Just sample this, speed it up 2x and pitch down to taste
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I was wondering this as well re: the sequencing. At times it sounds as if he is interacting in real time with the sequencingā¦ so dynamic. Iāve been trying to emulate the interaction between the different riffs with the A4 in direct jump modeā¦ efforts have been fruitless so far lolā¦ but at least making something interesting even if it doesnāt sound like arpanet.
I felt like the most recent Dopplereffekt had some similar vibes and was stuff iāve preferred most from GD in a while.
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I agree about the dynamicness of his composing. It could be also that he is playing with loops in a clip fashion. What is funny too is how the timing of his sequences is sometimes more than approximate 
A small modular set-up would also open this opportunity.
What I love about analyzing this is the sheer amount of work-arounds everyone comes up with to mimick this. Sometimes it opens very interesting paths!
I really appreciate this man thank you
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I toss up the sysex later today if anyone wants to fuck around and expand on it
Analog-style exponential FM was very important to alot of the sounds they would make. I donāt remember the best way to achieve that on the monomachine, but some things that come to mind:
- FM+Dyn engine (I think thatās the right one)
- SID engine with ring mod
- Ring Mod FX with the SuperWave engine
Also, experiment with lots of LFOs and FX like chorus, flanger, and phaser.
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Happy to see this thread!
Iāve always loved the bass sound in this track and thought about trying to emulate it with the Monomachine. A lot of the other sounds seem like pitched down atmospheric samples.
I also love the way the chords jump around in this one
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A Drexciya style track was one of the first things I did with the MonoMachine when I got it.
This is all MnM, except for the arpeggio (minibrute), live 1 take.
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For some of the classic Drexciya trax, you should look into the Spectral Audio Neptune 2 synthesizer.
Thatās if āYou donāt knowā. :- D
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I like a lot the tone of the discussion here!
Just as a place to store info, I point below to a Gearslutz thread that has interesting info in it:
Check messages 195 and after.
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wouldnāt mind some opinions and ears here.
a friend and myself went on a deep dive last night listening to our favourite Drexciya records and ended up comparing the originally released mixes alongside the recent clone reissues mastered by Alden Tyrell.
Iām cautious that i donāt want this to come across as a hate stirring post, definitely more confirmation of what we experienced and an open mind to detrimental mastering in recent years.
also iāll caveat this by saying our comparisons werenāt laboratory certified. we listened on a nice system but our sources were a mix of youtube encodes from the last (upto) 15 years vs CDs where possible and the bandcamp wavs.
a truly authoritative comparison would be to have the original 16bit CD versions and reissued 24bit bandcamp digitals.
but christ was the disparity evident.
the originals sounded alive, with so much detail and depth (especially on the snares with their famously swooshing flangers and phasers).
the remasters sounds totally dead. loud but dead. with everything pushed and the snares loosing all their fizz and nuance.
this really struck me! the original versions sound amazing, and anyone discovering these recordings for the first time may do so via the clone versions and miss out on so muchā¦
has anyone else noticed this!?
iām especially sad as the last new release was the Abstract Thought 12, whilst i love these tunes iād love to hear the original mixes as iām sure theyād sound better.
separately the first track of grava 4 sounds like an autechre mix from the last 5 years, amazing 20+ year old electronic music that deserves to be heard as intended, not squashed to sound loud out a phone speakerā¦
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Gotta try this with the Opsix
Edit: opsix canāt pw modulate the waveform in ringmod mode.
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Model cycles track I did, kind of reminds me a bit of Drexciya tones.
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I havenāt heard the different versions but i always prefer the original versions when it comes to remastered music. I donāt get the idea behind remastering at all. If that āoldā sound is what got people into the music why should it be remastered?
Just read this interview because i was interested in the process and the ideas behind.
āā¦I found out I was trying the impossible. I wanted all the Drexciya music to sound like modern-day club tracks, with all the heavily-compressed, pumpy overwhelming sound that comes with it. He told me thatās not the way to go, thatās impossible. For starters, the productions are way too rough for that, and itās not the kind of music for that kind of sound. So then I took a much simpler approach ā A-Bād it with the original masters and decided that I did a fairly good jobā¦ā
Even if he realized the music shouldnāt sound like modern club music in the end this to me shows again how strange the idea of remastering is. Especially if the artist who made the music isnāt doing it or at least decides how itās going to sound.
And iām not saying Alden Tyrell did a bad job, i just want to hear the music how the artist wanted it to sound.
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thanks for this, interesting read and gives some insight into the whys and whats and subjectivity.
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Iāve bought most of the vinyl reissues as theyāve come out and enjoyed them, they definitely veer towards being crispier/punchier than the old CDs and the odd original records Iāve had though. What I will say is that a lot of the old stuff on Submerge etc. sounded quite murky and the pressing quality wasnāt great which also didnāt help, so I think there was fair scope for some tasteful reinterpretation. Maybe he got that right on some of them and went a bit too far on others, I donāt know. Also the digital is probably different again to what Iām hearing. I guess Gerald Donald must be OK with it but maybe heās not interested enough in the old stuff to kick up a fuss anyway? I could see some artists being that way.
Itās a general bugbear of mine as well though, it annoys me that anyone checking out New Order for the first time now will get the horribly compressed versions unless they really go out of their way, for example. Another one is Cocteau Twins - taking such incredibly airy/dynamic music and smashing it all through a compressor beggars belief to meā¦ And that was Robin Guthrie himself.
A weird one was Dreamworld by Blackout, one of my favourite Memphis tapes. The cleanup job on that was absolutely remarkableā¦ To the point where the album loses most of the murky atmosphere I just assumed was inherent to it but was actually largely the result of everyone listening to an MP3 rip of a probably pretty worn/cheap cassette for decades. Still a great album but absolutely not the same album at all.
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I guess youāre right. Some artists are probably not interested in remastering their old material again. Or even being involved in the process. First i was wondering why Gerald Donald wasnāt doing it himself. But yeah, i myself would also prefer to work on new music then rework my old stuff.
The Ensemble machines are really great to patch Detroit style chords and pads. Flavour them with the inbuilt possibilities: Chorus, Filter and pitch modulation, Delay, Sample Rate Reduction. Great bass sounds come from the FM machines, pulse wave machine, and saw wave machine. They donāt sounds exactly like 303 or 101 but you can come close with careful filter and EQ settings. For telephone and bell tones I would try the FM machines, too
awesome bass
