Using my analog hardware was a great joy during the album production, but i thought that it still could be improved. Each piece was directly connected to my audio interface and whenever i wanted to use two devices i had to go throgh ad/da conversion and was adding more latency… therefore i often didnt…

Because my working style is dependend on total recall i didnt need to put each device on a differnt track or bus an so i came up with the idea of an analog audio router. It can route audio from 2 different stereo busses to 5 stereo devices including a wet/dry mix stage and several other gimmicks…

Its the black 1RU piece of gear with the white LEDs under the blue germanium compressors. And it works great Now i can instantly try out different devices, combine them like a freak and drive everything a lot hotter… Including saturation to distortion of tubes, transformers and a variety of transistors.

before

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after

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I know that i will going to have a lot of fun with this little sucker

Some time ago i read Philip K. Dick´s Stories (Ubik and a lot of short stories) and was very excited to learn that this genius had all those ideas we know from movies of the last thirty years in the 1950-1960s…

One basic thread often used in his works is the idea of artifical intelligence… and inspired by his short stories i wanted to produce a song with the voice of an AI. The idea behind the text is, that in future some supercomputer calculated what is really important to mankind. And what is not.

Imagine a time where you dont comunicate with a computer by typing on a keyboard, but with a direct neural interface… then think about how millions of powerful computers all work in a network and people think it is a great idea to give this supercomputer a gift we call “creativity”… and by its mere defintion that means that you never know what this AI will “think” in the end…

Maybe it sees people struggling with their imperfect bodies and damned to die one day… It may seem a great idea to this supercomputer to “download” all these minds into a server and give them immortality… Therefore a computer generated female voice explains to man: “Your physical existence is no longer of importance”

The name of the song and the text refer to silicon valley as the “valley of birth” of the AI (which itself talks in plural about “them”) and the “final destination” for mankind. One side aspect is that the AI might think that it also improves mankind in creating a superorganism by using all these minds and consciousnesses as nodes for a meta-mind…

This kind of horror scenario needed a calm, nice female voice and Doris Lauerwald seemed perfect for it. The only problem was, that the sound was too direct and too “perfect”… it sounded like an advertising… until i “destroyed” it technically… I didnt only use EQ and compression like i also would with vocals, i played it back in my room and recorded the speaker with a little handheld recorder while moving… this way, and with some effects added, it was just what i wanted it to be… a voice hard to locate, from a moving speaker, with a voice that sounded like a friendly stewardess - a kind of computervoice i would NEVER trust

Here is the original recording of the voice:

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And this is the re-recorded, edited version that was used in the song:

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The last step of music production is mastering. A process where a (hopefully) skilled mastering engineer tries to improve a finished mix. Its like “photoshopping” for music

The main tools are technically the same as when you are mixing a song - only that in mixing you use these tools for the many sound sources and in mastering you put them on the whole finished mix.

My choice for mastering this album was Steffen Müller. A good old friend living in a little rural city called Viersen. He is also a musician and one of his earlier projects was Microwave Prince - he even did a redemption remix back in 1994… Today he concentrates on mastering and building his own gear - my 1176 clone was build by him as well.

The usual procedure was cutting the resonances with a digital EQ, enhancing some frequencies with his sontec and pultec clone EQs, thickening through an opto compressor, sometimes parallel compression with an 1176 (where i was riding the fader while recording… giving it more dynamic than usual), giving some “glue” with an ssl compressor clone and finally digitally limiting…

The fun thing was that he uses B&W 802 speakers for monitoring and he likes to work with a rather high volume

It was quite dark in there but that didnt harm the ability to listen to the music. The actual size of Steffen´s mastering studio isnt recognizeable in this photo. For instance the screen you see is a 30″ cinema display and the devices in front of Steffen are two rows of 19″ wide rack gear…

Here is a small snippet from song number 9 - BLINDING LIES - BEFORE mastering

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Here is the same part as it will sound on the CD - AFTER mastering

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Its louder and more punchy but also has a bigger bass…

I am really happy to announce that THIRTEEN STORIES is the best sounding electronic record i was ever involved in

i thought you might like to have a look into the studio i have been mixing several songs in… its the studio of two friends writing and producing advertising music under the name of AS MUSIC…

its really a nice place to work

AS MUSIC, Düsseldorf, Germany

i am working on a song right now that uses a UAD MOOG Filter in the drum bus to give the drums more kick in the mids… this is how the setting (and some automation for the break) looks like

as the arrows show its a highpassfilter with envelope-modulation mixed into the dry signal…

this is how the drums sound dry - that is without the filter

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this is the signal generated by the MOOG filter

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and this is the same part with a 40/60 mix

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here is a longer snippet demonstrating the automation of the mix parameter in the break as can be seen in the picture above…

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Today i started tuning glasses by filling them with water VODKA. I now experiment with playing techniques and hope to find a kind of sound not to be found in any existing sample library…

here are the “singing glasses”… its only layers of recordings of those glasses and one synth sound (from second 55 on)… no sampling involved for now…

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What is an iLok ? An iLok is a thumb sized piece of plastic to insert into an usb slot to ensure that you can NOT use your expensivly bought software…

In my case the dongle is still working for most of the software secured with it but every week a new plug in ceases to function. Which means that i have to mail the iLok to the states and wait weeks before i can go on working on any of my existing songs…

On the other hand i am forced to begin new songs from scratch which leads to even more stuff to select from… But it will further delay the final production… Guess it will be october then…

exploring the new garritan steinway virtual piano… part 1

Yesterday, with the comments about fast tempo in mind, i programmed a little beat with the ezDrummer plug in with several variations. The tempo is 148 bpm

 

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Nice, but not too interesting… so i put my favourite drum-smash-compressor on it (an 1176 clone with “all buttons in mode”) cut the deep bass, added a 909 kick and some other sounds and that is the result

 

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Listen to what the 1176 clone compressor does to the drums and the reverb of the drum-room and you might understand why compressors are amongst my favourite tools. I always liked this smashed drumsound which reminds of led zepplin and is used in small doses in most harder rock mixes. You might notice a similarity concerning the drumsound to a track in the 90s with a sample about “women and kids” but in those days i only used sample-loops which already were slammed. I didnt know about the right tools to make such a sound by myself. Today with a 1176 clone and a great drumsampler like ezDrummer i make my own loops

BTW: I am really looking forward for toontrack to release Superior 2.0 this june - its the BIG version of ezDrummer and will shure make me programming drums for days

 

 

Sound Sources i am going to use are: Plug In Synths, Plug In Sampler, Loops and Recordings.

Recordings will obviously be the fun part and will be described when done. Planned are recordings of manipulated guitars, room ambience, guitar amps and percussion including improvised stuff like bottles, cans, boxes, furniture, my belly…

Loops are the boring part and therefore ignored.

Plug In Sampler i constantly use are the Kontakt 3, Battery 3 and the EXS of LOGIC Pro. I also have a great selection of selfmade and/or edited sampled percussion and drums. Gymnastic equipment through a tube eq for example…

Plug In Synths are also often from my Native Instruments Komplete 5 like Absynth 4, FM 8, Massive… But there are others i really love to explore like LOGIC Pros ES2 + Sculpture (Physical Model Synth), the ImpOscar and u-he Zebra 2 <– thats a tip for the interested too !