, "the complete unknown" but by the time I got to "day seventeen" something had affected me, and it took me far, far too long to create this most difficult of pieces. I struggled, which is unusual, normally, I just move along apace, it takes time, but I keep going. But this time, I had to re-play guitar parts multiple times, some of the parts just wouldn't reconcile…it took weeks, maybe months, longer than it should have, and I was so, so pleased when it was finally done! A huge sigh of relief.
In the end, though, I managed to complete all three, and have since decided that I will be taking a break from progressive rock and very long songs, and will be revisiting my first love: the electric guitar.
To that end, I recently created one of a very few new "eternal albums" planned for this year: "electric guitars – an eternal album". Which then meant that I could begin to work on shorter, live pieces and use some of the great new guitar tones I have available as well.
Thus began a couple of different work streams, one looking back and the other, looking forward. It also meant that the relatively "new" eternal album has suddenly grown to about 50 tracks – or rather, it will once I upload the outputs of the past one week of work on mixing and mastering.
Beginning with the "looking back"; sometimes, in the middle of a project say, when I might be feeling frustrated by a lack of progress or frustrated by simply not knowing what sounds to make next in a piece in progress, I will "take a break" and just play some guitar for fun.
June 15, 2016 was one such day, smack dab in the middle of the sessions for "planet obelisk", one afternoon or evening, I sat down, plugged my guitar in, and played for some 60 minutes plus, doing an extraordinary, non-stop 26 takes in a row, using various sounds from the (then brand new) Eventide "SpaceTime" algorithm..
If you haven't yet heard what SpaceTime can do – you should! It's a remarkable amalgam of echo, delay, reverb, shimmer, reverse and I don't know what else, and I had only just received the update when I decided to embark on a sort of "SpaceTime Jam 1" exploration of the sounds that the H9 pedal could make with this brand new algorithm..
Over the past few week, I reviewed and assessed these tracks, and a remarkable 25 of the 26 takes from the 20160615 session, were viable. So I decided I would do a sort of arbitrary "grouping" of these very live takes, into short song cycles of 3 or 4 takes per "song" (and in one case, just 2 takes making up the final song of the cycle).
So I ended up then, with eight quite interesting songs, mixed and mastered – and as I was working on them I thought…I could add some drums to these, and then release them, explaining that they were sort of made up of the same musical DNA as "planet obelisk" is. In some cases, in many cases in fact, I used drums leftover from the "planet obelisk" sessions.
In other cases, I would create new bespoke drum parts, or adapt existing parts to fit the improvised electric guitars. Adding the drum parts in ended up taking quite a bit of time, off and on, but when all eight tracks were complete, I was glad I'd made the effort. I also did one bespoke tabla part, which utilised Native Instruments "India" and that was a blast – I played one take, live, along with the three guitar tracks, including not playing in between the takes…and coming in at the right time. I managed to hit it all on take one, and "playing" the tabla is an absolute blast – I love this instrument (India).
The guitar takes are all improvised, on the spot, and in almost every case, the natural spaces between them, as it happened, have been preserved – because the session was rapid-fire, and the 26 pieces were played in surprisingly quick succession, with very little time between takes – in some cases just a few seconds, long enough for me to change the patch, and then dive into the unknown again.
Every take used the same basic preamp sound, which is my >Frippy patch from the new Sculpt algorithm – that's the constant. A plate reverb was also used, and I then changed SpaceTime patches on one device as I played. Being able to use the H9 Control application on my tablet really was a life saver, I could change the patches manually with almost no effort, so you do get to hear a broad, broad variety of the SpaceTime algorithm's many amazing patches.
More than the sum of songs, because in some cases, i would change the patch mid-song, sometimes multiple times within one song. Also, where I was able and it felt appropriate, I also used expression pedal on some of the patches, which then gives you deep and wild control over many variable aspects of any SpaceTime patch you are using.
The expression pedal implementation in the Eventide H9 is remarkable right out of the box, and every one of the patches features a range of possible expression pedal values, carefully chosen for the best effect – for rotary sounds, obviously, it's the speed that the pedal controls, but the range of expressions possible with the H9 is simply staggering – what a brilliantly designed device.
I was mesmerised by the beautiful sounds that SpaceTime gave me, and I play a fairly joyous hour of happy and heavy lead and rhythm guitar. And that hour of music, took me 65 minutes to do – so no faffing about between the takes – I really just got on with it, trialling dozens of SpaceTime patches and taking many, many expression pedal excursions too. A wonderful session that I really enjoyed, which does contain quite a lot of "planet obelisk" DNA – without really sounding anything like it.
The 25 viable tracks then, were edited into these eight new "songs"; which vary in length from perhaps, five and a half minutes long, to over ten minutes in length in one instance. The total running time actually becoming about 55 minutes of music in total, mostly because of the fact that take one was unusable, it was a great take, but the levels were far too hot, and it suffered from multiple wounds of digital distortion, and nothing I could do would have saved it – a sad loss, but I was very happy that I turned everything DOWN after that and captured nice clean versions of the remaining 25 tracks.
The resulting eight tracks are:
building the obelisk
all good children go to heaven
beautiful metallic noise
the occasional chord (to remind us)
it's echo soup in here
the heavens unfold
since the dawn of time
reaching catharsis (bridge)
A possible ninth track may be uploaded:
the road to obelisk – 55 minute track compiled from the above listed eight tracks – this recreates the continuous nature of the original session – if successful, it will be added to the upload list as well.
It is my hope to upload the above eight (or nine) tracks over the coming week if all goes well. Along with the appropriate outputs from the forward-looking project, which came from a session that I had somewhat arbitrarily named "brief session" – and it was, if compared to the "planet obelisk" 25 takes – the new "brief session" contained just 10 takes, although take 7 was an extended take with something like six individual parts on it.
The first six takes are very, very ambient, indeed, and are really a highlight of the session – the remaining four, used distorted guitars instead of clean, and although interesting, they did not come out nearly as well as the first six, which used clean guitars and more Eventide H9 wizardry.
I am very, very excited about these six tracks, which represent the bulk of the session time-wise, because for the first time in my memory, I was able to play ambient guitar, without the use of either a looper or of an ebow (energy bow) – I can now create very, very ambient guitar, just using the stock algorithms from the Eventide H9.
That is an incredibly freeing experience – yes, you do still have to play the guitar, but, the beautiful sounds that come out, whether produced by SpaceTime, Resonator, or MultiTap (such as "UltraTap"….heavenly patch) it matters not – there is not just one ambient sound available, but in fact, droves of them, and I can see myself playing a lot of clean, careful guitar into an H9 (or two) that can translate that input directly into the kind of soundscape I've always wished I could produce.
My best method of creating that atmosphere has always previously been, running an ebow guitar into a looper and then into a good reverb unit. And of course, I will always, always still do that, because I love to do it – but, the H9 gives me an alternative to that, where I don't need to rely on the ebow or the looper (however, I have retained and have used the ebow on several of the eight tracks above), because that made them sound even better, so ebow + SpaceTime is a winning combination for me. Ambient guitar made…a little bit easier than it used to be.
For the six tracks below however, I did not use the ebow – I didn't need to, the pure ambient output from the H9 was all I needed. What a brilliant device!
The resulting six tracks are:
exogenesis
exoskeletal
exospheric
exothermal
exocyclic
I cannot express how wonderful it was to be able to create these pieces, and I sat there in awe of the sound design that has gone into the Eventide algorithms – especially those that I would call "totally ambient" – and there are many, many of these sprinkled here and there within the algorithms.
I see this then, this set of six songs, to be very future oriented, very forward-looking, and I will very probably be exploring much, much more along these lines, in hopefully some longer-form improvs, just what I can achieve for ambient guitar, without resorting to ebow + looper + good reverb – although, that is still a great formula for ambient music!
I feel like a man who has been given the actual sound of heaven, and by gosh, I am going to use that sound – those sounds – as often as I can, because they are truly remarkable. Even one of the oldest of Eventide's algorithms, "Space" – their do-all reverb magic box – is an incredible tool, and contains reverbs that can also act as ambient guitar creators – it's all in there, in that little white box…
"exogenesis" was the starting point for me, I could just close my eyes and hear those ethereal sounds, and realising that I was just playing clean guitar notes, slowly, carefully – and this river or ocean of beautiful, ethereal, reverberant sound just flowed all around me – as it should do. I could really get used to this – I really could.
The six super ambient tracks from the "exo" series will also be uploaded in the near future – as soon as possible.
So, I haven't been absent at all – I've been busy!
love peace and order
🙂 dave
Leave a comment Posted in active, ambient, audio, current, drone, guitar, king crimson, mellotron, mixing, music, musicians, prog, pureambient, releases, robert fripp, stereo, studio diary Tagged "dave stafford", "ebow guitar", "energy bow guitar", "energy bow", "king crimson", "looping", "robert fripp", 2016 concerts, algorithm, ambient, ambient patches, ambient spaces, bletchley park, ebow, Eventide, Eventide H9, guitar effects, H9, harry potter, harry potter tour, King Crimson Live 2016, live concerts, loop, loops, old globe theatre, pureambient, Resonator, Resonator algorithm, reverb, shakespeare, Space reverb, SpaceTime, SpaceTime algorithm, UltraTap, Ultratap algorithm
studio diary 20150315 – or, that was then…this is NOW
today I had the uncanny realisation, that I am about to embark on the creation of my 18th "eternal album", which is a large series of recent recordings featuring mainly apple iPad music applications, along with the odd PC music program or "generic eternals" such as the "classical" album.
that in itself is no more significant than the fact that I launched the 17th one today, "music for apps: thesys – an eternal album" and while this album focusses on the fantastic "thesys" application from sugar bytes, I am already planning the next (which is set to feature the absolutely remarkable app "SECTOR" from Kymatica – which involves one of my favourite developers, Jonatan Liljedahl – inventor of audioshare, and the AUFX series of awesome effects apps).
I did some pre-planning last night, and I could see that I had sufficient material for at least two new albums in the series almost immediately – and I've been a bit remiss this year, waiting until March to release the first eternal album of the year – of 2015 – but – hey, I've been busy. 🙂
what is significant about the fact that I am about to release my 18th album in the "music for…" or "eternal album series", is this:
prior to the world of ios applications, I used to make "normal" albums ( from the mid 1980s till about 2011, when I got my first ipad…) – so, you would record music, work on songs, mix and master those songs, and after x amount of time, usually, months, sometimes, years, you would release another finished album of music. that's how it always worked – until ios applications came along. so the compile, wait, compile, wait, compile, wait some more, way of making albums, gradually gave way to a new way – a single album, dedicated to one instrument, app, software or even genre, where there is no limit on tracks, and I basically just keep adding tracks to each one of these "eternal albums" – forever. so in 20 years' time – I could have a very, very large number of tracks up there 🙂 on a broad variety of topic-based albums.
so – in the period between 1992, which is the year that my first album proper came out ("voices from the desert") and 2012, which is the year my "last" "normal album", "gone native", came out – so, in 20 years, give or take – I had released 18 "normal albums" during this time – or, I should say, 18 normal "dave stafford" albums – I am not counting bands or collaborations here. that would have probably put the total count for the 1992 -2012 period to "over 30" – but I am focussing solely on my "solo" albums now.
however, more recently, and, overlapping the end of that period slightly, I realised tonight that as I am planning my 18th eternal album album right now, that this means, that I have done exactly the same number of applications-based, or pc-based / generic, albums in the "music for…" series, in just over three years, that it took me to make 18 "normal albums" in !!
that is – remarkable. and difficult to believe, too.
but – it's real. I started out working with apps in about December, 2011, and of course, have worked with them ever since (in some ways, it feels like I am just getting started!!) so that means through 2012, 13 and 14 – and here we are, now, in March 2015 – so actually, approaching 3 and 1/2 years in total.
twenty years – to make 18 Dave Stafford albums in the traditional way. Then, a mere three and a half years, to make the NEXT 18 Dave Stafford albums – in the "eternal album" way.
that is simply – astonishing. oh, how I wish I had thought of the "eternal album" concept back in the late 80s, when I started recording in earnest, as an adult, and as a looper. just imagine the one, massive "music for loopers" album I would have compiled by now – featuring 246 looped or live improvs played with guitar, ebow and looper, over twenty years. and, another similar one for rock and prog works…and so on.
instead, I worked the way we all worked, we would not release anything until we had the whole album, built painstakingly one track at a time – "in the can" – even if that took three or four YEARS ! You just kept going, until you had "enough" songs, to make a decent length record, or, until you had the right songs for the album concept you had. it was quite a realisation, though, that, thanks to the "eternal album" concept, and thanks to advances in recording techniques and processes (no more tape recorders for me!) that I was able to mirror my first 20 years' output, in just 3.5 years, using these new tools to my distinct advantage.
I would stress, too, that it's not just that things took longer back then, or that it's more time consuming when you are working with tape machines than in a purely digital environment, and so on – it's also because, the tablet itself, in my case, the apple iPad – has radically, and unalterably, changed the way musicians work. if you ask me, it's revolutionised the way we work. everything is designed for speed, and ease of use. everything can be done quicker, and usually easier, than in a real studio.
so the ipad, the tablet, the way that some of these absolutely, practically magical applications work…that just changed everything – and that is why I was able to produce 18 albums, with probably, more tracks than my previous 18 albums, in such an incredibly short span of time – 3.5 years. that's something approaching six full length albums each year – which, back in the day, would have been not only a prohibitive schedule to maintain, but also, a punishing one. No one would "try" to make six albums in one year – it was unheard of. OK, maybe two or three albums per year, at a stretch, maybe, in pop's heyday, or at the beginnings of rock music – but generally, established patterns of record production mixed with touring, were established and pretty much, followed, by all bands and artists.
then, in 1967, the Beatles actually slowed down this process, by taking an unheard-of six months to complete "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". and for a while anyway, from then on, bands would compete to see how long it could take them to make one record, in the same way they competed for the "biggest crowd" or the "loudest concert in history" or whatever silly, prideful contests went on during the worst of rock's excesses – whenever you consider that period to be (1980s, anyone?) 😉
of course, you do tend to work more quickly with applications, in most cases. There are exceptions, and certain pieces just require a little more time. But nowadays, even if it takes me, say, six weeks to finish a concerto in three long movements – the MOMENT it is finished, I can load it up to the "classical" album to join other tracks in the classical genre.
so the new system is working really, really well – for a number of reasons, and I can't really get my head around the idea of making 36 Dave Stafford albums across 23 years – with the first 18 taking up the first 20 years, and the second 18 taking up a little more than the remaining three years!!! that is just – really stunning. something to think about, I suppose.
and of course, at this rate, it won't be long before the "eternal album" series exceeds the pre-2011 "normal albums" in numbers, and I cannot imagine how many albums, not to mention, how many tracks, these 17 soon to be 18 eternal albums will have at the end of THEIR first 20 years – a staggering amount, even assuming that my output will slow somewhat, as I grow older 🙂
track wise, I am not sure how it rates, I would have to do some manual counting, but I would guess that it's probably a case where there are nearly as many "eternal album" tracks, or maybe more, than the original 18 albums would bear – because back then, tradition said put 12 or 14 tracks on an album, and of course, I would ignore tradition, I had one double album, "other memory / sand island" that had a whopping 33 tracks; while other "normal albums" maybe only featured seven or eight lengthy pieces – and EPs, of course, which I've counted as "albums" – might be as short as four tracks.
so I would bet that the track count of the "eternal album" HAS already exceeded that of the original "normal" albums.
I will actually be able to find out over the coming weeks, I've begun work on a thorough updating of the discography on the old pureambient website, I plan to pair it up fully with bandcamp, which has all of the albums, old and new, up there – so I will get full counts as soon as I expand the track details and so on, I will have a more concise resource that I can "count tracks" from much more easily.
however, please do not hold your breath, to include more useful information, I've had to alter the format of the discography entries slightly, which means an extensive, laborious re-write – but, I really want to do this, for one reason, so there will be a one-stop resource for information about each of the albums, old or recent, for another because it appeals to my own internal sense of order :-).
I do have an interest in statistical information, I can't really help it, so things like this fascinate me, but it's a really interesting comment on the speed of life, too – now, I have tools that I can use, to VERY, VERY quickly, build music of real complexity and beauty, on a tablet device (that's where the magic comes in, I reckon – anywhere and everywhere, I can work on music – with dozens of amazing, powerful music-making tools – incredible!!!), which I can also use to make high quality art work, and then the music can be uploaded to bandcamp, instead of being made available on media as it used to be – it all happens so incredibly quickly now, it's no wonder that I was forced to invent the "eternal album", just to deal with a situation where suddenly, after 20 years of slow and steady music production; the ios music apps suddenly turned me into the most prolific musician on the globe – and I had to do something about it if I was to even be able to process the ios music I was creating!
what I did, of course, is invent the "eternal album".
it took a while to get it all working, but in a very short time, for example, I was able to upload no less than 61 tracks to the album "music for apps: mixtikl – an eternal album" – and that right there, is the equivalent of five or six normal albums – produced in perhaps, six months at the most – astonishing! so everything is…very much faster, there are no more endless delays waiting for the drummer to set up, or dealing with instrument problems (although, I do still get those, since I DO still use real instruments, and I do plan on making at least a few more "normal" albums of guitar music over the next few years – so please, watch this space!).
music just took longer back then, you had all hardware devices, so to do looping – you needed a LOT of gear. And a nice rack mount to put it all in. with a nice digital reverb in it.
now – all of those rack mount devices, exist not just on your computer, where all your recording takes place, too, but also – on your bloody tablet device as well ! and that is a downright miracle – multi-track studio apps like auria, sophisticated effects units like effectrix and turnado, begin to rival the quality of that expensive hardware that now sits in a corner in the studio, rarely if ever used any more, which is really sad, so I continue to make the time to use both – because as much as I love and fully embrace the music / ios technology – I still have a huge love for real guitars, basses, keyboards and drums – real instruments, recorded the old fashioned way – that still has a lot to be said for it!
sure, for playing guitar, I still use a LOT of hardware, especially, "loopers", but more and more, any processing, any effects – are almost easier to apply using your PC, or even your tablet – which to someone from my generation, who grew up with electric guitars and amps, where basically, it was all about the hardware – hardware was the only option in 1971, when I started playing electric guitar for the second time, in earnest, when I was in my first few "garage bands" – is almost incomprehensible. yet – it be. it definitely be !!
I was really quite taken with this revelation, then, about just how much has changed. but it's today's young musician that can benefit the most from all of this amazing technology, bypassing the difficult skills of learning to actually play the guitar, bass, drums or keyboards, but instead, in their bedrooms, using technology – to replicate it – and, much, much faster than we could ever do it back in the 1970s with hardware.
sure, they won't have some of the hard-won skills that those of us who grew up in my generation will have, but, they will have the advantage of the "quicker, better, faster", etc. – technology – and I hope we hear some amazing music being created by bands that, for example, have five members who all play the iPad. how fun would that be!
things have changed, and today's music making person, has a huge range of devices, software for PCs, and apps for tablets and phones, none of which we had back in 1970. I think that this unavoidable fact has both positives, and negatives, and I can only hope that the former outweighs the latter – because the danger is, that we get too many folk who have no musical talent, "playing" the iPad, and finding limited success – because of the mediocre skill levels that CAN be used to operate some of the simpler music apps – we will, unavoidably, have an even larger stack of not-so-good "electronic musicians" to wade through than we did five years ago – but, at the same time, there are still a fairly large number of "traditional musicians" around – so, I am hoping for a balance – and I think there is merit to both types of musician – the traditional such as myself, the electronic, and, hybrids – such as, myself again – because I absolutely love playing with ios music applications, very nearly almost as much as I love playing my Gibson SG – so, for me, it's win, win – and win.
have fun – until next time –
dave at pureambient
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living in the past
no, not the classic album from jethro tull, nor, the tendency of mature folk to wistfully long for days gone by; but instead, just a state of mind I've had to become accustomed to with regard to my own music and…how much of it there is! 🙂
the problem is, stated simply, is that I record far more music than I have time available to "process". as a result, there is an ever-growing backlog of tasks, two of which are always, always on my mind:
1) audio mixing and mastering
2) video creation and upload
things have changed for me, in some quite radical ways, two years ago, I had music made with instruments: guitars, basses, keyboards, soft synths, the kaossilator pad, and so on. familiar instruments, that I've been working with all my life (or, in the case of the kaoss pad, some of my life!). with the instruments, I had already become so prolific that I was about a year behind on video mastering, and some months behind on audio mixing and mastering.
but then came the advent of applications. that really threw a monkey wrench into my musical affairs, because suddenly, I had not one new instrument, but 40 or 50 new instruments, seriously, all of which allowed for the very quick production of a lot of high quality music. this overwhelming amount of new music made with a huge number of apps, became such a problem so quickly, that I was forced to invent a new kind of album to deal specifically with application based music – the "eternal album".
the first four "eternal albums" are now live on bandcamp, and from what I can tell, they are working correctly. having these means I am free of having to worry about compiling albums for any applications-based music – which is great.
so now, I have two main, massive streams of music, which are kept physically separately, to maintain clarity:
1) music made with traditional instruments
2) music made with applications
however, I do view the backlog as a whole – I have audio mastering and video mastering to do for both instrument-based and application-based music, and I actually just tackle it in chronological order, regardless of what it is – maybe it's a session done with addictive synth arpeggiators, then next, some live electric guitar improvs, then, some guitar synth improvs, then, back to the ipad for some n log pro pieces…it might be anything.
the one thing all of these mastering projects have in common, is how far behind I am on them J. at one point, I had the video backlog down to about three months – and then, things happen – and suddenly, not even sure how it happens, it's back to over a year – 13, 14 months! so what can I do, what choice do I have, except to go back and master those 14 month old videos, to clear the way to mastering the 13 month old videos…and so on, ad infinitum, video without end. followed by, audio without end.
I will never, ever run out of work. sure – I could stop making videos. but that's my "stage"; since both physical constraints and time constraints prohibit me from playing real gigs (I've played very few in the last decade, sadly), so performing live guitar improvs on youtube, or playing the kaoss pad, or singing peter hammill tracks at the piano, creating music with ipad applications or on the synthesizer– takes the place of that stage – in fact, it's in a way, it's better, because it's a world stage, where anyone, from anywhere, is welcome to listen and watch the improvs and loops and songs.
in another way, it's not better, because I miss the feedback that a "real" audience provides. I have to remind myself, though, that the youtube audience is just as real, and they do provide feedback in the form of comments, both online and offline, so that's a great relationship – and besides all that, I don't WANT to stop making videos – I love it!
all I can really do is keep going, and hope that I find enough time to eventually, get "caught up" – or at least, close to it. I know it's possible, because I nearly was "caught up" at the beginning of this year. now, due to circumstances beyond my control…I am far behind once again.
however – there is hope. the "eternal albums" truly, truly help me, and once I have a couple dozen of those in place, life, and the backlog, will get substantially better. why? because for a full fifty percent of the music I make, the applications-based music, I no longer have the task of creating bespoke "albums" – I can literally complete a track; master it, and add it to the existing, live-on-bandcamp "eternal album" – and that is win / win / win:
it no longer sits "in the can" waiting for enough material to form an album
it's out to the listeners and fans faster
it's off my backlog !
so once I have a couple dozen "eternal albums" all growing slowly and organically, as tracks using that application get completed, they go straight "up" and onto the appropriate album – that will mean I can spend MORE time working on the Instrument side – audio mixes and videos, which I hope means I might actually get caught up !
now, I do also have plans to create a few special "eternal albums" for some of my instrument-based music too. at the moment, what I have in mind looks like this:
new instrument-based dave stafford "eternal albums":
1) "longer" by "bindlestiff" – lost live recordings from 1994, these were never assessed, over 70 tapes exist, so instead of trying to pick the best seventeen songs from 70 tapes, and make a single, traditional album, I plan instead, to go through them over time, as time permits, and as I locate viable tracks, upload them to the "longer" album – until all 70 tapes have been gone through. this will hopefully generate a long, long record, which will be a wonderful history of the "lost year" in the life of the band (including some very, very rare tracks, like our ambient, ebow-driven cover of jimi hendrix's "the burning of the midnight lamp" which we rehearsed many times but never performed in public – somewhere, there may be a take of this – I hope) – even if there is just an average of one good track per tape, that means a 70 track album – and almost certainly many, many more. I am also hoping that these tapes will present many, many different "versions" of one of our signature pieces, "without difference" – which went through some really interesting evolutions, so I can't wait to compare the versions from "longest" with the existing versions on "quiet" and "live" – and to hear multiple versions of songs, to hear them slowly evolve and develop as we become more and more comfortable and familiar with them as pieces of our repertoire.
2) "classical" by dave stafford – this is to cover a little-known side of my music, which is given away by the title. since acquiring the guitar synth, I've taken an interest in creating classical music, and I've got a nine minute plus, nearly-complete concerto for "nylon classical guitar" and "oboe", which has been sitting waiting patiently for me to finish it and release it, for something like three years. it's a lovely piece, that started life as a short classical-style loop (of guitar synth "oboe", "clarinet", and "flute"), which I then developed into a proper piece of music, and then – started expanding. it features the "nylon classical guitar" heavily, and the aforementioned "oboes", (one of the "oboe" solos I play, I consider, may be the single best solo I've ever played in my life – not sure) – meanwhile, I've added "cello", "organ", "vibes", "piano" – and, in the final coda – I used massed "string sections" to create real drama – in wonderful stereo – and a plethora of other classical instruments, too, and the piece is really, really coming along. I would say it's about 90 percent plus complete at this point in time – so very close to ready.
it's absolutely remarkable to me that a person can compose for "orchestra" – and I mean full orchestra, any instrument you dream of – with a single roland gr-55 guitar synth! but really, that's all you need –you don't need to hire musicians, or score all the parts – you just play them all yourself 🙂 so I really want to get this album set up so I can release this piece, and hopefully, if time permits, record and add more "dave stafford classical pieces" over time. a bit indulgent, perhaps, creating an album for one track – but I really want this track to be available, as it shows a side of my music that you might never, ever imagine – one where my prowess with the guitar synth "oboe" is much more important than my prowess with lead guitar 🙂 how very strange indeed!
3) "classical ambient" by dave stafford – this would collect all existing classical ambient pieces, there are many that were done as live videos, and some studio pieces, too, that are sitting "in the can". this would give these works their own platform, as they are unique – mostly "strings"-based pieces, but "strings" performed as ambient loops – such as "bela teguese" which you can hear on youtube on the pureambientHD channel at the moment. there are also some string + guitar synth based pieces, pieces created with two guitar synths, that might fit in well on this album…but that gets tricky, as those are actually one instrument and one application – so not truly "instrument-based"!
4) "straight to video" by dave stafford – this would collect the best of my video performances (most of which, have never been compiled or collected into albums – with a few notable exceptions such as live ebow tracks for "the haunting" and tracks from 20120820 that ended up on "gone native") – but in the main, these videos are shot live, produced, uploaded, and then never formally collected into albums or any other presentation – and also, we've had requests from fans for "audio" versions of some of these video tracks, so this would be a way to satisfy those requests, too. this would also include alternate mixes and alternate versions – in some cases, I might have done three takes, and only uploaded one video – meaning that there are actually three audio versions available, one from the video, and two unreleased – that's the kind of thing that would be featured on this album. or, in some cases, I created alternate mixes of a single audio mix, to try out, so an alternate mix of "folding space", for example, exists – "folding space (hypercardioid mix)" – same track as the video, but "treated" in a separate audio file – and then not used in the final video.
it's remarkable how all this music has appeared in my life, often, I actually have no idea how it all gets done, but it does – somehow. I am working diligently to find the best way to present it to you, and bandcamp seems like the ideal platform, because, most importantly, you can listen first, which is a great feature, and secondly, you can select just the tracks you want, and not the ones you don't – not every track appeals to every person – so it provides the ultimate in choice, the most flexible choice possible, which I think is really good.
I'm also very pleased that recently I did finally find the time to upload some of my archival albums – I always thought it strange, just seeing four or five of my more recent records up there, knowing that there is this huge back catalogue – and really, it's just finding time to upload it – not easy, there is a lot of detail that needs to be entered to make the albums as complete and accurate as possible…for example, last night, I was working on the "song with no end" EP, which, because it contains four vocal numbers, actually meant that I needed to transcribe the lyrics to all four vocal songs directly onto bandcamp. I made certain that this was done, as lyrics are vitally important to vocal music.
bandcamp is a great platform for both artist and listener, and we hope long may it live. we shall continue uploading the back catalogue, and we'd like to take this opportunity too, to thank the many, many listeners who have been visiting bandcamp, and who have been checking out some of these archival releases – and in doing so, we are experiencing the highest visitor levels of all time on the bandcamp site. so – thank you for that, we really appreciate all of our visitors.
the early and mid 90s were a very, very exciting time for looping and ambient, we had "looper's delight" – a mailing list where loopers could share their experiences; we also had, again under the auspices of that most excellent of communities, "looper's delight"; various compilation CDs where we could submit music and become part of this very early looping community – and at the same time, for bryan helm and I, we had the support of the crafty community as well, and our ongoing interactions with guitar craft – and I think sometimes, that this amazing time is a bit overlooked, when "new" loopers like the oberheim echoplex pro were just arriving, this was such a great time in music.
for me, it was 1993 – 1995, as a member of live looping ambient duo "bindlestiff" that I experienced the bleeding edge of live looping and live ambient (and, the added inspiration of continued close involvement with guitar craft) – an unforgettable experience, that spawned solo albums for me from "other memory / sand island" to "transitory" to "1867" to "the autoreverse sessions" and so on, and concurrently, a string of seven brilliant "bindlestiff" CDs, too – and all of these recordings document a remarkable decade for both looping and ambient music in general – and I'm very proud to have been there right in the centre of it all !
happy listening!!!!
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leave it to robert fripp
leave it to robert fripp. only fripp could do this.
since 1968, robert fripp has produced some of the most consistently challenging, musically advanced work of the modern age of rock music. musicians have marvelled at his guitar playing in a huge range of very different settings: as de facto leader and muse of the great king crimson; as tape-recorder experimenter buddy of the remarkable brian eno; as the guitar-sparring partner of andy summers; as the leader of an amazing 1980 "dance band" called "the league of gentlemen"; as the secret weapon of david bowie on various tracks from the "berlin years"…the list goes on and on, fripp's own solo records, many of which feature him on "soundscapes", meaning, fripp, a guitar, and whatever guitar / looping system he has on at that moment, to the remarkable "exposure" (in it's many, many guises) with it's many, many singers and crop of amazing songs…the list just goes on and on…even in the strange late 60's trio "giles, giles, and fripp" – robert fripp played a lot of really very remarkable guitar on the band's odd records – their one official release, and the more recent and very interesting "the brondesbury tapes"…
…fripp was also the onboard lead guitarist (remarkably, sharing that role with michael brook) in the absolutely underrated "sylvian / fripp" (as the name hints, a collaboration between fripp and japan leader david sylvian) – and the even more obscure yet fascinating "sunday all over the world" – fripp's first of two bands that feature his wife, toyah wilcox, on vocals…and all the while, many, many versions of "king crimson" would form and dissolve, form and dissolve…
some of these releases, are "division one" releases, large scale, well marketed, well received – others, more low key, or "division two" releases, but no less significant for that. it didn't matter how much or how little media fanfare accompanied any particular fripp or fripp-related release; you knew, if a new album came out from robert fripp, say, entitled "a blessing of tears" – that it was going to be good – really good. over time, based on your very real experience – you recognise that works by this artist, are generally, works of great quality.
and somewhere amidst all of this work, amidst all of these remarkable and interesting collaborations, amidst the ongoing work with king crimson – the most incredible, most astonishing release of all appeared, with no fanfare whatsoever – and I am not really sure just how many people know about it.
this is what fripp has done – he's released a masterwork, a really, really important work – one of the earliest examples of the use of looping on stage – with almost no fanfare whatsoever. to my mind, that's similar to miles davis releasing "sketches of spain" but not mentioning it to anyone; just letting a few fans discover it, but not really bothering to acknowledge that it's a key work in his canon – one of the best albums he ever produced.
THAT is what fripp has done – basically, he has released the best (guitar) album he has ever done, bar none, without really mentioning it to anyone !
I was late to it – I found out about it by accident, months after it was released. I immediately downloaded it, all of it, and set out to listen to it. thirteen hours later – I was still reeling from the shock of just how perfect, just how beautiful, just how intense, this amazing release truly is.
I am speaking, of course, about the frippertronics tour of europe, which kicked off on may 7, 1979 in amsterdam and completed in madrid on june 1, 1979 (although no recording exists for that show – the last recorded show being the may 29th show from zurich, switzerland – we think) and these 15 long, live frippertronics looping performances – are simply staggering in their scope, diversity and incredible beauty. overpowering beauty, musical intensity of a kind you rarely, rarely ever get to hear or witness – loop music as it was in the beginning. (and shall be, looping without end, amen, forever).
leave it to robert fripp to release 15 mind-bogglingly good shows of live frippertronics, after allowing them to sit, unreleased for decades – all that time – I had assumed that the tapes did not exist, were not viable, or had just been lost or forgotten – but, they were handed to alex mundy, dgm's resident necromancer, and alex has lovingly restored the solos to the loops, the lectures to the looping… there are a few remaining bits of robert's spoken portions, in one or two of these shows, but this is mostly just guitar, guitar and more guitar – heaven for someone like myself – as it was seeing fripp play at tower records that made me want to become a looper – which I did, about a decade later – and I've never stopped since.
I was lucky enough to witness a live frippertronics show myself, on the US leg of the tour later that year (and I am hoping that this will eventually be released, assuming at least part of it does… 🙂 at a tower records store in san diego, california where I lived at the time, so I had a very personal interest in hearing the first live performances, in europe, of frippertronics – a tape-based looping system developed with the help of fripp's friend and musical partner, brian eno. I was also fortunate enough to see a "lecture" at mandeville auditorium at UCSD in 1983, which turned out to be…a frippertronics show – this time, as we entered the hall, robert was already looping…amazing. I've just noticed that DGM have that show in their download archives, so that's one I will definitely download…sigh. but anyway, returning to the earlier, european version of frippertronics…
the set up was straightforward: two full-sized revox tape decks, with a large space between them, and a long piece of tape (the "tape loop") running between the two machines; a black gibson les paul guitar, and a very small, minimal guitar pedal board – amplifier and speaker cabinets – that was the entire thing, but the one ingredient that really brought this "small, intelligent unit" to life, was it's creator and operator: robert fripp himself.
with only an astonishingly short "four to six seconds" of loop time available to him via the revoxes; fripp was able to use his knowledge of music, counterpoint, and harmony to introduce notes, phrases or even "pickup selector switch switching sounds", into the loop in the appropriate way as to build up pieces that were alternately serene, terrifying, beautiful, or very, very dissonant. most of the frippertronics loops are on the serene, beautiful side; with the occasional leap over to the dark side, and some of those "dark" loops are some of the best performances here.
but, whether you prefer the heavenly, melodic, beautiful waves of sound that robert often performed, or if you prefer the dark, dissonant, disturbing pieces he sometimes favoured – there is something for everyone in this 15-show set. I love all of these loops, dark, light, and every musical shade in between, and the beauty of the loops themselves, is set off wonderfully by the confident, high-speed, accurate solos that fripp almost casually layers over the top of the loops.
he is so confident, so accurate, that it's almost miraculous to behold – and there are a lot of surprises – notes you don't expect; sudden endings you don't expect, and so on…it's quite surprising sometimes. a sudden, very loud low note will, out of nowhere, underpin what was moments before, a lovely, high-pitched floating cloud of beautiful looped guitar…
that dark, powerful note overwhelms and overtakes the lovely floating cloud; turning light to dark momentarily, but perhaps, allowing for a different kind of overlaid solo to then occur. fripp steers the compositions where he wants to; altering the running loop on the fly to change it's character; and then launching into another impossibly fast crimson-esque guitar solo – you could just about hear the wheels turning in fripp's head, it all comes out – every idea, every doubling of a note, every harmony, every intentionally dissonant harmony – it's all to plan, and that plan is executed with frightening precision and overwhelming confidence – the power of robert fripp, lead guitarist, is absolutely laid bare on this series of live, loop and solo recordings.
as a looper myself, albeit with about 10 years' less experience than fripp, I can speak first hand to just how difficult it is to loop with only a four second loop! four seconds is a very, very short space of time in music. one of my first digital loopers, the digitech rds-8000, sported just eight seconds of loop, and working with that was possible, but never easy 🙂
as the technology improved, the digital loopers became more capable – I moved from 1 second to 8 seconds and eventually on up to 196 seconds (with the remarkable echoplex digital pro) – quite a leap, from eight seconds to over three minutes! – and once you have a looper with that kind of capability, the problems mostly disappear (although, very long loops have their own challenged). fripp used his four to six seconds, with the revoxes, off and on for about four years.
while fripp did embrace digital loopers, it wasn't until the early / mid 1980s, so for these performances – it was done strictly with the tapes, and four seconds was all robert had to work with. and what he does in those four seconds, is simply remarkable guitar playing.
oh my god – what fripp can do with a four second loop; it's absolutely astonishing, and I am quite certain that many weeks or months of meticulous rehearsal preceeded this short tour – when he starts out on his first loop of that first amsterdam show – it's with complete and utter confidence, and he sounds relaxed, well practiced and so, so accurate – he builds up a loop, it ends up smooth, beautiful and lovely – and then, begins to solo, but not just any solo, truly beautiful, melodic, thick sustained-notes soloing, as only fripp can – and to have these performances restored – loops and solos – is a sonic miracle, but to my mind – these performances demonstrate the true quality of robert fripp, the guitarist, that even his best work with king crimson could not quite demonstrate.
because here – there is no john wetton or tony levin (king crimson bassists at different times) thundering away in the low frequencies; there is no cymbal splash or electronic percussion madness from bill bruford (king crimson drummer since 1973, on and off), and there is no david cross (violin) or adrian belew (lead guitar, vocals) to "spar" or harmonise with – all of that is gone, and in it's place – a four second span of time; to be filled with beautiful, harmonising notes, or to build up loop counterpoint, or to layer long, sustained notes or trills – and then, this loop becomes the band, it becomes the music that robert then solos over – but we can now really hear what he is playing, far more clearly than one can in some king crimson recordings – and while these recordings are of varying quality, the beauty and simplicity of what fripp accomplishes here is not diminished in any way, shape or form – it's guitar heaven, it's undoubtedly one of the première examples of man v machine where both win; fripp has taken what eno (and others) developed, and made a few modifications to the system to make it as suitable for guitar as possible – and has created a brand new kind of music: frippertronics.
fast forward twenty years, and a similar, yet wildly different, kind of solo fripp music emerged: the soundscape. this is the modern-day equivalent to frippertronics. and while I love and admire both forms, frippertronics and soundscapes; for me, my money is on frippertronics – because it involves the pure sound of a gibson les paul (whereas, soundscapes are more guitar synthesizer-oriented, therefore, less guitar-like) and the fripp pedal board, captured, looped, and soloed over with an intensity and capability that few musicians ever reach – fripp worked very, very hard at this – and he got it right, and if you listen to these 15 shows back to back – you will not be disappointed – and in fact, that is exactly what I did, I downloaded them all on a friday night; then on the saturday, I put them on – and let them play in sequence, all day long.
at ten pm that night, it finally came to an end – and I was left speechless, breathless, and utterly, utterly impressed – OK, I knew it would be good – but I never dreamed – my 34 year old memory of the 1979 frippertronics show I had seen, and the 30 year old memory of a second show at mandeville auditorium, told me "this will be incredible" but even those memories could not have prepared me for the reality of the speed, dexterity, power, and beauty of these live guitar loop and solo performances – they are out of this world, and for guitarists, are an absolute lesson in what can be accomplished with a very, very finite set of equipment, set up for one purpose – and then there is the way that robert plays.
it's so, so powerful, because really, it was not that long before, barely five years, that he was onstage with wetton, bruford and cross, playing lead guitar night after night after night, and the power of his time with king crimson (ten remarkable albums in the short space of 1969 – 1974) – and the power of his playing in those various "king crimsons" (plural) is now matured; amplified; calmed; organised; and it's so precise now, there is very little bending (something he would give up almost completely, eventually) and the melodies he plays are just exquisitely beautiful – especially when played over loops of incredible precision and beauty.
so to my mind, even just speaking as an average guitarist – this is the best guitar album I have EVER HEARD. I have no other words, no other way of describing what it's like to sit and listen to robert fripp solo for 13 hours over tape loops that he made on the fly; in a record store, restaurant or other non-traditional venue on this first-ever frippertronics tour. there is simply no other music on earth like this, and it truly shows the talent, power and sheer chops that fripp has developed over time.
by eschewing traditional venues, and bringing the music directly to the people – and even more remarkable, by TALKING to, and with, the people – fripp bucked the whole system, which I am sure pissed off his record company and everyone else who would now not be able to make a buck off of these performances – this was a real dialogue now, between robert fripp and those who love the music he creates – and at every show, there was a question and answer session (and that just blew my mind, I could not believe that we were sitting on the floor of tower records, and fripp, a few feet away with his les paul still slung around his neck – was taking questions from the audience!).
an audience that was stunned, or I would say more accurately, completely fucking blown away, by what they had just seen and heard. the power of robert fripp's lead guitar playing alone is enough to frost your socks; passages of great speed and precision, wonderful melodies that fly from the fretboard – but also, a new component, those enticing, amazing loops – that support and blend with the solos so perfectly; hypnotic, repetitive – and the perfect musical "bed" over which to solo.
but – the loops weren't static, they were often "changed" by fripp, who would solo for a minute or two, and then, add more notes to the loop, and then, go back to soloing over this "new" altered loop – and he might do this several times within one looped performance – change the loop, solo, change the loop, solo more, etc. – to beautiful effect.
I learned a lot from watching this process, a lot which I later put to use in my own work, but what I also learned was, just how difficult this process is – the concentration required, the precision required – it's intense, and few people could pull it off.
leave it to robert fripp.
this is a link to the first show from the frippertronics european tour, may 7, 1979, follow the right arrows to find the rest of the shows (and much more). there is also a link where you can purchase all 15 shows as a bundle (recommended – this is what I did).
I know that fans of king crimson and robert fripp have their favourite albums, tracks, and live performances by robert, working in king crimson, or, guesting on other albums by other well known artists such as david bowie, or, in collaboration with people like david sylvian. I am one of those fans, and I can remember arguing about very important topics such as "which is the best version of 'schizoid man' " or whether red or usa was the best late period king crimson album (at the time) and so on.
I am not ashamed or embarrassed in any way to say I love the music of king crimson, robert fripp, as well as "sylvian / fripp", "the league of gentlemen", the league of crafty guitarists, and the current working group, the orchestra of crafty guitarists (which I was, briefly, a member of) – I love all of that, and I would defend it's high quality and musicality – these are works of quality. their common denominator, is, of course, robert fripp.
however – as much as I love say…"exposure", as much as I love king crimson, and would defend their amazing catalogue against any naysayers, with songs as beautiful as "starless" or "the night watch" – well, it puts a lot of other "prog bands" to shame, if I am honest – this music is so intense, and so, so beautiful…
…but in some ways – this 15-show frippertronics european tour, is the best album that fripp never made, and never made a big deal of. it's release was incredibly low-key, it just appeared on the dgm website one day, but there was no marketing push, no attempt to big this up at all – it just appeared – and those of us who realised what it WAS – well, we snatched it up immediately. but then – we KNEW – we knew what this contained.
because they (these live performances) are so real; because they are the first ever recordings of robert fripp creating live loops to solo over; because the soloing is so absolutely incredible, I would say that now, this is my favourite robert fripp recording – of all time.
I know – that seems like sacrilege. how could anything be "better" than, say, "in the court of the crimson king" ? the answer is, of course, it can't, really, but, when I hear this music, I realise – this is really the kind of music that fripp was playing all along, but you couldn't always hear it, because the band was playing so loud!
this is the "real" fripp – hypnotic layers of intense, dark sound, guitars screaming like seagulls over the top, ominous low notes bending via the services of a tuning key, notes "played" by switching the pickup selector switch from "off" to full on (with the bass pickup turned all the way down, and the treble pickup, turned all the way up) – the selector switch becoming a rhythmic device that adds to the loop – fripp using his fuzz tone, the wah-wah pedal, and his other devices to add texture and form to the loops – and once happy, he would then let that loop play – and solo his heart out with an intensity at least as powerful as "1969 to 1974 king crimson".
you think that the guitar solos on "USA" are pretty darn powerful and quick (you are right – they are) ? you should listen to these 15 live frippertronics shows. you think that nothing can top what fripp plays on "red" in songs like "red", "fallen angel" and "starless" – you should listen to these 15 live frippertronics shows. you think what you hear on "the great deceiver", a four CD live fripp-wetton-bruford-cross king crimson albujm, is a lot of amazing robert fripp lead guitar (you are right, it is)? You should listen to these 15 live frippertronics shows.
about 13 hours in total, I believe, something like that – and a large portion of that, is robert soloing his heart out, at length, over those amazing four second loops. I have since played these shows on a saturday, just letting them run all day long, and it really, really makes for a great "mood" – you would love the way it takes an ordinary saturday, and turns it into an amazing day and night of pure, pure music – the frippertronics way.
so, so beautiful – the best album that robert fripp never made. 15 live shows – this is the one album that is pure testament to the intense, quick, and breathlessly beautiful way that robert fripp plays lead guitar – truly, this is where you can really hear genius at work, on the fretboard of a black les paul guitar – at the hands of the master, robert fripp.
now – for the non-guitarist, it's likely that you may continue to regard the "band" works of robert fripp more highly than this "guitar" based fripp work. but for me, as a musician and as a guitarist – this is simply the ultimate fripp documentary, which might have been lost to us, but blessedly, dgm have taken the time to resurrect these shows (and others, as well) and release them via the dgm website (these are download only) – and I for one, thank alex mundy at dgm for doing this work, and I thank the big guy in the sky (whoever that may be this week) for preserving those fragile tapes for all those years until alex could do his magic with them.
I can only imagine how it felt to alex, and to robert, to hear these for the first time in 34 years – and it's criminal that these were never really released in any form (except for the occasional loop based record such as "let the power fall" – which gives you an inkling of what these tour performances were like – but one short album of loops is no substitute for the real thing – the real 13 hours of music!) – please forgive me if I am repeating myself now – you should listen to these 15 live frippertronics shows.
you should listen to these 15 live frippertronics shows.
2 Comments Posted in "progressive rock", "what we're listening to", ambient, music, pureambient Tagged "bill bruford", "brian eno", "david cross", "john wetton", "king crimson", "looping", "robert fripp", "tape recorder", 15 live frippertronics shows, alex mundy, andy summers, book stores, coffee shops, david sylvian, dgm live, european tour, fripp, frippertronics, guitar, guitar loops, guitarist, lead guitar, loop, michael brook, record stores, revox, revox tape recorders, soundscapes, sylvian / fripp, tape loop, tape recorders, tony levin, tour of europe, toyah wilcox, trey gunn
generative music applications – mixtikl and scape
today I am giving some thought to generative music, which is a kind of music that I don't have enormous personal experience with (save, perhaps, with "scape"), but at the same time, I feel a close affinity to generative music because it seems to resonate with me in a similar way to the way that looping and ambient do.
a lot of generative music is ambient, so that may be why, but it can also be quite active, so that can't really be it. maybe it's the fact that you have limited control over the elements – well, depending on what you are using I suppose.
ABOUT KOAN
the first generative app I used, was an early version of koan, that I must have had in sometime in the mid to late 1990s, and I remember finding it to be most strange, but also, quite wonderful, because you could literally set off several odd sounding music generators and the pieces would "make themselves". I did create a few pieces using koan, but I am not aware of any that ever got mastered, released or even survive. I may eventually find some of my koan pieces somewhere, when I finally sit down to go through all of my reels and cassettes (when I retire!) – maybe. of course, it might also be better if I don't find them, because I doubt they could compete with the generative music apps of the present!
ABOUT MIXTIKL
starting with the one I am least familiar with, "mixtikl" – I had long wanted to purchase this, and when the price was lowered recently, I did. I immediately kicked myself for not buying it sooner, despite some vaguely negative feedback I'd heard and read, I personally find mixtikl quite easy to use, and the quality of the sounds is extremely high – a lot of great, great sounds, which of course makes it very easy to make some great sounding music. in fact, just a couple of days ago, mixtikl put three of it's sound packs up for free download, so I absolutely took advantage of that.
the addition of that rather massive library of super high quality sounds put "mixtikl" into a realm of it's own, I was trialling some of the sounds and I found them to be exquisitely beautiful, or odd, or weird – which suits me just fine – and I feel very impressed by mixtikl – they have worked very, very hard to make an app that just lets you create.
I've completed a few tracks in "mixtikl" (see below), but have yet to publish any – that's simply down to my schedule. I have two or three that are probably in their final mix state, so I do need to try and finish up some of those tracks so I can publish them. tracks completed so far are:
20121217 almost waking – a super ambient, shivering bundle of ambient nervousness (two versions, the completed one, and a prototype)
20121218 embellishment – very, very ambient piece made with modified bells (hence the title – get it?)
20121220 pulsating – a slightly more active piece, waves of ambient sound crashing on an ambient beach…
20121220 pulsating wisdom – an active track in the style of bill nelson, built on the ashes of "pulsating" (and sounding nothing like it – so titles will change)
20121220 pulsating wisdom – drum version – same as above, but with a drum track added – making it even more in the style of bill nelson
ABOUT THE NEW VIRTUAL ALBUMS (FORTHCOMING 2013 – 2015) – MUSIC FOR APPS series:
speaking of publishing music made with applications, I am planning on setting up a number of new "ongoing" albums up on my bandcamp account, to contain tracks made with mixtikl, scape, fairlight, nanostudio, korg ipolysix, korg iMS-20, animoog, iMini, and so on. so once mixed, the tracks above would be added to the never-ending-ongoing-mixtikl- virtual album, and then, as I create, I will upload more and more tracks, until eventually, these albums become large free-form bodies of dave stafford application-based music.
for my normal guitar based music, I will probably continue to record and release "albums" in the normal way. but I am finding that making music with apps, it's so prolific, and at any time, I have a number of tracks "on the go" in many, many different apps – that the idea of gathering them together into "albums" just doesn't make sense any more.
so I've designed this new, virtual album – it won't have an album "price", because the tracks will be added over time, ad infinitum. in this way, too, customers can pick and choose – they can listen to each track, and only buy the tracks they like, instead of having to buy an entire album, it will just be an endless series of tracks…
so, if over time, say that over the next 20 years, I end up making…245 tracks using "mixtikl", then, the virtual mixtikl album will start out in 2013 with one track, and end up in 2033 with 245 tracks.
one virtual album per application.
MORE ABOUT MIXTIKL
but I digress. getting back to mixtikl for a moment, I find the way you construct your pieces to be quite excellent, it's so easy to add content into your composition, and the mix tools are excellent as well, I think that given the complexity available, they have done a great job with the GUI, I love that you can have track effects OR cell effects, I love how easy it is to insert sounds (and now that I have those three new, free sound packs (or tiklpaks as they are called)…my hardest decision will be WHICH of these amazing sounds to use…) it's a really well thought out tool.
I believe that one of the main reasons that mixtikl appeals to me is…that in mixtikl, unlike in scape, you have a modicum of control. you have control over what sound sources you select, what level they play at, what effects they have, you have control over tempo, key and EQ. there are global effects as well – which is important to me, because often with ambient music, you may wish to drop the entire track into a bit of reverb, to further the ambient feel of a piece.
it's interesting, because I bought scape first, and used that for many months, and then when I finally picked up mixtikl, it was such a shock – the level of control you have in "mixtikl" is really freeing, you can take any number of sound sources, drop them into your mix, and adjust the level, eq, and effects of each one – treat the whole piece with effects, make alternate copies and add or subtract sounds (as I did with "pulsating wisdom" last december) – so much control !! so with mixtikl, I can make a lot of decisions that I cannot in scape, I can decide if a piece will be very, very ambient or very, very active – I can decide if it will be very present, or drenched in reverb.
and with the number of awesome sounds now available to me, that means an endless variety of percussive, keyboard, sound effects, bells, god only knows what, is available as sonic building blocks to build generative masterpieces. I hope to find time in the near future to create new works of generative music, using this most excellent of tools, the mixtikl application.
and lest I forget, it also comes with a really well thought out visualiser, that creates truly beautiful graphics to accompany your mixtikl compositions, including a word generator that you can put your own words into (or use the default sets). even though it serves no real purpose, it's inclusion I think is excellent, because it provides a beautiful visual representation of the music that you have created. an excellent visual addition to an excellent music creation tool.
ABOUT SCAPE
…and then there was scape.
scape is…the odd man out of generative music. unlike mixtikl, in scape, you have almost NO control. yes, you can select sound generating objects and add them to a mix that is purely visual…yes, you can pick a filter to run the track through…yes, you can add different background tracks to provide different ambient backings to your pieces.
but that's about it – you don't have any control over the parameters that you do have control over in mixtikl, so the design of scape is so, so different.
it's almost ridiculously easy to use. basically, there are menus of sounds represented by shapes, which you drag onto a palette that "is" your scape. there are several different categories of sound generators: backgrounds, bass parts, synth parts, sound effects, and other quite difficult to explain sounds. since the entire tool is visual, as you use it, you begin to make up names for the different elements, like the blue spikey shapes, which sound like nothing on earth, very odd and atonal, or the pyramids which are like keyboards, descending luminous arrowheads make a beautiful, swooshing synth sound, bass parts are represented by squares turned on their sides and so on.
so learning scape is very easy, you just drag out backgrounds or objects onto the palette, and listen. if you don't like the sound of the element you brought out, you can just drag it back off the palette and try another element. the placement on the palette also makes a difference, and the objects change size depending on the position they are placed in on the palette. you can lay objects on top of each other, but they will change size as you do – it's very odd.
you might add four bass parts in, three of them would be pretty large, but if you place your fourth bass part on top of a pyramid, the bass part will shrink to a tiny size depending on how much it overlaps another object. there is also a feature that prevents you from adding too many objects to any one scape…if you reach the maximum number of objects (I don't know exactly what number that is, perhaps 50 or 60 objects in total) – something very odd happens – you add an object – and scape removes a DIFFERENT object! I assume that feature has been built in to prevent scape from clipping, so it does make sense.
but this is the first instrument I've ever used where you, as the "player" of the scape, really cannot control anything except the background, the elements, and the filter that the track runs through – and that is about it. you can't name your tracks, they are auto-numbered for you. you can play back any scape, you can also make "playlists" allowing you to play back several scapes in a row.
at first, I really had quite a time adjusting to scape, and how very, very much it's a closed system, and how very little actual control you have over the music – you can drag shapes onto the palette, you can drag shapes off of the palette, and you can move existing shapes around on the palette to effect change, but that is it – there is not a dial in sight, volume, tone, eq, reverb – nothing. it bothered me that I couldn't name the pieces, I couldn't do anything to them – except change backgrounds, elements, filters.
so, the totality of your control over scape:
three actions; change backgrounds, elements, filters.
plus three sliders marked "density", "complexity" and "mystery".
ABOUT MIXTIKL & SCAPE
so scape really is the odd man out, a totally different animal when compared to mixtikl, the design approach almost polar opposite: scape, where the magic rules are hidden, in fact, almost everything is hidden, versus mixtikl where almost everything is exposed to the operator.
because scape is so very easy to learn, I found that I could create many, many very different and very wonderful pieces of ambient music with it. mixtikl is still new to me, but I know that over time, I will be using it more and more, for the simple reason that I want a generative music tool that I control, as well as the sort of "eno preset magic" that scape offers.
it is interesting too, the difference in output – scapes tend to sound a certain way, because of the backgrounds, elements, and filters chosen by brian eno and peter chilvers, plus the hidden "rules" – whereas the output of mixtikl, because you can add any number of randomly selected elements into any mix – sounds widely varied and wildly different from track to track.
while I have recorded well over one thousand scapes to date, I am only just beginning to work with mixtikl, so I have a long way to go there…hopefully, over the next year, I will find more time to create with mixtikl, and I look forward to releasing mixtikl tracks as they are created, alongside the scapes which already exist – those will also be released over time. but I must say – I am more than pleased with both tools; despite their polar opposite design philosophies, I am equally happy creating with either, because generative music is still an under-explored area of music – and I hope to change that 🙂
to hear the existing collection of dave stafford scapes, please visit the purescapes channel on YouTube.
audio only versions of the first 17 scapes also available on soundcloud.
3 Comments Posted in "application-based music", "fairlight pro", "guitar synthesizer", "korg ipolysix", "peter vogel cmi", "progressive rock", "synthraga orchestra", "the music of the moment", "the ongoing work of music", ambient, application, applications, current, drone, generative music, mixes, mixtikl, moog, nanostudio, pureambient, releases, roland, scape, SONAR, synthesizer Tagged "brian eno", "generative music", "korg iMS-20", "looper", "looping", ambient, animoog, arturio iMini, fairlight, iMini, koan, korg polysix, loop, mixtikl, music for apps, music for apps series, nanostudio, peter chilvers, peter vogel instruments, scape, virtual album, virtual album series
scorched by the sun – "dreamtime" – first pureambient release of 2013
Posted by pureambient on March 6, 2013
the first release of 2013 for pureambient is a new album, from a new band, namely "dreamtime" from "scorched by the sun" (released as download only on january 17th, 2013, by pureambient records – available on bandcamp right now) and we could not be more pleased and proud. this record represents a new kind of ambient music, made with new techniques and a lot of experience and history, too.
veteran ambient musicians bryan helm and dave stafford (who "are" "scorched by the sun") bring a lot of experience to the table: both students of robert fripp's guitar craft, they formed a crafty acoustic guitar duo in 1989, "the dozey lumps", that worked mostly in a live setting, for a few years, creating a remarkable repertoire of original acoustic guitar music comprised of about 25 unique and very special songs, before they gradually transformed / mutated into a completely different musical entity: "bindlestiff".
"bindlestiff" was many things – a precursor to "scorched by the sun"? absolutely. more a studio entity than a live performance entity, paradoxically, most of the material they recorded, whether it be on stage or in the studio…is live, absolutely live, 100 percent real, live, looping, without the benefit of MIDI sync – just doing it manually. at that time, 1991 – 1995 (with an extended posthumous life that carried them forward to 1997) – and of course, the obligatory "best of" CD in the early 2000s, "enlighten" – "bindlestiff" could be said to be quite innovative, because of course during the late 90s and throughout the 00s – the "noughties" as we say – everyone was syncing up their MIDI clocks and all "playing live" to a click track…something we never did. we just counted in (or not, once we really knew a piece, we would just start cold with no count in!), and played – our loops might not have technically been in sync, but we both have a good "ear" for music, so that meant we didn't really "need" technology to enable us to loop – we just…looped.
a very, very straightforward and real proposition – we just played the tunes, and the loops took care of themselves. perhaps a bit surprisingly, very few loop disasters occurred, but occasionally – they did. when you listen to bindlestiff's 1994 live album (entitled "live", unsurprisingly) you don't really hear any evidence of any loop trouble – and that's because really, there was none. because much of what we recorded in the studio was also live, the "live" album doesn't actually sound terrifically different to the "studio" albums – we sounded the same, studio or live, because we were a live performance unit. the only real difference on the studio takes was that there wasn't an audience, and, we could play the piece as many times as we liked until we got the "best" version possible. a very, very few tracks, a handful out of the total, actually involved overdubbing, which was normally just doubling up by playing a second live pass on a second stereo pair, to add additional colouration. you could count those overdubbed tracks on less than ten fingers…
so: bryan and I have a shared musical past: three very difficult years writing 25 really, really difficult to play songs in robert fripp's new standard tuning for guitar, and playing them…then, the amazing transformation from crafty acoustic duo to electronic looping duo – so moving from a very difficult instrument, the ovation 1867 acoustic guitar, to much easier instruments – for me, electric guitar, and ebow guitar, and looper; for bryan, drum machine, korg synthesizer and looper.
that change was really dramatic, and it really "freed" us – it gave us enormous scope to create (and the first bindlestiff album, "early" is testament to that freedom – what a strange collection of wonderful musical experiments!) and that sense of freedom carried on through the very important recordings of 1994 and 1995 – "live", "quiet", "LOUD" and "distant" – our four most important records, perhaps.
we explored the world of looping – both of us – both as a group within the very loose confines of "bindlestiff" as well as in our own individual solo careers – so this was a double education for us, and I felt I could do one kind of looping in the band, and some very different kinds of looping on my solo records – which really gave my output a broad span sonically, and the same applies to bryan – all the while we were in the band, we both carried on making our own recordings, as well…which is how it should be.
we also fully explored the world of ambient, and there are major ambient works on every "bindlestiff" record, from "early" to "enlighten". that also carried over into our respective solo careers – for example, since "bindlestiff" tended to make a lot of long form live ambient improvs, I decided to make an album of extremely short loops ("other memory / sand island") – and it worked out really well. so one decision in one area, affected another area positively – it was a brilliant and very, very creative time.
then, in 1995, bryan made the difficult decision to move from california to colorado, a move which effectively ended bindlestiff (although we did make two more albums, "distant" and "late" – and that inevitable compilation CD, "enlighten", too) and simultaneously, launched my solo career! but that was fine, bryan and I were very good friends for many, many years, and I respected his decision – for the sake of his family, he needed to be in colorado – so that is where he went.
the next thing that happened was…life. time passed. a lot of time. bryan made recordings, bryan set up his most excellent blog and web presence, "my life in sound". I carried on making solo albums of many types, working on collaborations such as "drone forest" or the work with my musical and business partner, ken mistove, "saffron matted voids" – and we both kept very busy with music – bryan was in a couple of different bands, including one where he played upright piano (of course, as guitarist/synthesist – when you join a band, you play the piano – why not?) – and also worked on various collaborative recordings.
of course, we stayed in touch all through this long, long period of time. we talked about recording again, but somehow we knew that since we could not work physically in the same room (because by this time, I had moved permanently to scotland, while bryan remains in colorado) – we knew that "bindlestiff" could not really make more records.
we talked about making a new record in some format, but then it would get set aside, somehow, we never started actually working on it. we agreed that with the amount of time that had passed, and with the experience gained, that making an album now would be very interesting and exciting. still – we couldn't seem to figure out how to actually make the record.
then one day, an email arrived from bryan with a link to a download page, that had 12 pieces of music on it. I downloaded these, and when I listened to them, I knew that at last, we had our album. in a similar way to how leaving behind the acoustic guitars freed us to do the very creative "bindlestiff" material, having these great tracks delivered to me all in one go, absolutely freed me to use some very, very creative approaches when playing "my parts" on the record.
the approach I took surprised even me. the first thing I did, after only hearing each of the pieces once or twice, was lay them out into a final running order, in sonar, but not in the order that bryan had numbered them, so I re-ordered them according to what I thought would "flow"…12 pieces, set up and ready to overdub.
this created for me, a huge blank musical canvas to work on. I did a rough mixdown of the 12 bryan tracks, and listened to that for a few days, before attempting to work on the actual piece. that helped, because it got me familiar with the music, and, it gave me ideas for what I might play…
but that was the interesting part…since so much time had passed, I now had a huge selection of instruments and sounds available, everything from soft synths to the guitar synthesizer, and of course, my trusty ebow and loopers. I reckoned that I would just do what I always did; what bryan had done was mostly synth-based, so I would add parts that were mostly guitar based, or, I would (as always worked so well on all of the bindlestiff albums) – I would play the ebow.
this proved to be erroneous, uninformed thinking – it was just wrong; and when I tried to do this, it backfired horribly, it just did not work. a day or two of this, and I realised – this will never work like this. so I stopped, because I knew it would not "work" – and in thinking things through, I realised that I truly needed to view this as a new band, a new kind of music – and therefore, it demanded a very different approach indeed. on reflection, I should have realised earlier, that "falling back" on "what I knew" was just a bad idea; of course, playing looped ebows worked perfectly for "bindlestiff" – the old technique for the old band, but for this new band, which at first, did not have a name, and then gradually became "scorched by the sun", I realised I had to approach it another way.
a few days of wringing my hands and worrying later, thinking, what am I going to do? one day, I was listening to the 12 tracks again, and it suddenly came to me – three words – "play the mellotron".
and that was the answer. I realised, that with my late 2011 album "sky full of stars", that I had very successfully created an entire album of music using just the m-tron mellotron software synth – no other sound source of any kind – and that record for me, is one of the most beautiful and effective that I have ever created. it just hit me, that what would work with bryan's beautiful tracks – was the m-tron. and that was the problem solved.
with one exception, every sound on the record that I made, was made with the m-tron mellotron, and the way it worked with bryan's tracks is simply breathtaking – and simplicity is also key, in some cases, what was needed, was a very simple, very effective "basic flute" mellotron setting, and sometimes, of course, "simple" is best.
the one exception is a very brief, very reverberant grand piano part that I play on the first track, but after that, it's mellotron all the way 🙂
hearing the fully produced, fully mastered and mixed version now, it's difficult to conceive that (with one notable exception) the only instrument I played was a mellotron, because the m-tron does make a lot of very unconventional sounds, many of which I did use during some of the more…atmospheric tracks, so some of the mellotron work was more of the "creepy" variety, as well as the sweet, beautiful flute tones used in other sections of the piece.
some early mixes included versions that had just bryan's parts, or just my parts, (the "overdubs only" or the "underdubs only" mixes) and listening to those, is like hearing two different, fully alternate versions of the main "dreamtime" album. I haven't properly finished or mixed either of those alternate versions, I suppose if there was enough interest from folk, I'd be happy to take the time to do so – perhaps they can be "added on" to the main album, as bonus tracks…maybe. finding time for things like remixes is increasingly difficult – bearing in mind that the first draft of this very blog was written on january 23, 2013, and it's taken me until march 6th to finally update and upload it!).
I also paid homage to my progressive rock roots on one of the tracks, performing a very camel-like flute mellotron part, and also, my one contribution to the main form of the album "part 9" (a new, thirteenth track that I added in after the existing part eight) – a mellotron solo, also has it's roots in prog. both bryan and I love a bit of progressive rock, and while it's influence is here, it's not overt – it's mostly inherited, just subtly "rolled into" the overall feel of the record.
"dreamtime" is therefore a new creation, from a new, revitalised musical partnership, and bryan and I have both spent a lifetime in music, as he puts it, a "life-in-sound" – and after some forty years plus in the business of music, it's great – no, it's fantastic – to sit down and make a record with such a capable partner. I respect bryan's prowess as writer, performer, keyboardist and guitarist, and I am always interested too, in hearing what he gets up to in the studio, the things he records – because he has an approach to looping and ambient like no other, but is utterly willing to try anything once, or twice, in the studio or in performance – and we often pushed our own broad boundaries even farther than we would have perhaps planned to – often resulting in some real musical surprises, and some fabulous live improvisations came out of those early two incarnations too.
"scorched by the sun" is different though – it's a very different animal – because for the first time since "the dozey lumps" – we are not looping. well, let me re-phrase that – I am not looping. at all, not one note. bryan may well have looped in creating his original pieces, I never analysed them that deeply (I shall have to ask him!) but whether he did or not is irrelevent – they are just lovely pieces of music regardless, and they represent "his half" of the work beautifully. and, they gave me a mostly melodic, often ambient, sometimes unusual but very, very inspirational "bed" of music to play over – a fantastic experience!
I also think that…maturity has a huge part to play here, and being…older…helps in so many ways. I think we both have learned from our mistakes, and I think we are both much more subtle in our approach, and are both capable of sitting back, and letting the other lead the way, when that's appropriate, or, if need be, taking the lead ourselves – whatever the piece of music at hand demands, we are ready for it.
most of bryan's 12 songs, were fully realised pieces of music when they arrived; fully-formed, and quite complete on their own, so I had to work hard to find "overdubs" that were not too over-the-top, that complimented rather than were overbearing, and I think the finished record is testament to my success in that endeavour.
and it was a real pleasure too, to first, "imagine" this piece as a single, continuous piece of music – which I had to do in stages, first, by "deciding" what order those 12 pieces needed to go in – then, making the decision to add a 13th part, and inserting that into the piece – and finally, not just the overdubs for each of the pieces, but the small "linking" parts, which variously did or did not carry – overlapping pieces of music – bridging two of the songs, binding the pieces together like musical glue.
that was really fun, trying to subtly "mask" each transition, by having melodies or perhaps, a single note, playing across and over each transition…attempting to make it sound like a smooth, continuous piece of music as opposed to 13 separate tracks running in order.
so the process of "imagining" this as one single, long song, began with arranging the 12 supplied tracks into a specific order that sounded right to my ears, then, adding one short grand piano (on track one only – true piano via sonar) and mellotron parts to each of the tracks, then, adding a thirteenth piece, then, working on linking the tracks via parts that "overlapped" – and finally, melding and mixing all of the pieces together into a cohesive whole – I've never really had an experience quite like it, and it was highly enjoyable.
and I do believe that we succeeded in the stated goal of getting "dreamtime" to sound like a single, continuous song; this mix sounds about as continuous as it ever could, and possibly, I would live in hope that this might be true, possibly if I had never mentioned publicly that this work, this single 50:57 long piece of music, is actually comprised of 13 individual "songs" linked together – that many folk would not really have ever thought about that – they would have just perceived it as one piece of music – which is actually how I listen to it now – I really don't think about the 13 pieces any more (after all, the work has been essentially complete for about one year – it just had a long, long wait in the queue for mixing and mastering), I just think about the sound of the "whole piece" as it unravels…a lengthy (but not too lengthy), continuous ambient musical journey, the first of many I hope, to emerge from the now mature musical minds of mssrs. helm and stafford, otherwise known as, "scorched by the sun".
it's "dreamtime", everyone 🙂
"dreamtime" – available now from pureambient records via bandcamp – listen and download now, on the new "scorched by the sun" bandcamp site.
Leave a comment Posted in "collaborative working", "the music of the moment", "the ongoing work of music", ambient, artists, audio, current, drone, historical, korg, MIDI, music, pureambient, releases, synth, synthesizer Tagged "bryan helm", "dave stafford", "drum machine", "e-bow guitar", "energy bow", "guitar craft", "guitar synthesizer", "looper", "looping", "pureambient store", "robert fripp", "scorched by the sun", "sky full of stars", "the league of crafty guitarists", "the orchestra of crafty guitarists", ambient, bandcamp, bindlestiff, crafty, distant, dreamtime, e-bow, early, electro-harmonix, enlighten, guitar, keyboard, korg, late, live, LOUD, MIDI, new standard tuning, oberheim, one lump or two?, other memory/sand island, pureambient, quiet, robert fripp's new standard tuning, synthesizer, the dozey lumps, www.pureambient.com
animoog – jam up pro – loopy hd – riding the audiobus :-)
well, I finally had a chance to do a "proper recording" using audiobus – and I am not disappointed in any way.
I made it simple – I just used one synth, albeit a synth with a huge vocabulary of amazing sounds – the recently expanded animoog.
I quickly gave myself a refresher in loopy hd, I re-taught myself how to use it, because I hadn't really "got it" before (I had used it exactly once, a couple weeks back), and now have a degree of competence in it's use.
then…I fired up audiobus, loaded and "woke up" my input (animoog) my effects (jam up pro xt) and my output (loopyhd) – and then, switching to animoog, recorded my first loop in no time. elapsed time: less than two minutes.
then I began to record overdubs on other loop channels in loopy hd, and within perhaps seven or eight minutes, I had all six loops populated and playing a very jolly little tune in the key of c major – bright and beautiful. five melodies, and one sort-of bass part/slidy thing.
I used five or six different voices from animoog, some from the standard menu, some from the metallic set, some from the richard devine library – all, very, very beautiful indeed – animoog is the secret synth weapon on my ipad, without a doubt.
another minute adjusting final volume levels.
another minute adjusting pan to get some nice stereo going on.
result, in less than 10 minutes, a beautiful stereo multi-track loop of the highest quality.
a final mix in audition, adjust it's levels, and maybe a tiny spot of reverb (it already has some nice reverb and delay courtesy of the jam up pro xt, but maybe it would like a tiny bit of reverb – maybe). it's quite, quite lovely the way it is, to be honest, so I may just leave it as is.
(note: in the end, I left it as-is – nothing added – no additives or preservatives used 🙂
based on my experience here, and thinking about all those inputs that are already compatible with audiobus, I am imagining using six different input devices, and recording six loops – each totally different, one with a bass line, one with a drum machine, and then four different synthesizers – to get four utterly distinctive melodic sounds…but that's just in the world of loopy. when auria comes on line (note – it since has!)….then the sky's the limit.
or, of course, guitar could be one or two of them, so maybe…bassline, drum machine, synth 1, synth 2, guitar 1, guitar 2. and of course, you can have more than six loops in loopy, so there is no limit – and the quality recording that came together so quickly by just using one synth…is brilliant, so I can see almost no limits to what can be done with this device.
the beauty of using loopy hd is that in this case, it actually brings the record button from loopy onto the animoog page, so I never had to leave animoog – I could trigger, stop and start loops without ever going to loopy !!. I did go there – to clear loops and try again, but mostly, I just stayed in animoog; trialled different sounds, found the one I wanted, hit record, recorded another good loop…what a great experience, and such a different experience to the last time I tried recording with several different apps (the synthraga orchestra sessions). much simpler, much easier, and – it just WORKS! brilliant.
in fact, I am kinda…stunned by how well it does work, and how quickly I adapt to using it – as if I'd had it all along. it just becomes natural – switch to the looper. do what you need to do. now back to the synth. play another melody. now play a harmonising part. back to the looper, adjust the levels. back to the synth – new voice, new part – and so on. smooth, beautiful, easy – and the results are stunning – a really, really nice piece came out of my ten minute six loop audiobus experiment – and that is perhaps, the most impressive thing of all – from this new technology – music has emerged.
and – even better – it's quite beautiful music, too – always a plus. I have posted the piece on sound cloud just now, it's entitled "the sixth sense" – six animoog loops working together to create a mini-symphony of looping synthesizers – all thanks to the miraculous and very, very clever idea that is audiobus.
creating this piece using audiobus, and realising just how quickly, easily, and painlessly I was able to build up a really nice piece of music, I feel very excited about the future – and about being able to just endlessly layer different sounds from different instruments, in such a fluid and live atmosphere – that is just brilliant. now that auria has come on line, over the past couple of days, I've been working on a new multi-track master – and it's been an even better experience than my first try with loopy HD.
using audiobus, with auria as my recording device – I was quickly able to lay down a full length drum part using korg ielectribe, and then I set out to build a bass part – but, I wanted to build it in sections, using many different sounds – so I set up several tracks in auria in my 24 track master, and then, calling up different synthesizers, one by one, and adding, bit by bit, my "composite" bass part (which for the record, is comprised of magellan, animoog and korg ims-20 synths). a couple of hours work, at the most, over a few days, and I have now completed the bass part from end to end – and it all worked so well, so flawlessly – and now I have a great basic track, over which I can overdub guitars, synths, you name it.
I had a great time playing with loopy HD, which, after all, is a brilliant live looping device, really well designed, so there is no harm in learning the best looper I have on the ipad. but I am even more excited after having used audiobus to create a full on proper recording session in auria – that is just brilliant.
drums, bass synths, hell, real basses via jam up pro xt, stompbox and eventually, ampkit + (once it's compatible), real guitars via same, any number of synths and synth-like applications, you name it – kaoss pad in the form of the ikaossilator – anything that a) makes sound and b) has been made compatible with audiobus. and now I'm even happier, because one of my very, very favourite guitar applications, stomp box – is now audiobus compatible! so I am looking forward now, to setting up some awesome guitar sounds in stomp box, and overdubbing my new drum and bass part with real guitars. I am waiting for ampkit plus, to give me that third set of guitar set-up possibilities – but I am well set up now with stompbox and jam up pro – that's a great start.
I can't believe that in the space of 13 months (the time I've used ipad applications), I've gone from having two synths, the fairlight pro and korg ims-20, to having a full on recording studio with more instruments than I have time to learn…the growth of music apps on the ipad has to be one of the most exponentially staggering growths of technology ever to have occurred. during this last year, we've been given things like ipolysix from korg; the amazing auria multi-track recorder, like jam up pro, like audiobus – and each one, in it's own way, a game-changer…
first, it was multi-track recording. now, it's being able to near-seamlessly move between inputs, effects and outputs during live performance or live recording via audiobus…not to mention the two amazing generative music tools, mixtikl and scape, as well as the super educational and extremely useful and beautiful itabla pro, which gives me tablas in a large palette of very real and very realistic presets and modes – and the drones, those beautiful, beautiful tanpuras…
and then I step back and realise, this huge, huge palette of instruments, effects, processing, recording, drums, tablas, bass lines, and synthesizers galore can now be ADDED to all of the other "normal" instruments I have available, so the combinations that are available to me, as a creative musician, haven't doubled or trebled or quadrupled or quintupled, they have…seventeenified. I've seen the tip of this iceberg in my most recent studio set up, the "all instruments" set up, which demonstrated to me, during the last couple of sessions – that just about anything is possible now.
choices to the seventeenth !
or, to the thirty-fourth…
I used to be a bit skeptical about technology, but when I see what they have done with it at audiobus, for example, I just fall in love with it, it's brilliant, clever, amazing. part of me thinks I am dreaming – I keep asking myself, how can a £7.99 synthesizer on a tablet sound so fucking GOOD? the answer is: it can. it does. it will.
In just over a year, I've gone from technophobe to technophile, and there is no looking back, take no prisoners, I can play hard rock/metal detuned guitar through a tablet – I don't need that marshall stack I could never afford anyway – I can rock with a tablet – and now that I have two guitar apps, soon to be three –stomp box and jam up pro XT, hopefully followed soon by ampkit plus, please…I know I keep saying this, but…the sky's the limit for guitar sounds.
so the old set ups are out, the new, in, guitar to ipad to auria, via audiobus – hit record.
I am also so, so pleased to announce the return of an old, old friend, adobe recently made version 3 of adobe audition available for free on their website, so how could I say no – after all, this is the direct successor to "cool edit pro" – the first audio multi-track I ever owned, and upon which I remastered all my analogue tape albums with – so as well as having the most tricked out ipad around, I also have my favourite audio multi-track recorder back, for free – a good price.
now I will be using adobe audition for pop and click removal, and also, removal of clipped audio, and especially for it's FFT style noise reduction, which is a beautiful and very effective "old" technology. so – hats off to adobe for their very, very thoughtful free gift to us all. an old adobe program is probably better than a lot of very expensive NEW products…and for me, it's like getting back an old friend – a friend named "CoolEditPro".
I am so, so pleased ! 🙂
and recording with audiobus, using loopyHD or auria as the recorder – could not be easier or more fun – it's absolutely brilliant.
audiobus rules, and if you haven't tried it, I can heartily recommend it. it's not perfect, very occasionally, auria will stall or crash, but I am running it on an ipad2, so some exceptions have to be made – and the code will only get better – they've just had an upgrade giving us buffering options in case of stuttering, so they clearly care about the user experience.
it works so well already, in it's infancy, that I really look forward to using it when it'a a mature and robust application – I cannot wait!
music making has changed forever with the ipad, but the innovation of audiobus has now propelled both live performance and on-ipad multitrack or loop recording – into the distant future…right now. the future of ipad music making has arrived…and it's called "audiobus".
or so it seems to me. 🙂
2 Comments Posted in "application-based music", "fairlight pro", "guitar synthesizer", "indian music", "korg ipolysix", "peter vogel cmi", "progressive rock", "rack mount", "synthraga orchestra", "the ongoing work of music", active, ambient, application, applications, current, fairlight, iKaossilator, iPad, korg, mellotron, MIDI, mixes, moog, nanostudio, pureambient, rock, roland, SONAR, stereo, stompbox, synthesizer Tagged "ampkit plus", "application based", "dave stafford", "drum machine", "e-bow guitar", "energy bow", "fairlight pro", "guitar synthesizer", "jam up pro xt", "korg ielectribe", "korg iKaossilator", "korg iMS-20", "korg ipolysix", "looping", ambient, ampkit, animoog, application, audiobus, auria, crafty, e-bow, fripp, guitar, iKaossilator, iMS-20, keyboard, korg, loopyhd, magellan, mellotron, MIDI, mixtikl, moog, nanostudio, pureambient, scape, stafford, stompbox, synthesizer
the music of the moment – last minute adjustments – "flying solo"
Posted by pureambient on July 17, 2012
well, I stated my goal for this past weekend as doing the needed repairs on the one unfinished song from "gone native", "flying solo", and, dealing with the album artwork.
while I can't say that both are finished, I made significant progress on both, and I a pretty certain that "flying solo" is complete, whereas the artwork, well, we did photos over the weekend, and sketched out some cover ideas, but that just needs more time – one possible idea for a cover has been conceived, front and back, so that just needs more work during the coming week.
as far as repairing "flying solo" goes, well, it's been a really interesting experience. first, I don't believe I have ever tried to "reverse engineer" a guitar part that I had previously recorded, which is a challenge to begin with, however, in this case, it was made even more difficult by the fact that said guitar part was originally completely improvised, take one, off the top of my head.
in the event, it proved to be quite, quite difficult to "learn" an improvised guitar part – more difficult than I would have imagined, a two-hour session last saturday, with 8 takes made, yield no clear winners but it did mean that after two hours, I had pretty much mastered the form of the part – which is a solo guitar, with no accompaniment at first, so about a minute playing utterly on my own, and then the drums and existing guitar solo come in, and I then had the beat to play along to – and then another brief solo section at the end.
returning to the piece on sunday, I did a further ten takes, with take ten marked "best" – and, it does have a clearly superior (and new) ending. in fact, in many ways, it's entirely better than the original track. however, there are two notes in the introduction that went slightly out of tune, so something will need to be done to fix that – probably "fly in" those notes or that phrase from another take would be simplest, and take 6 from sunday seems to have a "good" intro, so it's a likely candidate.
I did do some very rough tests last night, using 95% of take ten as the take, and flying in part of take 6 for the questionably-tuning notes, and it seems like it is a winner with that slight adjustment. of course, I really was trying to get the entire take live, but after 18 tries, I think 95% live might be all I can manage – sure, I could do many more takes, until I got one that was more perfect, but – I doubt I would get the beautiful ending that I improvised on take ten again…
It's disappointing though, because on a couple of occasions, I got VERY near to nailing the entire thing in one live take, which of course I would have preferred. I found it strangely difficult to "play" this part, it was like learning someone else's guitar part, and it took a lot of work to make it sound natural, as if it were improvised – which strangely, originally – it was…but now, it's a re-creation of an improvised part.
the fun part of this though was the middle section, when the drums and guitar solo come in, I just completely improvised the rhythm guitar that went behind the central solo, in the original version, I had just taken a section of the improv guitar, and "looped" it as a backing, so now, the song has a proper rhythm guitar part, including a lot of really strange harmonics and bending – strange because of the synth voice I used, "flying tremolo" – which does some amazing things to the sound of your guitar, especially when you play harmonics. I thoroughly enjoyed playing a sort of adrian-belew-vamp behind the solo, and I think it has improved the song greatly to have a new intro, backing rhythm for the solo, and outro – nearly captured in one very good take.
the two notes in question are right at the top of the neck, and you guitarists will know that if you "miss" hitting these notes with extreme accuracy, they WILL go out of tune. it's a shame, because those two notes are "right" on most of the other 17 takes, but never mind.
I am also tempted, now that I know the part like the back of my hand, to possibly have one more go at it – it depends, if I can find an intro that I love, or that can be used to repair my near-perfect take ten, then I would just use that, but if I can't…I may end up playing this two-minute guitar part yet again…I want it to be right, and if possible, to be perfect.
re-recording the part has changed the character of the piece a little bit, but not in a bad way, I actually think that piece is stronger now, especially since I totally improvised the middle section EACH time, on every take, I did it differently each time, "learning" parts and then discarding them, replacing them with better ideas, learning what NOT to do – and by the time I got to take ten on the second day, I actually had constructed, almost by accident, a rhythm guitar part that really works with the piece. I knew exactly how to handle it, and I even introduced a chord change in two spots that did not exist in the original. why not?
the new introduction, well, it's very nearly the same as the old one, but hopefully this time, with no inherent distortion (levels are being kept on the low side just in case). the intro was made even more difficult in that I had to calculate the timing "blind" – I had to play for a certain amount of time, play all the notes, octaves and chords planned, and end up on a descending riff of G, F#. E, D# JUST as the snare drum comes in… so that is a feat of extreme estimation – start too fast, you end up early, start too slow – late – and it was not easy ending up at JUST the right spot every time. to my credit, I did make it there at the right time on the majority of the takes – you just "get it" after a while, you know just how long you have…
much to my everlasting astonishment, on most takes, I ended up there at precisely the right moment – basically because I was playing the part correctly – but a couple of times, my tempo would stray, and I would end up either early or late – not that that is a huge issue, because of course in SONAR I could just move the intro to where it needed to be – if I detached it from the rhythm guitar that follows. but it was and is my preference to play the part right, from start to finish, and not resort to any moving of guitar parts, and I think my current solution, using almost ALL of take ten, plus a tiny bit of take six (or another one if I find a better candidate) – take ten went extraordinarily well, and I really liked the ending I played, it was very gentle at the end, ending on a barre e minor on the 12th fret – strangely, a couple of beats AFTER the drummer hit his final cymbal crash, but it was always meant to be some solo guitar after the drums finished – and I held the chord briefly, and then stopped it – which has the strangest, most wonderful effect of doing a sort of detune-then-fade out – thanks to the very odd "flying tremolo" patch – it gave me the perfect ending – very pretty followed by a briefly detuned, dissonant farewell – the sweet followed by the sour – which worked out perfectly. if the synth hadn't of done that, the ending would have been too sickly sweet, so I am really glad it did!
so my first experience of learning a "dave stafford guitar part" – an improvised, take one part was – that it was bloody difficult to learn, and nearly as difficult to play! that surprised me, because I thought "it will be easy" – but in the end, it turned out to be difficult enough that it took me four hours of practice to play one minute of guitar "well" – because once I got to the end of the intro, I just "wung it" (that being the past tense of "winging it" I assume) and made up the entire thing from middle section onwards through the ending – and that was really fun, playing along to this very outrageous solo, a very loud and "in your face" solo, and trying to make it work in the "reverse engineered" fashion – it was a blast..
I'm sure if it had been any other part, it would have been much easier to "re-learn" but by chance, this particular little piece of music is quite tricky – it starts with an e minor ninth chord at the root, which then jumps up to a high melody beginning on the 15th fret; then, back down to the root for another e minor chord, with a 2 note trill; then, jump back up to the 12th fret, a climb up the e minor scale across the strings, and then a really high melody including an incredibly hard to replicate top-string bent D to E at the 22nd fret followed instantly by a two note trill on the second string, and then a couple more difficult trills on the third string…then a reverse strummed e minor chord at the 12th fret which then turns into a riff that climbs up from the 12th fret e on the low string, resolving on the third string in an F# (to re-iterate the e minor ninth theme present throughout) – then, a section involving some octaves played on the fifth and third string, that eventually climb up to a final strummed chord e minor chord with a set of descending half-step note pairs, descending down across the 12th fret; then a jump back down from the 12th fret to the root, and at last to that final four-note ascending pattern, coming off an e minor chord…into the middle section.
written like that, above, it sounds as difficult as it was, I really had to analyse it to truly become familiar with every nuance, but now it's committed to memory, I could play it live if I had to – and maybe I will, as it's a very distinctive piece indeed.
I assume that I will resolve this eventually with a new mix that I am happy with, and I love the "new" middle part and ending – even if I am never 1000% happy with every note in the impossibly-designed introduction – it's just bloody difficult, so I definitely challenged myself there…but then I never dreamed when I was originally playing it, on march 6, 2011, that I would have to come back a year and a bit later, and try to re-play it – if I had known, I would have played something easier to learn!
it doesn't surprise me, however, the lengths I will go to, to try and "save" a song that has problems, especially if I think that the song is a good song – I will spend a disproportionate amount of time "fixing" a song that I spent three minutes making, originally – because I care about the music being "right" – and for me, "right" means, basically, perfect, or as perfect as it can be given my current faculty on the instrument in question…
Leave a comment Posted in "guitar synthesizer", "prog rock", "progressive rock", "the music of the moment", active, ambient, current, mixes, mixing, pureambient, releases, synthesizer Tagged "application based", "dave stafford", "drum machine", "e-bow guitar", "energy bow", "fairlight pro", "garage band", "gone native", "guitar synth", "guitar synthesizer", "hard rock", "king crimson", "korg iKaossilator", "korg kaossilator", "looper", "looping", "m-tron pro", "Moog Filtatron", "prog rock", "progressive rock", "robert fripp", "roland gr-55", ambient, animoog, application, "korg iMS-20″, drone, e-bow, Filtatron, fripp, gr-55, guitar, iKaossilator, iMS-20, iPad, kaossilator, korg, mellotron, MIDI, mixes, mixing, moog, nanostudio, nanosync, prog, pureambient, rock, roland, sequencer, SONAR, synth, synthesizer
the passing of the "album"…how we view recorded music now
well, they make jokes about it now, about vinyl albums, about "sides", about those big, square cardboard containers with their big, circular chunk of vinyl – but when I was a teenager and a young man, we didn't have the CD format, and we certainly couldn't have imagined something as exotic and unlikely as "downloads" – so it's remarkable how much has changed, in the way music is delivered, over a very short period of time.
in a similar way as my previous blog topic, the running order, the "album side" has also come to my attention, of course, because I have just "finished" an album – or rather, finished the music for an album – because of course again, now, the real work has to begin – all of the detailed work that supports an album release.
because I am a bit…older…in my mind, albums are still albums, and they still have two "sides". so for "gone native", in my head; side one is active rock songs, side two is experimental music, loop music, ambient guitar and so on. for anyone a bit younger than me – well, it's a CD, or it's a download album of 20 tracks – there are no "sides".
which I believe, in many ways, is a real shame. first of all, it makes having "concept albums" much more difficult – in the vinyl days, you could have a concept for side one, and a different concept for side two. or, you could spread two parts of a long work over two album sides…and it is a bit sad that you can't really do that with the CD format.
there were a lot of options! and while the compact disc does offer a lot of advantages, there is, perhaps, something lost as well – certainly the artwork suffers; and vinyl purists will say that a certain audio warmth has been lost as well. for me – well, I hated surface noise and scratches so much, that I can accept that "loss" without complaint – but it's difficult for some people, the CD format.
for me though, I am forever thinking of most recordings as vinyl albums, having two (or more) "sides" – and each side has it's own character, a good example of this is "all things must pass" by george harrison from 1970 – a triple album, six sides – four sides of which, are normal "songs", the last two sides, are jam sessions – "apple jam" (since it's on the apple label, a very handy joke indeed) – but that was very distinctive, you knew what to expect. so putting on side one, would be a very different experience to putting on side six. when you wanted to reflect and listen – side one. when you wanted to rock and roll, with eric clapton, george harrison, and a host of superstar musicians jamming madly – side five or side six. easy!
and whether it was intended or not, you would develop fondness for a particular side, if I use the beatles as example now, the white album: a double album, four "album sides" – I think everyone who owned it on vinyl, as I did, thinks of this record in terms of the side they love the most – for me that is undoubtedly side 3, because of the presence of so many amazing songs, and to this day, when I go to listen to the white album, I will often select "disc 2", and stop the disc after "long, long, long" – that's the old vinyl "side 3". birthday, yer blues, mother nature's son, everybody's got something to hide (except me and my monkey), sexy sadie, helter skelter, long, long, long – I will never forget that running order. that's my "side 3" of the white album…
it even allowed artists to name their albums in a peculiar way, for example, a normal, single vinyl LP by the raspberries was named "side 3" – because it was their third "side", third album (not because it had three sides…however…see below).
or, with a self-titled album from todd rundgren's utopia, where there were literally only three "sides" worth of music (because, in that case, that was all the songs they had)– the fourth side just being blank vinyl! – but, this practice goes way back, "second winter" by johnny winter, an album from the 1970s, is another example of a three-sided album…(my pal jim whitaker had this album, I never owned it, but I remember thinking "how peculiar"…that it had three sides…).
so: the compact disc isn't able to have "sides", so you do miss out on these peculiarities, some of which made for some very charming, entertaining and clever/artistic/unique ideas from musicians (or the artists representing the musicians)…and it's been a little bit more difficult to do this type of creative packaging in the CD format – difficult, but not impossible, and I am sure we could all cite examples of unusual and creative CD packaging, but, as clever as some of those are – there will never be anything quite like the vinyl album, with it's massive 12 X 12 inch canvas "work space", where musicians could create or have created, a lot of very large scale artwork to attract (or repel, as the case may be) potential customers.
and, you can no longer have three-sided albums, or even make jokes about having three "sides" as the raspberries did – actually, they were very serious, not really joking – you get one, one long block of time, for your digital music now, and that's the CD – here to stay I think; and despite a lot of vinyl purists' complaints about the sonic problems CDs allegedly have, I for one, do not miss….surface noise, crackles, pops, snaps, hiss, distortion, "vinyl warmth" and all the other problems that vinyl had – when I used to buy vinyl, I returned almost as much as I bought, because of these problems – I despised the idea of trying to listen to MUSIC…through a barrage of snap, crackle and pop. (michael dawson, you remember this!).
this became extreme during the oil crisis, when the quality of vinyl plummeted to new depths; and I can remember buying really quiet, ambient records like eno's "music for airports" –over and over again and and then immediately returning it, over and over again, until I got a copy that was only 2% noise instead of 17% noise.
even then, I would take the precaution of recording each and every record, once, to a high quality chrome cassette, and then NEVER playing the vinyl – and if the cassette died, then I had a near mint vinyl "master" to repopulate a new cassette. this system worked reasonably well – I would listen to the cassette, and put the once-played vinyl away for safe-keeping – but it should never have had to have been invented, the poor quality of vinyl made it unavoidable.
I recently found "crib notes" for transferring vinyl to cassette, where I timed out the spaces between songs, so I could quickly remove the crackling between tracks, so I would do a sort of "live mix" to cassette, removing the noise during the spaces between songs – talk about an extreme desire for SILENCE surrounding my music! but that's what I want – music, with silence in between. and blessedly – the CD gives us that! – so I consider it to be a modern miracle, because it actually solved this problem for me. as an ambient musician, I've struggled to acheive silence between my tracks, and in them when it makes sense, and it's difficult to keep noise, and clicks pops out of very quiet music…difficult, but not impossible.
I don't miss any of that crackle and pop nonsense, and buying a quiet album now (on CD, obviously!) is a pleasure instead of a test, I am just horrified by good, clean music being damaged by surface noise and crackles and pops – it totally spoiled my enjoyment, so I for one, will always love the CD format, long may it thrive…of course, some day, it WILL be superseded by something (although I cannot imagine what) but I am sure whatever that is will be spectacular.
since I have just finished recording "gone native", this question of "sides" and "concepts" has returned to haunt me, and I was feeling a bit regretful that there is no way now, when I go to have "gone native" pressed up, really, that I can have a two-sided record, because if this had been back in the vinyl days, I would have had a definite running order, a definite set of "loud" songs on side one, and a set of "quieter" songs on side two – but all I can do is make note of this on the CD sleeve; perhaps, leave a space or gap of seventeen seconds between the two "sides" – that might be one idea, I don't know, but I am regretting that just this once, for my ultimate guitar album, that I can't have it be "two-sided". oh well, this is progress I suppose…
the idea of "sides" really lends itself well to concepts, and for "gone native", it's not just loud and soft, rock and ambient – it's a lot more, it's also, to some extent, past and future: side one, is a set of rock/progressive rock songs I've developed over the past three and a half years, side two, more recent loops and experiments and examples of extreme guitaring – the future of dave stafford guitar, because the tracks on side two are the first examples of the work I will be working on going forward, including a lot of very exciting music using either soft synths – software synthesizers – and/or, application-based music, using iPad apps for guitar or iPad app synths…
sure, I can just "explain" that there are meant to be two sides, as I just did, and that's fine, but somehow, it's just not the same. I wish we had unlimited funds, because if we did, I would do a short run of heavyweight vinyl for "gone native" along with the CD run, which would mean I could then realise my vision for the "two-sided" version of the record. but – it's just a question of timing, if I had made this record in 1979 (when I probably should have) it may have been on vinyl with a "later" CD release…since it's going to (hopefully) come out in 2012, it will be CD only with alternate downloads.
…unless I can get 500 vinyl pre-orders (highly doubtful), that is not ever going to happen…but that's OK, my main concern is the music, and that is actually best delivered via download or via CD, not so much on vinyl 🙂
speaking of "gone native", there is going to be an unavoidable delay before I can continue to work required to actually get the record released, which frustrates me no end, as I've wanted to release this album for more than three years!
but I am just having to patient – I have multiple issues, from hardware failure (my main work laptop is now down, it does need a new fan I am afraid) to other unavoidable facts – such as – I haven't even begun to look at the artwork, which is holding me up, so that is what I am going to work on. unfortunately, an image I really wanted to use, is unavailable to me, so, I have to start over from square one…but, I have some ideas, so I am sure that will be sorted out soon enough.
I can't really move forward at all, broken laptop and all, without the artwork, so I can't even set up the downloads at this point in time, so unfortunately, I am just having to wait for the laptop to be repaired, work on the artwork over the weekend – but as soon as I am able to push the release forward, of course, I will!
there are other aspects of pre-release that I can work on, such as samples of the songs on the discography, other web site updates, etc. so I will be working on those while I am waiting for the main release to finally occur.
despite any delays or setbacks, I am really excited about the impending release of "gone native", more excited than I have been about any album of mine, for a long, long time; and I am pleased to say it looks like as well as making the album available for download in the pureambient store, that it appears that we will be able to produce a limited edition CD of some kind, so of course, once I have more information on that, I will let you know.
I think regardless of format, despite the fact that we've lost some of the idiosyncrasies of the vinyl album format, that the concept of "album", even without sides, still exists – people still think of a CD release as being an "album" (at least, I believe that older people do – not sure if younger people would maybe just call it a "CD" – I do not know) so I think the idea of an "album", as a collection, a scrapbook, a snapshot, a group of songs that serve a common purpose or denote a key theme, will be with us for a long time still.
that certainly describes "gone native" – it's a collection of songs and more abstract works, but in my mind, it's an album, and it will always be an album, regardless of what names get applied to it over the years.
I think that "changing formats" demands in turn, that we change in the way we think about music, and I look forward to whatever the next great innovation is, I've seen the vinyl album be replaced by the CD, I've then seen the CD partially replaced by the download (legal and illegal, I am afraid) and I am not sure what might be next – but I am betting that it will be very, very cool !
so – is the album dead? – I do not know; the album is dead <?!!?>, long live the album…
Leave a comment Posted in "guitar synthesizer", "prog rock", "progressive rock", "the music of the moment", "the ongoing work of music", active, ambient, current, listening, mixer, mixes, mixing, music, musicians, pop, pureambient, releases, rock, roland, SONAR, stereo, stompbox, synth, synthesizer Tagged "application based", "dave stafford", "drum machine", "e-bow guitar", "energy bow", "fairlight pro", "garage band", "gone native", "guitar synth", "guitar synthesizer", "hard rock", "johnny winter", "king crimson", "korg iKaossilator", "korg kaossilator", "looper", "looping", "m-tron pro", "Moog Filtatron", "prog rock", "progressive rock", "robert fripp", "the raspberries", "three-sided album", "todd rundgren's utopia", ambient, animoog, application, "korg iMS-20″, drone, e-bow, Filtatron, fripp, guitar, iKaossilator, iMS-20, iPad, kaossilator, korg, mellotron, MIDI, mixes, mixing, moog, nanostudio, nanosync, prog, pureambient, rock, sequencer, SONAR, synth, synthesizer, utopia, vinyl
the importance of the album "running order"
Posted by pureambient on July 9, 2012
first of all, I'd like to apologise for the length of time between posts – I can say happily that it's for a good reason – the work on "gone native", which is getting closer and closer to reality every day – the work continues.
secondly, I just want to mention that further down in this posts, there are links to both audio and videos that feature on gone native, so if there is to be a "sneak preview" of the album, this is it – three excerpts of earlier demos of songs from side one, and a few videos for tracks from side two of the record – the ambient/experimental side – so please check out the links below.
third – here we go:
because of the continuing work on the pre-production of "gone native", various topics surrounding releases keep coming to mind, and this is one topic that I have long held as significant – I really feel that the very best records are made or broken by the order in which the songs are presented.
I know for a fact that george martin worked very closely with the beatles to establish the best possible running order for each beatles album (even including the very early ones!), and lennon went on to say later, how appalled he was by the re-ordering of tracks on the beatles "albums" created by capitol america for the american teenage market in the early 1960s – how the beatles had chosen the songs for the british albums with care, in a very specific running order for very specific musical reasons – and then capitol america just ignored that completely, releasing songs out of sequence in the bizarrely constructed "capitol masters" series. (and, myself being born american, now british, I grew up hearing those wrong, incorrect, bastardised capitol "versions"..a fact that fills me with a gentle horror now – and even in that very wrong form, that music WAS still brilliant…). note: that did NOT stop me from buying the capitol masters vol. I so I could hear them in that childhood-memory order!
it was not until I was fully adult that I realised that I had been…swindled in this way, that I had never heard the beatles albums properly, the way the beatles intended – so, in 1987, when they did the first release of the beatles albums on CDs, I bought them all – and was amazed to find, for example, that "yellow submarine" is actually a track from "revolver", and other similar, remarkable running-order discoveries – the british records make SENSE; the running orders make much more musical sense when heard in the original british releases…
now that I am used to them, the british ones seem right, the american, wrong (so what's new there?) but I'm here more specifically to talk about running orders in general, not for the beatles, so shifting back to that topic…
in the here and now, the running order of "gone native" is something I've given considerable thought to, and it's ended up, by intent, partially chronological (side one), but partially, musical (side two) – so the earliest rock songs begin the record, with the very first rock song recorded, "thanks frank" (remarkably, originally recorded, in a tour de force I-can't-believe-I-nailed-that-guitar-part take one, in november, 2008 !!) in the lead-off position – followed immediately by my first two pieces featuring all of my "new" 2009 tech: sonar 4, the line 6 x3 live, and the m-tron pro mellotron – "open to anything" and "force of nature". these were the earliest songs created using these exciting new tools, which soon led to much more sophisticated song construction: more complex pieces still followed: "wettonizer", "sinuous thread" and "what are souls made of"; full-on multi track extravaganzas, including not only mellotrons but real bass, and lots and lots and LOTS of guitars…
having the m-tron pro mellotron soft synth available was hugely inspirational, and I was working simultaneously on several active tracks for "gone native" that rely on the presence of the mellotron to bring the mostly rock / prog / guitar-based work to life, and at the same time, I was creating the all-mellotron, all m-tron pro created ambient album "sky full of stars" (released in late 2011) – so getting that mellotron made so much difference to both my active music and my ambient music – I don't know what I would do without it now, and, it's also a huge part of the upcoming "scorched by the sun" record, "dreamtime" – where I have overdubbed m-tron pro "mellotrons" onto bryan helm's remarkable series of basic tracks – so again, the m-tron pro has shown it's worth in that project as well as my own two album projects…
for the tracks on "gone native" that feature mellotron (most of the songs on side one do) it might be anything from the simple flute part at the end of "force of nature", to complex overlays of black sabbath sound effects in "sinuous thread" – despite the fact that this is primarily an album about guitar, guitar, and more guitar, the addition of the mellotron parts, in all of the songs where it appears, gives the pieces a unique atmosphere that would be hard to create using any "ordinary" soft synth – the m-tron pro is unique, and it will always be my "go-to" soft synth – always.
– and then – life happened, and I wasn't able to work on the album for many, many months – time then was often spent doing definitive mixes of all of the above mentioned songs, especially "wettonizer", "sinuous thread" and "whatever souls are made of" – those three cost me weeks and weeks of time, particularly the very sonically dense mix of "wettonizer"…but in time, I nailed it (with a lot of remote help from california, by the way, from my good friend and business partner ken mistove).
eventually, I went back to work on the record, spending quite some time working out the curiously reverse-engineered "this is a test" – I had a guitar solo, made when I first got the line 6 x3 pedal, just the solo, by itself, that I really liked, so I set out to create a song based on this solo, adding first drums, then bass, then many guitar synths, until I had built up a real song. using another piece from the 2009 x3 sessions, an unreleased ambient loop of ebow guitars, I also added that to the piece, so it's a rock song with an ambient loop outro, a most unusual combination – and it's one of the highlights of the record – possibly because of it's unique, reverse-engineered construction, and beautiful ambient outro.
"gone native", the album's title track, took quite a long time to gestate, but it was well worth it, it was begun pre-guitar synth, and completed post-guitar synth, so it is sort of a hybrid, it's a "standard" dave stafford prog/rock piece, leaning heavily towards the "rock" side – drums, bass, mellotron and lots of guitars – but then that guitar synth came along, giving me organ/guitar hybrid solos, cellos, thunderstorms and other amazing sounds to combine with my phase-shifted mellotron flutes – all contributing to one of the most remarkable pieces of music I've ever had the honour of working on – it's just one of those tracks that you know is right – it's just right!
then, when I had a block of time to actually work on the record this summer, I took a some pieces from early 2011 (one fully produced piece involving drums and classical instruments, from the guitar synth, of course "caladan"; one guitar piece with overdubbed solo – "flying solo", one piece involving four different guitar synths mixed into one song "sun willow quartet" – adding drums to the latter two), recorded when I first got the roland gr-55 guitar synth, and the next three rock pieces were complete…
"junction" is the penultimate track on side one: a song I would find difficult to describe in words, so suffice to say, it reminds me of early to middle period bill nelson (and it also makes a vague musical reference to "secret ceremony" by bill nelson, but only roughly)…it also contains a roving "bill nelson/maps of dreams" style bass guitar – but, call it "bill nelson done dave stafford/guitar synth style" if you must call it anything at all.
at the moment, I am struggling with this part of the record, the next and final piece on side one, "flying solo" did not translate well when compressed to a test MP3, I am getting some distortion from the rhythm guitar tracks, and further investigation shows me that the original track does seem to have some inherent distortion, so I need to sit down properly with the multi track master, and see what my options are. if I can't fix that guitar, I would either have to re-record it – not necessarily possible, since it was an improvised take, but possible, or, if I really can't solve it, I might have to remove the track entirely – which would be a shame, as it has a nice legato solo in it that I really like.
update: a further remix of the original "flying solo" did not solve the problem – well, the wav file sounds fine, but it doesn't compress well, so the MP3 still distorts, so now the plan is to re-record the rhythm guitar – which is maybe a good thing. so I would take the drums and the solo, and "underdub" a rhythm guitar – strange, but possible…we shall see!
this running order works for me, because it's basically chronological – five original rock/prog pieces from 2009 first, then, one reverse engineered piece from 2009 completed in 2010, and finally, five more drum-based pieces from early 2011 rounding out the side – eleven tracks that "are" side one of the album:
"gone native", side one:
thanks, frank
open to anything
wettonizer
sinuous thread
caladan
sun willow quartet
<<<flying solo>>> repair, re-record, replace, remove?
so for me, the driving force behind the running order of side one, was to show a musical progression – plus, these are all rock, rock/prog, or drum-based pieces (and you can hear the progression in the music, it gets more and more sophisticated, and hopefully, more and more interesting, along the way…) as well as sticking to a rough chronology, whereas side two is a completely different animal…
side two, on the other hand, was entirely conceived and constructed during the current session, during the summer 2012 mastering/mix sessions for the album, drawing mostly on music created between march 2011 and the present. since this is a shorter time span we are covering, and I was wanting to demonstrate some very different guitar sounds, styles and approaches, I decided to not stick to the chronological model this time, but instead, to base the running order of side two more on the style of the music itself.
now, it had always been in my head that the ambient mix of "whatever souls are made of" would be the final song on the album (although in the end, it's not quite the final track…), and that idea stuck, and in the final assessment, it's a good call – it achieves a number of things: it brings us back to a more song-based area after the rather unusual sonic experiments that are side two, and, it brings us full circle back to a 2009 composition, it "ties back in" with side one – so that device works as intended.
so what to put "in front of" that final track, since I had decided on the "ending" first? I just looked at what I had recorded over the past many months, and made decisions based solely on musical merit, performance appeal, and uniqueness – or some combination thereof.
to begin then, I definitely wanted some ambient pieces, just a few, to demonstrate at least some part of the mostly ambient musical world I've been inhabiting since about 1989; I also wanted to include a few very unique examples of some very unique guitar styles, some specialised pieces; just as side one delivers a broad range of guitar information in the "song" format; side two delivers a different range of guitar information in some more exotic and unusual forms, including ambient, looped and treated music.
"salusa secundus", the first track on side two, is what I would call "semi-ambient", it's ambient in nature, but there is still a fair amount of musical activity in the piece – yet, the overall effect is ambient. this was a piece I built up very quickly in one day, by layering guitar synth parts, and it just happened very organically – there were no re-takes, I just added parts until it was "right" – including a very occasional bass guitar, carefully timed to work with the guitar synth parts in a particular pattern. It uses some particularly beautiful guitar synth patches that include pitched up guitars and wind chimes (always a lovely sound) and I just like the feel and the spontaneity of the piece – it was always going to be on this record, it just "belongs somehow", and it's a great way to introduce the ambient section of the record. the thunderstorm patch, previously heard in the title track, also makes a return appearance, and then that single, ominous bass guitar note keeps appearing…
the next track on side two is a very, very unusual one, "desert power I (drone mix)"; it's a live loop, originally done as a video for youtube, that I then took the audio mix and ran it through a special resonant filter (using the breeze plug-in in sonar) to create an utterly unique and very strange alternate "mix" of the song – all of the normal guitar sound has been replaced with a wonderful, buzzing drone that I really like the sound of – and, it's a very unique sounding piece, like nothing you have ever heard (I hope) – perhaps reminiscent of early fripp & eno? – if it is similar to anything at all.
track three on side two is "cinematique I", a piece similar in character to "salusa secundus" but realised in a completely different way – a totally live loop, one guitar synthesizer, looped, but inhabiting a slightly darker, more dissonant musical space than "salusa secundus" does – so this one might be comparable to a later robert fripp soundscape – and it's created the same way – a completely live, ambient, dissonant, loop. this is perhaps the most dissonant piece on the record – and I have at various times in my career, over the years, created a number of very, very dissonant loops, far more dissonant than any of the pieces here, but I think it is essential that at least one such piece be included to show the "darker side" of dave stafford looping.
and speaking of that dark side, next comes "the gemenon blues (long form)" which is certainly one of the strangest pieces of music I have ever recorded, it's an almost eight minute long live guitar synth looping performance, where I create a backing loop of a sound called "crims-o-tron" on the fly, and once that's established itself, eventually, I play a live solo on top of the loop, which I then also loop, so the piece starts out very dark and strange, then, a thick, sinuous guitar solo appears, and is then joined by many more looped guitar solos, and the whole thing is incredibly atmospheric – and I am happy to have a few live pieces on side two (desert power I (drone mix), cinematique I, the gemenon blues (long form), wide open spaces), that represent what can be done with one guitar – or one guitar synth – the roland GR-55 – and one good looper – the roland RC-50 – you can get some remarkably full recordings out of that combo!
next, comes something so completely different that it's almost indescribable, it's a studio piece, a multi track work, but, it's composed entirely of loops and sounds made using the korg kaossilator, the miniature x-y pad synthesizer, and this piece, "zencouraging", was a complete surprise to me, as I had created it one day back in december, 2011, and then immediately, completely forgotten it's existence, and when I was looking back over the last year or so of tracks for material to include on side two of "gone native", I happened upon it, many, many months later.
it's one of those songs that you cannot describe in words, it does have drum loops in it so it's not truly ambient, yet, it's so atmospheric, it has a beautiful, deep, deep synth bass that is so incredibly sonic, you almost feel it more than you hear it, and it's melodies are very, very distinctive. because there are no keys or strings, there is a certain "kaoss pad" melodic style that is unmistakable although very hard to describe in writing – the synth melodies are less distinct than they would be with a key or string triggered device – they have a sort of wonderful "fuzziness" of pitch. this piece is truly a one of a kind, it contains no guitars whatsoever, but it, surprisingly, it fits in beautifully with the various loops and experiments on side two – a real standout track in my opinion.
switching gears again, the next piece, "wide open spaces" (video forthcoming), was almost an accident, I was testing out an ipad application for guitarists called "ampkit +" and during the trial, I recorded three different energy bow guitar solos, and this one moves from mournful to joyful to lyrical, a weaving, sliding melody.
it's not ambient e-bow, as I've mostly done historically, but instead, it is an intentionally active, melodic guitar solo – using the e-bow. of the three ebow pieces recorded on that day, I felt that "wide open spaces" was best – although all three are quite good – and it seemed to me to be a good, upbeat-feeling piece to start to bring the record back around to it's more upbeat beginning – to the next and penultimate piece, "whatever souls are made of (ambient mix)".
"souls (ambient)" is just that, the full song appearing on side one of the record, but with all of it's melody e-bow guitars, bass, and drums, removed; leaving only the backing layers of looped and layered energy bow, which create a fantastic empty shell, that sounds wonderful with or without those overlaid instruments – so it's a reprise, a chance to experience the song in a very different, far more atmospheric way, and it's one of my very favourite pieces on the record (in either guise, if I am honest).
originally, the record was meant to end with "whatever souls are made of (ambient mix)" – and nominally, it still does, in terms of tracks proper. however, I had a live guitar track, or rather, part of a track, that I really wanted to include on the album, but it wasn't quite an actual standalone piece, so, included as a "hidden track" a couple of minutes after the conclusion of "souls" (ambient)", you get the remarkable "a plague of frogs (coda)" – which is literally just the "delay tail out" of an active piece of guitar originally recorded for a youtube video.
so, I played this piece of active guitar, ended suddenly on an e flat chord, and I had set up the digitech time bender delay to create this amazing delay "tail", which sounds like a chorus of frogs – so I just snipped out the frog chorus only, faded it in and out, prefaced it with 2:17 of pure silence; and this "hidden track" then came to life – just to add a bit of unusual atmosphere to very, very end of the record.
"gone native", side two:
salusa secundus
desert power I (drone mix)
cinematique I
the gemenon blues (long form)
zencourage
whatever souls are made of (ambient mix)
hidden track: a plague of frogs (coda)
I am hoping that by talking through the reasons and the logic behind my two very different running orders, I can demonstrate here just how important running orders can be, and in this case, how important running orders are to me.
because I grew up in the era of vinyl albums, to me, an album has a certain musical identity that is in part dictated by the songs on it, but almost equally importantly, by the order in which those songs is presented.
what would the beatles' "revolver" sound like with something other than "taxman" as it's lead off track? for some unknown reason, it was decided to put george's song first, and that is so iconic, "revolver" is almost defined by that odd count in – that was actually added onto the beginning of the track – and I can't imagine those songs in ANY other order – I really can't – and in the same way, for my own music, which of course I do spend a lot of time creating and then compiling into albums, I have a very, very definite running order in mind – that's the way it works out.
I am aware that some artists and bands do not care about running order, leaving that decision to producer or even manager, but I personally disagree with that, you need to care about the presentation of your songs, and the order in which the customer hears them – while it may seem trivial, it's actually hugely important, because this one album might be the only record of yours that they ever hear – so you want to make a good impression!
I personally believe that running orders are very, very important, and I take them very seriously even if other artists and bands – do not – that's fine, but for me, I will always care about this, and each time I collect songs together into a new album, I will always spend the time to work out what the very best running order for those songs is, to optimise the listener's experience – and in the case of "gone native", I've done all I can to make it as enjoyable and as logical as possible.
first you rock, past, present and future (tracks 1 – 11) ; then you rest (tracks 12 – 14); then you explore (tracks 15 – 16); then you arrive full circle back to the ambient shell of one of the earliest pieces (track 17); then finally, a detached chorus of electronic frogs (hidden track 18) whisks you away to an unknown musical future of as-yet-undreamed musical ideas…
who says running orders are not important? it's in my nature to care about every aspect of the music I present, and that includes the order that those pieces reach your ears – the best order I can imagine given my knowledge of the tracks themselves…no chaos, instead: logical, orderly, sensible, and – delivered and presented with a real sense of quality.
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