KVR Audio

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 1:36 am

I haven't had much time for making music lately, so it was with great relief that I eventually managed to produce a (hopefully) appropriate piece to mark the untimely passing of one of my early influences, Edgar Froese. I've always been captivated by the '72-'83 era Tangerine Dream, and I hope this track can reproduce some of the vibes of their '70s work.

Most of the synths on here are presets from Arturia's ModularV (the sequencer preset is by K. Schulze). All of the 'tron sounds are RedTron_SE.

EDIT:20221201 mp3 link removed

Partially obscured by clouds:-

https://soundcloud.com/whatsisname/refraktor

Gear and Gadgets

recorded/mixed and pre-mastered in EnergyXT2.7 - Mastered in T-Racks 3

ModularV2
Redtron_SE
Lounge Lizard EP4
SampleTank2
FMERA2
EVM Ultrasonique
Amphetamine
DominatorCM
Eos
Satin
T-Racks Linear Phase EQ
T-Racks Opto Compressor
T-Racks Vintage Equalizer
T-Racks Brickwall Limiter

DR - 10

EDIT:20221201

I remastered "Refraktor" in T-Racks-5 in May 2022 after seeing some ever-so-slightly high peak amplitudes in the original 2016 master. I'm planning an album release for this in 2023.

https://soundcloud.com/whatsisname/refr ... ks5-master

recorded/mixed and pre-mastered in EnergyXT2.7 - Mastered in T-Racks 5

ModularV2
Redtron_SE
Lounge Lizard EP4
SampleTank2
FMERA2
EVM Ultrasonique
Amphetamine
DominatorCM
Eos
Satin
T-Racks Linear Phase EQ
T-Racks Opto Compressor
T-Racks Vintage Equalizer
T-Racks Brickwall Limiter

DR - 10

kryptonaut · Post by **kryptonaut** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:06 am

This is great - I love your choice of sounds. The piece is highly reminiscent of TD at their best. Good stuff!

PatchAdamz · Post by **PatchAdamz** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 5:56 pm

Reminds me of some of the BETTER Tangerine Dream.

Nice build and good tones.

Really like the Arp!

Allomerus · Post by **Allomerus** » Tue Jan 05, 2016 4:01 am

Great tribute to TD and Froese. Beautiful sounds and wonderfully composed...
I like the way you have a chord progression that is heading in one direction and then an unexpected chord appears!
Headphones a must to appreciate the track.
Great stuff.

Frantz · Post by **Frantz** » Tue Jan 05, 2016 9:46 pm

Love it!

More feedback later when time permits.

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Wed Jan 06, 2016 3:18 am

kryptonaut wrote:This is great - I love your choice of sounds. The piece is highly reminiscent of TD at their best. Good stuff!

Thanks very much for taking the time to listen and comment, kryptonaut. Glad you enjoyed it

All of the synth sounds were presets, some of which I made some very minor envelope adjustments to. One of the 'tron sounds was a minor mod too. I had to be quite careful with the eq on the strings. The bass notes contain a discernible tape "whump" on the attack phase, which was quite noticeable during the quieter sections.

Aleatoriac · Post by **Aleatoriac** » Wed Jan 06, 2016 4:51 am

I'm settled in for a nice long stretch, with some hot cocoa...

2:20 in nice and floaty, something is emerging... My kind of music

Man this is awesome. I love being alive right now, all this awesome music. It was *sooo* hard to get the good stuff when I was a kid.

Thank you for making this and sharing it.

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Fri Jan 08, 2016 2:54 am

PatchAdamz wrote:Reminds me of some of the BETTER Tangerine Dream.

Nice build and good tones.

Really like the Arp!

Thanks very much for listening and the great comments, Patch. Glad you liked it

I was a little concerned that the length of this would dissuade listeners, but that seems not to have been the case.

The arp is a preset which I varied by means of differing note lengths. It was actually a lot of fun to put those sequences together.

PatchAdamz · Post by **PatchAdamz** » Fri Jan 08, 2016 4:16 am

seismic1 wrote:
PatchAdamz wrote:Reminds me of some of the BETTER Tangerine Dream.

Nice build and good tones.

Really like the Arp!
Thanks very much for listening and the great comments, Patch. Glad you liked it

I was a little concerned that the length of this would dissuade listeners, but that seems not to have been the case.

The arp is a preset which I varied by means of differing note lengths. It was actually a lot of fun to put those sequences together.

What synth/s did you use for the arps?

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Sun Jan 10, 2016 3:58 am

Allomerus wrote:Great tribute to TD and Froese. Beautiful sounds and wonderfully composed...
I like the way you have a chord progression that is heading in one direction and then an unexpected chord appears!
Headphones a must to appreciate the track.
Great stuff.

Thanks very much for listening and commenting, John. Glad you enjoyed it

I like throwing in the occasional curve-ball chord. I try to use them in my regular "beat-driven" tracks, but they have more impact during the softer pieces where they are more "exposed".

It's funny that you mention headphones. I don't normally use them during the composition phase and only use them for 5% of the mix/mastering phases when making these tracks. Just before Christmas I bought a pair of DT990 Pro 'phones, and I really like the sound of them. I often find myself listening to music with these, even when there is not a requirement to do so. I'm quite happy with the sound of my monitors and HiFi, but the phones are enticingly good. I think I used these for 10% of the composition process and 20% of the mix/mastering for Refraktor. I'm not sure it had any real effect on the final sound here, but I think it will in the future. I'm definitely going to use these more extensively for mixing my third album.

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Mon Jan 11, 2016 2:55 am

Frantz wrote: Love it!

More feedback later when time permits.

I shall look forward to that. Glad you liked it, Frantz

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Wed Jan 13, 2016 2:50 am

Codestation wrote:I'm settled in for a nice long stretch, with some hot cocoa...
2:20 in nice and floaty, something is emerging... My kind of music

Man this is awesome. I love being alive right now, all this awesome music. It was *sooo* hard to get the good stuff when I was a kid.

Thank you for making this and sharing it.

I hope the cocoa stayed warm until the end

Thanks very much for the listen and the wonderful comments. Glad you enjoyed it

It was great to finally make a track in this style, without wandering too far from the original script.

Frantz · Post by **Frantz** » Wed Jan 13, 2016 3:14 am

This is a wonderful track. On listen #9 now according to my MP3 player. It builds slowly at first with some dissonant chords adding to the tension. Perhaps I've got Bowie on the brain* in light of recent news but I'm getting pleasant hints of Warszawa at 5:43. Any Chamberlin sounds or is this all Mellotron? There is real excitement, like the first flashes of lightning before a storm, when the sequencers threaten to kick in at 7:17. Fantastic work at 12:12 when the sequencers quiet down for a moment to give the Mellotron choir room to sing. There are really too many highlights to mention.

The mix is perfect. Great job!

* When Bowie moved to Berlin, he met with Edgar several times to help him get situated and probably to find out about synthesizers. Bowie was a big fan of "Epsilon in Malaysian Pale."

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Fri Jan 15, 2016 2:29 am

PatchAdamz wrote:
seismic1 wrote:
PatchAdamz wrote:Reminds me of some of the BETTER Tangerine Dream.

Nice build and good tones.

Really like the Arp!
Thanks very much for listening and the great comments, Patch. Glad you liked it

I was a little concerned that the length of this would dissuade listeners, but that seems not to have been the case.

The arp is a preset which I varied by means of differing note lengths. It was actually a lot of fun to put those sequences together.
What synth/s did you use for the arps?

The arps all came from two instances of a slightly modded K. Schulze preset from Arturia ModularV

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Tue Jan 19, 2016 3:17 am

Frantz wrote:This is a wonderful track. On listen #9 now according to my MP3 player. It builds slowly at first with some dissonant chords adding to the tension. Perhaps I've got Bowie on the brain* in light of recent news but I'm getting pleasant hints of Warszawa at 5:43. Any Chamberlin sounds or is this all Mellotron? There is real excitement, like the first flashes of lightning before a storm, when the sequencers threaten to kick in at 7:17. Fantastic work at 12:12 when the sequencers quiet down for a moment to give the Mellotron choir room to sing. There are really too many highlights to mention.

The mix is perfect. Great job!

* When Bowie moved to Berlin, he met with Edgar several times to help him get situated and probably to find out about synthesizers. Bowie was a big fan of "Epsilon in Malaysian Pale."

listen #9

That's dedication right there

Dissonance is kinda interesting. I love a good melody, but I just can't seem to resist slipping these oddball harmonies into pieces recently. It seems to work fairly well with quasi-ambient stylings. Maybe I'll try throwing some of this into some of my more techno-oriented stuff. It may be worth a try.

This was written before the sad news about David Bowie, but Warszawa is one of those tracks I can never get enough of. All of these sounds are 'tron samples from RedTron_SE, which I can't praise highly enough. The realism is staggering, right down to the sound of the heads hitting the tapes.

This sequencing lark is good fun. I'm just using one arp on here and using the note-lengths to provide variation of the sequences.

The law of averages helped me out at 12:12. Make a track long enough and something like that is bound to happen eventually

I think I recall reading an interview with Froese in Melody Maker in the late '70s where he talked about Bowie in Berlin.

Thanks very much for taking the time to listen and comment, Frantz. It is much appreciated, and I'm glad you liked it

Refraktor (ElectroProg - Seismic Deformation)