Some more, rare, dancehall for everyone. I don’t have much to say about this one, knowing nothing about Oral John or the label Cotton Tail. What I can say is that I like it very much.
Rubbish
Hello dweebs. Here’s a copy of a cool record I have. 1986 Dancehall feel.
I’m posting this here because all of the other recording sound horrible – including the CD version on Basic Reply (shame on whoever mastered those!).
I’d also like to know if anyone can provide me with some more information on the label “Heavyweight” as there’s very little info online. And who are “Roy & Robbie” on the label? Really, any info would be great.
Anyway here’s the tunes
No one asked for them, but here they are – the acappellas from Plus. Please note that some reverbs and effects have random phase elements and are impossible to remove now, but there are very few, and I still think they sound good.
Made from snippets of old recordings, somewhat rescued from an old dying (now dead) HDD.
Made with an Akai MPC4000, a Novation DrumStation and some Eventide stomp boxes. Easy.
Some short little radio edits I made this weekend. File under Juke / Footwork.
I’m not going to list all the gear this time as I can’t quite remember. It’s basically a Novation DrumsStation and a lot of rhythm writing. Oh and a Waldorf MicroWave XT, but you knew that.
Still digging down the rabbit hole. I think I’m reaching the end of the road for this sort of thing, or at least without some sort of drastic writing change. I do like this one though, and I think it’s pretty close to what I imagined.
I can’t fully remember what I used, but in essence, it was:
- Novation DrumStation (kick and shaker)
- Antares AVP-1 (used for stereo effect on kick)
- Kawai K4R (snare, misc. percussion)
- Akai MPC 4000 (sequencing, sampling vocal)
- Behringer Filter Machine FM600
- Behringer Ultra Metal UM 300 (distortion various elements)
- Lexicon Reverbs
- RNC1773 Compressor (used on kick)
- TC Electronics Fireworx (effect reverbs, delays)
- SPL Transient Designer (gentle use on each track)
- Art Pro VLA II (master)
- Voxengo Elephant 3 (fabulous limiter, and highpass filter)
- And the vocal sample is from an old RA The Rugged Man track, although it’s not RA.
I’ve taken to recording at 96kHz recently because I’ve found that some of the processors I use sound a little better at super high sampling rates like that. Also, I do a lot of sampling and pitching of my own recordings, so having it all in 96kHz give me a little more headroom for twisting them. This is then resampled to 44.1kHz 24bit once the master is complete.
I’ve been using iZotope RX8 to finalise the masters recently, it think it has the best sounding resampling algorithm I’ve tested so far. Clean and warm. if you’re interested the settings I use are shown below:
I made some significant changes to my monitoring setup recently – was finally able to settle in the sub and get a decent response down to around 20Hz. This means I don’t need to be so reliant on headphones when making music, which I think is always a huge bonus. Headphones reveal too much, and at the same time don’t really give you a full picture of what’s happening.
In order to test my new setup, I spend a while messing around with a new idea. I think sonically it cabe out really well, and hopefully solidifies the changes I’ve made.
A bit of juke / tech stuff made on the following:
- Waldorf MicroWave XT (drums and percussion, as well as pads)
- Roland M-DC1 (snare)
- Yamaha TX81Z (small textures)
- Art Pro VLA II (master)
- Toft ATC-2 (track compression and EQ)
- Vermona DSR-3 (spring reverb on pad)
- Roland RE-201 Space Echo (delay elements)
- various guitar pedals (tremolo, distortion, chorus, simple delay etc.)
- SPL Transient Designer (use on each track)
- Akai MPC 4000 (sequencing, sampling vocal)
- Lexicon Reverb (utility reverbs, mixing, placement etc.)
- Voxengo Elephant 3 (fabulous limiter, and highpass filter)
It’s kinda goofy sounding, but I’m trying to push forward into something new. I quite like it, and I think it’s one of the most cleanly produced things I’ve done in a while. There’s a handshake waiting for anyone who can name me the vocal samples (hint in the title).
You can download it here: https://www.lvcchesi.com/downloads/herbs.zip
A weird promotional LP I picked up because it’s got a track by Labi Siffre (everyone has a price… or a contract enforceable by law).
I guess this was given out free to suppliers or partners of Philips to celebrate their manufacturing of the 100 millionth television. No doubt the old, boxy, CRT-type. It has lovely ‘pop-up’ bouquet of flowers inside the gatefold (as seen below), although it does feel a little funeral-like now.
Available from all the usual suspects…
JunoRed Eye Records
Boomkat
Cold Cuts
Unearthed Sounds
HHV
DeeJay.de