Drexciyan Electro sound design

Elektron Gear Monomachine
#41

I have a clap I shaped/inspired by the Black Sea Clap.
909 Clap->Boss SE-70->Alesis 3630->mixer/drive/eq->MPC One/sample. Then crushed the file a bit like I had saved it in a S900 and back to the MPC One as a one shot.

That said it is still a starting point for me. I don’t try to create finished sample/sounds. I expect to play them back through my rig.

The instruments are the starting point but you really need the 90’s fx to nail the 90’s sound easily. Personally, I’d say buy a Behringer td-3 and a K-2 (303 and MS20 clone) and some 90’s fx hardware…
You can do it in a DAW but it’s more like finding a needle in a haystack than finding the instrument’s sweetspot.

1 Like
#42

ouch.

#43

A DAW is not a haystack when it’s not cluttered with a billion plugins.

1 Like
#44

Wtf!? That’s quite extreme. :joy: :sob:

#45

I’d argue that it is metaphorically. Even with Live no plugins the scope to shape and sculpt a myriad of sounds from any genre gives you magnitudes more choices as compared to the scope of sounds you can get out of a vintage analog instrument such as a 303 or MS20 as per my example.

#46

sorry to keep going on about this but i think i’m seeking validation, or “no, your ears are broken and the remaster is the superior version”.

remaster

original

worlds apart in terms of space and vibe.

1 Like
#47

Remasters always fail miserably, I won’t even listen to them…
Pants

2 Likes
#48

Ooof that’s dreadful, squashed shite loudness mastering twaddle. :laughing:

1 Like
#49

right. but in this case they’ve done that to an entire back catalogue of recordings…
it’s devastating. not to mention sad that we probably won’t ever hear any of the unreleased stuff in their original glory.

in terms of drexciya please spread the word; the original mixes are the only versions worth listening to

#50

To be fair, they’re definitely not all that bad. Hell, even that same track was also done well enough by him a couple of years earlier - someone actually posted about it specifically on Discogs:

Original version on The Journey Home
2013 Journey of the Deep Sea Dweller Alden Tyrell remaster
2015 12" Alden Tyrell remaster

Can only assume the rationale there was to make it some sort of modern DJ-friendly club weapon since it was going on a 12" rather than a long-player? None of their stuff should get that treatment regardless of context though.

1 Like
#51

disagree here, totally different auditory experience. the whole point of their sound was a spacious sub aquatic aesthetic. remove that, then you’ve lost the whole point.

i heard black sea vinyl on a big rig around 2005, absolutely pounded the system, doesn’t need any extra squashing to be “club ready”.

1 Like
#52

Here’s a break down of Black Sea that might offer some good advice.

3 Likes
#53

I hate this type of mastering sound on anything, it just loses most of the nuance and fatigues the ears, except for very few artists I tend to avoid a lot of modern electronic music because I hate this competitive sound so much.

6 Likes
#54

But I literally posted an example of one of his remasters that isn’t anywhere near that bad, the Journey of the Deep Sea Dweller version of the same track looks pretty similar to the original. All of the remasters aren’t squashed to total dog turds/sausages like the version posted, that was my point.

I downloaded mp3s of each and the vinyl rip actually looks fine, it’s just the digital that’s gone through the sausage maker. I assumed the fact that club stuff in general has become more and more compressed over the years might’ve been wrong-headed motivation for smashing the 12" to ‘compete’ but obviously that wasn’t the case.

Totally fair and valid to feel that any compression at all over the originals is ‘too much’ (I probably veer the same way by and large) but they’re objectively not all anything like as bad as that example, even if you’re solely talking the digital versions. If they were these DR numbers would be an awful lot worse. I imagine the vinyl might be more dynamic again, at least in some cases.

#55

stop looking, start listening.

fair point about the fact the vinyl might be different master. i mentioned that in my first post about this. need all sources for good comparison and not a youtube encode (although the aqualung version is from the published account…)

a random A/B comparison on any clone reissue and original version always seems very different to me, whether it’s the journeys or the aqualungs.

#56

I don’t know if something’s getting lost in translation here but you’re obviously not reading what I’m saying in my posts at all and the selective quoting to take snippets massively out of context is very poor form. I’ll bow out because there’s obviously no discussion to be had here.

#57

One should not forget that not everyone will have the pleasure of listening to or being able to buy the vinyl version. I, for one, am happy to get some of the classics in MP3 form at all. So I have no comparison with the originals. I still have some CD versions from Arpanet and Dopplereffekt.
But now back to the actual topic.

#58

you’re asking me to look at a waveforms peaks. in a visual waveform you can’t hear is happening in the mid range. that;s where the less squashed remastered tracks really fall down in my opinion.

true, soz, wrong thread. hijacked and happy to be moved if required.

1 Like
#59

original by some margin

#60

Right, and as I said that’s completely fair to feel that way. I certainly have listened rather than looked over the ten these remasters have been coming out, having spent hundreds on them, and noticed from the first few seconds that they were more aggressive than the originals, some of which I owned.

At no point have I said that they aren’t compressed on the whole, only that the example posted from the digital version of Black Sea is far more extreme than basically any of the others I’ve heard (digital or vinyl) so they’re not all anything like that severe. I only posted waveforms because those objectively show that to be the case. But you’re acknowledging that some of them are less squashed now so fair enough - that’s all I was saying :slight_smile:

Apologies again for the OT! To bring it somewhat back to the topic, I don’t really think of Drexciya as a ‘sound design’ thing in terms of patch making. They definitely weren’t shy about using presets - someone mentioned the Kawai K1 but some stuff rang a bell with me when I demo’d the Korg M1 VST as well. It’s been a few years since I had my Alpha Juno but I wouldn’t be surprised if they used or just very lightly tweaked presets there as well. I feel like they were more about having the ears/taste to know which sounds would work together to create an atmosphere and reinforce the images conjured up by the titles… Combined with genius rhythmic and melodic chops.

Gerald Donald’s own stuff feels more ‘sound design’-y to me for sure, but I guess some of that impression might be down to heavier use of reverb etc.

2 Likes