KLANG - Oberheim Eight Voice
Release Trip Day #7
"Windhauch"
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Just in case you still didn’t download the KLANG sound collection for OB-E or you’re still on the fence getting OB-E, here you find the links once again. The sound collection is still free and OB-E is still on sale. What on earth are you waiting for!? ๐
NOTES
Windhauch
Todays piece, which had the meaningful working title “Improvisation 1”, was actually the first piece I recorded with the Eight Voice.ย
After my travel to England, I had entered the studio and felt like a little boy in the candyshop, suddenly being surrounded by all these legendary instruments โ not on pictures in dubious auctions, but right in front of me, ready to be played. Dave and Graeme from the GForce team showed me around, we preluded with some of the highlights in that synthesizer wonderland and then went on to set up the recording and camera gear, exchanged some music industry stories and world star gossip and dealt with the inevitable technical challenges every project like this throws into your way.
After all these overwhelming impressions, Dave and Graeme left me alone with the synths and as it was “that time”, Daves lovely dad served me a pot of English tea and some delicious homemade cake.
So I sat on the porch, enjoyed the tea and the rare English sun and let everything settle down.
Calm and grateful for all that blessing, I returned to the Eight Voice, hit record and smilingly began to play.
What came out was this piece.
Following the concept of the KLANG project โ to leave space and be receptive for the resonance between the instrument and my musical personality โ I was surprised by how sparse and reticant the music was that the Eight Voice inspired me to play.
In contrast, the precomposed pieces on the album, “Nebelmensch” and “Nimmermehr”, show my expectations of the character of it: massive and imposing. And it is more than capable of that. But most of the improvisations were driven by a much more subtle trait. A curiousity to explore all these rich textures hidden in the interaction of those individual voices. That made me play so sparse that I could listen more. It could almost be misunderstood as kind of “ambient music”, but it really is sonic fascination and an invitation to dive deep into the sound itself.ย
Talking about sound and space: It was clear to me that an album entirely focused on the sound and feel of a single synthesizer of this caliber would deserve great sound processing and stunning reverb.
I could not simply throw a software reverb simulation on it and call it a day. It deserved the finest analog and real-world reverbs.
In contrast to acoustic instruments, a synthesizer sound never travels through space before the final recording moves the speaker cones. To change this, I once again went to Funkhaus Berlin, ย and had the whole album mixed in Nils Frahms studio by Grammy Award winning Antonio Pulli, a master of his craft.
At Saal3, they do not only have the famous EMT 140 Plate Reverb, a German invention from the 1960, where the sound travels through a huge metal plate, which resonates with it and is picked up again with a contact microphone. They also have a real reverb chamber. A room, built with the sole purpose of adding reverb to the sound run into it through speakers and picked up again with microphones.
That way, the sound actually does travel through space and it gives it dimension and depth unparalelled with digital reverb simulators.
In addition to these great reverbs, the sound was refined with multiple tape delays, an Echorec magnet-disk delay, their gorgeous Neumann mixing desk, a Studer tape machine and the finest analog outboard like Siemens EQs and the infamous “Stasi-Kompressor”…
Just like with my previous album, Weltmaschine, I was stunned with the depth and detail of the sound and a feeling you could almost smell the heat of the tubes and analog circuitry.
Great thanks to Antonio for once again doing an outstanding job on the mix of the album. And it was once again amazing to be at this mesmerizing place, built in the 1950s to be the best sounding broadcast studio complex of the GDR.
4 thoughts on “EVS #7 – Windhauch”
Again amazed by the rich sound this instrument is giving knowing its from the 1970 ties. Can imagine that you were in love with it from the beginning.
Beatifull track again thanks for sharing it with us
Cheers bart
Thanks for sharing all this story! But wtf is a Stasi-compressor? ๐
Erich Mielke should now best, I guess… ๐
In the former GDR, there were two labels for audio gear: RFT was assigned to many consumer gear, produced by several companies. And there was RFZ, the label for high end broadcast gear, not sold to consumers, but used at radio stations – and supposedly by Ministerium fรผr Staatssicherheit (in short “Stasi”), the GDR secret service who mainly spied on their own people. The RFZ gear sounds gorgeous, I have a bunch of preamps in my own studio. At Saal3 they have the very rare RFZ 713 – which is a compressor and I was told Nils would jokingly call it the Stasi Kompressor, because it could be quite possible that it was formerly used for these spying activities…
Maybe you could answer the question above at your next show? Is there a live schedule, where can I listen to you live next time?