KVR Audio

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Wed May 20, 2015 2:49 am

Some people in Belgium have re-released my first 7" single from 1987, as a limited edition, coloured vinyl 12" with extra tracks or as a digital download. You can check it out here - https://deathlyquiet.bandcamp.com/

When they got in touch last year I thought it was a wind-up, so I mostly ignored it, but they were persistent and I eventually realised they were dead-serious about it. So I sent them a pristine copy of the original vinyl plus some other tracks from the same recording session and a few other old demos I still had kicking around. They chose the tracks they wanted and made up a 12" EP from it all.

When I originally recorded it in 1986, I had only been playing live for a year or so, and I didn't really think I was anywhere near ready to release anything, but a couple of friends had money burning a hole in their pockets so I let them pay for the recording and pressing. (Generous of me, I know.) I was still in the Army at the time, serving in Townsville, and the only half-decent studio around was 350km up the coast in Cairns. I drove all the way up there for two consecutive weekends. We recorded 6 songs on the first weekend and mixed them on the second.

By the time it was released, around 8 or 9 months later, I had a whole new set-up and I thought my live sound was now better than the recording so I never really listened to it. That persisted until these Belgians started hassling me, so when I finally got around to digging it all out, I was surprised at how well produced it is. Needless to say, I'm rubbish but the sound is much better than I remembered or appreciated. The two guys in Cairns did a brilliant job of making me sound much better than I had any right to.

The EP is a bit of a mixed bag. There are three songs from those original recordings - theNEXTstep, ArmageddonREADY! and STATEyou'reIN - plus a later version of ArmageddonREADY!, a newer version of a really old song called GOD, and SAVEme, which is a much later recording of a much newer song (but probably the best thing I've ever written). I think STATEyou'reIN was my best song of that time and it still stands up pretty well, I think. At the time I was saving it for when I got a little better at what I was doing (because I'm an idiot).

All this has got me semi-motivated to dig out a lot more of my old stuff and maybe put it up where people can buy it. It kind of annoys me that the old single is up on YouTube half-a-dozen times but none of the later albums, stuff I am actually happy with, shows up anywhere on the interwebs. So I can fix that by putting it all out there for everyone to ignore at their lesiure.

What's probably most amazing about it all, though, is that most of it has come from cassette. Only the two original tracks have come from vinyl, everything else was taken from 30 year old cassettes. I bought a reconditioned cassette deck for $70 and digitised all this stuff with the Dolby noise reduction switched off, which allows a lot more of the high end through, then ran it through the noise removal effect in Audition, which is a phenomenally good tool. The results are quite amazing and the Belgians seem to have got someone who knows their stuff to master it all.

And no, obviously I'm not dead.

trimph1 · Post by **trimph1** » Wed May 20, 2015 3:12 am

Great stuff there!! Glad you still are around.

Deep Purple · Post by **Deep Purple** » Wed May 20, 2015 1:23 pm

BONES wrote:What's probably most amazing about it all, though, is that most of it has come from cassette. Only the two original tracks have come from vinyl, everything else was taken from 30 year old cassettes. I bought a reconditioned cassette deck for $70 and digitised all this stuff with the Dolby noise reduction switched off, which allows a lot more of the high end through, then ran it through the noise removal effect in Audition, which is a phenomenally good tool. The results are quite amazing and the Belgians seem to have got someone who knows their stuff to master it all.

That's pretty cool - there are a lot more releases now that are way better in quality than anything taken from cassette or vinyl a few years ago.

I have some older CDs that sound awful because of the source, but have some more recent ones that have rescued a pretty decent sound from a dubious source.

Glad to hear you're pleased with the results.

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Wed May 20, 2015 2:51 pm

Great news! Congratulations on the new/old release.

Also, I concur with the noise removal in Audition. I often have to film interviews in conference rooms directly underneath air conditioning vents, which makes it sound like a wind tunnel. Grabbing a noise print in Audition cleans it right up every time.

rp314 · Post by **rp314** » Thu May 21, 2015 1:58 am

trimph1 wrote:Glad you still are around.

Plus One.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Tue May 26, 2015 7:21 am

So not one single person has been bothered to go and have a listen? That's pretty poor.

Maadfoo · Post by **Maadfoo** » Tue May 26, 2015 8:20 am

I like the song. It has a certain sound of Neue Deutsche Welle...one of my favourite genres nowadays.

Bonteburg · Post by **Bonteburg** » Tue May 26, 2015 3:24 pm

Nice!!

I've always been a sucker for those 160bpm-and-up 80s dark tunes. (Not saying the slower ones in that EP aren't good...)

I love how you kept it minimal, esp. on the drums.

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Tue May 26, 2015 3:32 pm

Excellent stuff

I see original copies of the 7" from 1987 go for €70-80 per copy at discogs

KingClarkie · Post by **KingClarkie** » Tue May 26, 2015 4:01 pm

BONES wrote:So not one single person has been bothered to go and have a listen? That's pretty poor.

I had a listen the day you posted this thread so I'm not sure how you're coming to that conclusion.

Or are we all supposed to come back and bombard you with compliments?

Edit: I quite liked it btw. Not really my taste in music but certainly not crap.

Bonteburg · Post by **Bonteburg** » Tue May 26, 2015 4:11 pm

KingClarkie wrote:
BONES wrote:So not one single person has been bothered to go and have a listen? That's pretty poor.
I had a listen the day you posted this thread so I'm not sure how you're coming to that conclusion.

Or are we all supposed to come back and bombard you with compliments?

actually there even were two complimentary replies before he posted that.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Wed May 27, 2015 12:48 am

Bonteburg wrote:I love how you kept it minimal, esp. on the drums.

I didn't really have a choice. I only had a two track sequencer, plus drum machine, and four monotimbral synths at the time (around $10,000 worth back then). God and SaveMe, being newer songs, had more stuff going on but the original recordings used my first ever MIDI set-up - A Korg SQD-1 sequencer, Yamaha DX-9, Korg Mono/Poly (no MIDI), Korg Delta (no MIDI) and a newly acquired Korg DW8000 that I hadn't yet learned to program.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Wed May 27, 2015 12:55 am

Numanoid wrote:I see original copies of the 7" from 1987 go for €70-80 per copy at discogs

Shit! I could make a killing on my remaining stock.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Wed May 27, 2015 12:55 am

BONES wrote:
Bonteburg wrote:I love how you kept it minimal, esp. on the drums.
I didn't really have a choice. I only had a two track sequencer, plus drum machine, and four monotimbral synths at the time (around $10,000 worth back then). God and SaveMe, being newer songs, had more stuff going on but the original recordings used my first ever MIDI set-up - A Korg SQD-1 sequencer, Yamaha DX-9, Korg Mono/Poly (no MIDI), Korg Delta (no MIDI) and a newly acquired Korg DW8000 that I hadn't yet learned to program.

Numanoid wrote:I see original copies of the 7" from 1987 go for €70-80 per copy at discogs

Shit! I could make a killing on my remaining stock.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Wed May 27, 2015 12:57 am

KingClarkie wrote:I had a listen the day you posted this thread so I'm not sure how you're coming to that conclusion.
Or are we all supposed to come back and bombard you with compliments?
Edit: I quite liked it btw. Not really my taste in music but certainly not crap.

You are clearly not well versed in the fine art of thread bumping.

Rerelease of My First Ever Single From 1987 (Don't Laugh)