Until the Isban Moon I & Ia -- Remastered Abstract

[emdot_ambient]

Until the Isban Moon Parts I & Ia

A bit of archival material newly remastered.

Details at the link above. But in brief:

This is the first (almost) 6 minutes of a 23+ minute abstract piece I did back in 1996 using nothing but an Ensoniq EPS, MIDIVerb II and MIDIVERB III. The audio tracks were transferred from reel-to-reel to digital and cleaned up using Cool Edit '96 back in 2003.

Yesterday I remastered this much of the song in Cubase SX3 using some plug-ins.

See, I've been at this for a little while

[respirator]

I'll comment on this as an exception. Direct links, please!

There's something strange going on (I'm only listening through headphones). But this track is solid. I'm talking about the sound quality. It rocks. It's allmost too much. Is it because it's done direct to tape, or because of the HW-units? The Alesis-units is by most considered pretty crappy today?! Very interesting and thought provoking. What did you do in SX with regards to mastering? Details about the original reel-to-reel too, if you please.

Oh, and the music's great too! A bit too full, perhaps. Could use a bit more space too digest it all. (Perhaps the sound quality is having a say here as well).

[emdot_ambient]

I'll comment on this as an exception. Direct links, please!

That is kind of coming. I'll have an audioshots artists page up in a few days that will allow downloads without membership or loggin in, but I won't be able to direct link the songs to here due to bandwidth concerns.

There's something strange going on (I'm only listening through headphones). But this track is solid. I'm talking about the sound quality. It rocks. It's allmost too much. Is it because it's done direct to tape, or because of the HW-units? The Alesis-units is by most considered pretty crappy today?! Very interesting and thought provoking. What did you do in SX with regards to mastering? Details about the original reel-to-reel too, if you please.

Oh, and the music's great too! A bit too full, perhaps. Could use a bit more space too digest it all. (Perhaps the sound quality is having a say here as well).

He he! Glad you liked it. Interesting and thought provoking is always good.

Okay, well, that's a bunch of stuff to answer . . . but I'll give it a go

1) Solidity: In every other mix I've done of this song, including the 2003 remaster on my old crappy PC with crappy plug-ins and the crappy Cubase v3.5, all you ended up hearing was the FX. The solidity came only with the better plug-ins I'm using now (see below). But probably some of this is also because the 12-bit sampling used by the EPS made sounds very crunchy and thin.
2) Alesis MIDIVerbs: crap or not? Probably from a technical side they are crap. They're nothing nearly like transparent. However, I always used them as as true FX, they were sound shapers and changers rather than something you'd use to sweeten up drum tracks or vocals. But kick in a bunch of delay and chorus with some reversed reverb and they'd warp synth sounds pretty effectively, and they'd make a crunchy, thin EPS sound pretty respectable.
3) SX Remastering: The tracks had already gone through noise reduction, so all I did was load the three stereo tracks (dry instruments, FX 1 and FX 2) and then isolated the segment of the recording I wanted to work on. This particular piece (Parts I and Ia) was done in two seperate Cubase projects. In Part I I added SpaceMaster in Reaktor 4 onto the dry instrument track. I then EQ'd FX1 and FX2 using just the SX filters. One track was more bass, the other more mid and trebble. These stracks were panned a little away from each other to enhance the stereo field. On the master out track I added Kjaerhus Classic EQ for some mix sculpting, then Kjaerhus GPP1 for some soft compression--nothing drastic, but just enough to bring out some hidden detail. Look a the track graphically and you'll see there's still plenty of dynamic range. Part II had a slightly different FX arrangement but still used essentially the same tools.
4) The reel-to-reel: I used was a Fostex 8-track that used 1/8" tape. 1800' of tape gave about 20 - 23 minutes of recording time. It was a fairly cheap home recording deck that I purchased with a friend back in 1989. Fairly quiet in its operation but it always had some track bleed over.
5)Too much going on?: With the new mix really bringing out sounds that even I didn't know were in this piece, I can see where you'd come up with that comment. In fact my wife--who's always loved the piece--said something very similar last night. All I can say is . . . wait for Part II, which will be coming out in a few days. That's when the piece really starts to open out and let things breathe for a while. This first part, afterall, represents the main character in the novel going out of his mind.

I'm really glad you took the time to listen to it. This piece was created in a total vacuum. I wasn't listening to anyones music at the time, was avoiding radio and TV music and had no connection to any artistic or musical community. When I did it, I thought that myself, my wife and one friend would be the only ones who could appreciate it. So, it's gratifying to hear that others find it has merit.

[Genetic_Junk]

Hi emdot I'll comment a little later.

[Genetic_Junk]

Lots of contrasting sounds trhoghout, good to keep attention (listener is on their toes). YOur review of my track now makes sense.

It held my attention. The sounds of sanity loss is in here, maybe it will rub off on the listeners.

[emdot_ambient]

Lots of contrasting sounds trhoghout, good to keep attention (listener is on their toes). YOur review of my track now makes sense.

It held my attention. The sounds of sanity loss is in here, maybe it will rub off on the listeners.

He he! Thanks for the listen. This is a much more extreme case of what I was talking about in my review of your track. (Like how I plugged your song?) Gamma Melt 3 or even Double Doors of the Horizon are better examples as they are not nearly as frenetic as this track. In your case some much more sublte contrasts could help define the field of space and add some interest.

[Genetic_Junk]

Thanks for the plug (very subtle) I guess I'll have to go check your other tracks out then.