Saturday, April 11, 2015

hello again.

Tap tap - is this thing on?

Yes.  Sort of.

I apologize to my (few) readers for neglecting this space for over a year - that said, I have been moonlighting as a legit mastering engineer on a half-dozen or so records since the last post.  So I’ve been around.  I do owe the nice TAR gents a post or two of some TAR-iffic material that didn’t work in the context of the double-LP comp, so watch this space for that.

The other day I was cleaning off the cobwebs from an old hard drive when I came across the purported multitracks of Joy Division’s "Love Will Tear Us Apart" - 8 individual tracks of what presumably are Rock Band or some similar game “stems”, which themselves are slightly mixed down from the original 16 or 24 track masters.  I said “why the hell not” and threw them up on a mixer.
  1. Peter Hook recorded at least two runs of “that bassline”.  Clangers, duff notes, missed strings and all.  Yet it’s perhaps one of his best-known, and certainly among the most melodic, basslines out of a career built on excellent ones.
  2. Steve Morris is a drumming phenom.  No news there.  There are some drum patterns on the multis not used in the final mix.
  3. Bernard Sumner recorded several distinct guitar parts - electric, and acoustic - some of which were unused in the classic 1980 mix.  Don Gehman’s 1995 “radio mix” featured some of these acoustic guitars in the mix, but not all.
  4. Ian’s vocals are effects-laden.  Hard to tell if they’re “vari-speeded” though.
  5. The original intent was to have a nearly 4-minute song, not the 3:28 final version.
  6. As long as I have all these multis loaded up in the mixer… Love Will Tear Us Apart 2015! (dropbox(soundcloud)
I quite like this 2015 mix.  There’s a strong sense of warmth and depth, and dare I say it but jaunty, feel to the song now.  The chunky electric guitar part that’s completely absent from the classic 1980 mix is quite nice.  The acoustic guitar, which barely surfaces in the 1980 mix towards the end but here plays throughout the track, nicely carries the melody through the entire song.

Take 14 - yes, the 14th mixdown - is soundclouded here.  I spent all weekend with the "original" remix, and found quite a few things I wanted to do better.  So I did - drums up, better EQ, better balance overall.  No sounding like 128kpbs on $10 earbuds for this one  (well, except for Soundcloud processing)!  Hah.  If you only listen to one of these, go with this one.

Please excuse me while I go back to ground...

20 comments:

  1. iOS users: Not sure why it's not "streamable". If I can figure out a way to make it do so, I will.

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  2. This is awesome! the extra stuff at the end is amazing. sounds great!

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  3. Riot Nrrd: I did see your comment but I don't wish to publicly stir the pot. You would be correct however, and no, no changes. I just wanted to throw this out there, is all.

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    1. OK, fair enough ... here's to lying low and avoiding the radar ;)

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  4. Nice share - is there a chance to get these in FLAC?

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    1. Nah, I think this is enough fates-tempting as I need ;)

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  5. Hello AL, I've wanted to get a hold of you for sometime as I would like some remastering advice. I have the old Depeche Mode singles boxes 1-3 from 1991 and I want to get the tracks to sound like the 2006/2007 remasters. I have Audacity and have been playing around with the compression (using Chris's Compressor) to attempt to get these 1991 mastered singles to sound like the remastered (but not overly compressed) 2006/2007 DM remasters. Any advice?

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    1. I really have no use for any DM in my life so specific advice I cannot give (i.e. I have no idea what the box set sounds like, nor do I care, same for the later remasters). Generally I would suggest not using compression to mimic the sound; use your ears and a good parametric EQ for starters to see what was "goosed". Usually - and it's pretty crappy to do - what goes for a remaster means upping the bass and treble. In that sense the originals probably have better overall sonics, notwithstanding any mastering compression done later on. If that makes any sense.

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  6. Nice work.
    Another thing which you could try: Take the original 1980 Hannett mix, and split it mid/side. The side channel is quite unusual on this record: you get the vocals nice and upfront, keyboards, snare, and some of the tomtoms, the whole thing retaining that nice, 'cavernous' sound. You could mix that with the basses, hihat and guitars from the multis, to create another new take...? Just an idea...

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    1. Yes, Hannett was a wizard with using M/S tricks.

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  7. thanks for resurfacing with more treasure for us all. please don't delay with that additional TAR material - I'm still getting lots of listening time out of that camp and yearn for more.

    so, could you provide us lackeys with some details on the Campfire Mix? was this something drawn from those stems you came across or a mix of your own altogether? the absence of that instantly-recognizable synth line certainly doesn't detract from the power of the song, for my money at least. thanks for sharing.

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    1. Yup just from the stems.

      TAR as soon as I have all the writeups from the band!

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  8. Hi,

    Are the pages from the New Order Recycle blogspot archived anywhere? I've tried the Internet Wayback, but there's not many of the specific pages on there that relate to the singles.

    I'm not after the downloads themselves, I got those back in the day, just the info.

    Regards,

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    1. Yes but you have to play with the drop down arrows on the sidebar for year/month posts. https://web.archive.org/web/20120120195526/http://neworder-recycle.blogspot.com/

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  9. Perfect! One that works.

    Thanks.

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  10. I take it the Flickr files are long gone?

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  11. Loved both! Any chance you'll make the campfire version available for download?

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    1. The campfire mix was downloadable on Soundcloud...

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  12. There's a 12" remix of Love Will Tear Us Apart which is an interesting piece https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fhWiuX9hQM

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