80s Berlin Electronic - Book of Remembrance - SY77 and V-Drums

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As some of you know, over the past few months, I've been writing and recording a new album of electronic, instrumental music based on my influences from the 70s and 80s Berlin Electronic era entitled, "Hidden Gems | Instrumental Journeys."
The latest track I've recorded is entitled, "Book of Remembrance," and was originally recorded using the inbuilt sequencer in my SY77 and then transferred to REAPER via MIDI. I then recorded each of the MIDI parts to audio using my RME Fireface UFX and mixed the song in REAPER. The drum part was recorded initially using track 16 (pattern track) of the SY77 sequencer and the stock Yamaha drum kit for compositional purposes. I then played the MIDI file into my Roland TD12 drum module using one of the custom kit patches I made and into REAPER via the Fireface.
All synth sounds are SY77. Effects were turned off on the synth during the audio transfer to REAPER and later added via VST plugins. The delay, reverb and phasing plugins used are Valhalla Shimmer, Valhalla Room, VoS NastyDLA MKII and Arts Acoustic Big Rock.

The track (and all other tracks from this and other albums) can be played and/or downloaded from my AusDisciples Band website or downloaded via this link... Hidden Gems | Instrumental Journeys - Mp3 Downloads

I'm keen to hear your feedback both oscillating and non-oscillating (positive and negative) ;)

Here's a direct link for the KVR music player to pick up (if you want to download the mp3, please use the link above so I can keep track of the number of downloads).... http://ausdisciples.com.au/media/audio/ ... brance.mp3
Last edited by AusDisciple on Mon Jul 14, 2014 12:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Fixed broken download link in my first post.
Bump...

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I've only listened to it on computer speakers, but I think it sounds great! Some parts reminded me of TD's Poland, Underwater Sunlight, and even Le Parc. Nice work!

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love the 80's , love my sy77...this was spot on in capturing the 80's synthy sound. mix sounded super clean. much enjoyed it! :tu:
HW SYNTHS [KORG T2EX - AKAI AX80 - YAMAHA SY77 - ENSONIQ VFX]
HW MODULES [OBi M1000 - ROLAND MKS-50 - ROLAND JV880 - KURZ 1000PX]
SW [CHARLATAN - OBXD - OXE - ELEKTRO - MICROTERA - M1 - SURGE - RMiV]
DAW [ENERGY XT2/1U RACK WINXP / MAUDIO 1010LT PCI]

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This is a solid composition. It held my interest for the full nine minutes.

Personally I don't think those synth or drum sounds have aged well. I would enjoy it more with vintage sounds from modern plugins.

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SCprogfan wrote:I've only listened to it on computer speakers, but I think it sounds great! Some parts reminded me of TD's Poland, Underwater Sunlight, and even Le Parc. Nice work!
I'll take that as a big compliment :D You've picked one of my biggest influences there. At one point, I had probably 30 - 40 TD albums.
Glad it sounds good on your computer speakers too. I spent a considerable amount of time tweaking the low end so it sounds full on everything from iPhone speakers to large studio monitors. I wanted to keep the deep sub stuff but still make the bass audible on smaller speakers, the iPhone being the ultimate test.

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layzer wrote:love the 80's , love my sy77...this was spot on in capturing the 80's synthy sound. mix sounded super clean. much enjoyed it! :tu:
Cheers layzer :)
I'm a big 80s fan too. I was a teenager then and that is when my musical roots really started to form.

Love my SY77 too and have no plans to sell it. :) Is your floppy drive still working? I just found out that there is a plug and play floppy emulator available from ebay for the SY77 that fits in the slot where the floppy goes and gives the SY77 USB stick storage natively. My floppy drive still works but I'm going to purchase one of those emulators while they are available. I just recently transferred all the data on my SY floppy collection to my PC via MIDI bulk dumps. Some of those floppies are 25 years old and they will eventually die. I'm actually quite pleasantly surprised that they all still work!
If you're interested in the emulator, let me know and I'll post the details of it.

Cheers for the feedback on the mix too. Much appreciated. :tu:

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Frantz wrote:This is a solid composition. It held my interest for the full nine minutes.

Personally I don't think those synth or drum sounds have aged well. I would enjoy it more with vintage sounds from modern plugins.
Thanks for the feedback Frantz. Glad you enjoyed the composition even if the sounds aren't really to your taste. It could be an interesting experiment to do a remix of it at a later date using some of my analog gear and a few u-he synths. I might even give that a shot after the album is complete. I have all the parts recorded as MIDI data in REAPER so doing that wouldn't be too difficult.

I guess in your reference to the aged drum sounds you are speaking of how I processed them (80s gated reverb on snare for example) rather than the actual sound source which is one of my Roland V-Drums modules and is only a few years old. Unlike most V Drum parts on some of my tracks, I didn't actually play this one on my kit at all. It was a step sequenced pattern from the SY77 MIDI'd to the V Drums module with some humanize treatments from REAPER. Perhaps that adds to the aged feel of the drum part too. At one point, I considered redoing the drum part and actually playing it but I liked what was there enough once the REAPER treatment was added to not bother.

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AusDisciple wrote: I guess in your reference to the aged drum sounds you are speaking of how I processed them (80s gated reverb on snare for example) rather than the actual sound source which is one of my Roland V-Drums modules and is only a few years old. Unlike most V Drum parts on some of my tracks, I didn't actually play this one on my kit at all.
Yes, I don't like the gated reverb on the drums. Also if you want acoustic drums and are not going to play V-Drums, I think you can get much more realistic results with some of the virtual drum libraries like Superior Drummer which include patterns and kits from top session guys.

On my third listen, the composition still holds up which is the main thing. Excellent job on that. :tu:

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Frantz wrote: Yes, I don't like the gated reverb on the drums.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIs5StN8J-0

who doesn't like gated reverb on drums? haha
HW SYNTHS [KORG T2EX - AKAI AX80 - YAMAHA SY77 - ENSONIQ VFX]
HW MODULES [OBi M1000 - ROLAND MKS-50 - ROLAND JV880 - KURZ 1000PX]
SW [CHARLATAN - OBXD - OXE - ELEKTRO - MICROTERA - M1 - SURGE - RMiV]
DAW [ENERGY XT2/1U RACK WINXP / MAUDIO 1010LT PCI]

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layzer wrote:who doesn't like gated reverb on drums? haha

That song has such strong hooks I think the particular drums sounds are irrelevant. For better or worse, that tune will be burned into my memory for as long as I live.

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Frantz wrote:Yes, I don't like the gated reverb on the drums. Also if you want acoustic drums and are not going to play V-Drums, I think you can get much more realistic results with some of the virtual drum libraries like Superior Drummer which include patterns and kits from top session guys.

On my third listen, the composition still holds up which is the main thing. Excellent job on that. :tu:
I actually have SDII and use it most of the time on my other songs when playing V Drums and I agree with you about the realism. I also have the Classic and Vintage SDX which is what I base most of my SDII kit construction on and use on most of my prog rock stuff.
For this particular tune though, I was specifically going for an 80s vibe. I was a teenager in the 80s and I still have a soft spot for those sounds and the vibe of that era.
Glad you're still enjoying the composition though. :tu:
layzer wrote:
who doesn't like gated reverb on drums? haha
Ha!! I thought that song (Obsession) was amazing in the 80s and it captivated me then. 1985 was a good year for music. I had a cassette copy (TDK SA-X90 with Dolby C NR) of Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms that was recorded from CD on a friend's high end cassette deck and I played that tape so much that it was probably responsible for a significant portion of the head wear on my deck!!
I still actually have that cassette deck too and it still works. I used it recently for a job restoring some old cassette recordings for a friend.
Frantz wrote:That song has such strong hooks I think the particular drums sounds are irrelevant. For better or worse, that tune will be burned into my memory for as long as I live.
I don't think you're alone there!!!!

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