July 7, 2015

9.00 am. System boot-up. I needed to hear the composition’s mix on a different sound system before proceeding with finalisation. So, I moved from sound studio to study, and furthered the mixing process on my desktop and computer speakers:

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Ideally, the mix has to sound intelligible on the best and worst of equipment. The final mix takes an age; I reckon on it. With regard to the overall balance and the distribution of the constituent tracks, there are no absolute solutions, only regulating principles:

  • Remove superfluous tracks. (Some may have been there from the beginning of the compositional process, but they’re no longer either audible against the background of the other tracks or, otherwise, necessary.)
  • Arrange the amplitude of each track according to its intended prominence within the whole composition. (One can think of the sound field in terms of the Renaissance perspectival box: it has a central axis, zones left and right of it, and a notional series of receding planes parallel to the ‘picture plane’. Each track is arranged to occupy a specific location within the box.)
  • Ensure that all tracks, regardless of their respective amplitude, are clearly audible and, thus, contributing to the whole.
  • Ensure that their respective amplitudes remain in the same relationship to one another when the composition is played at either loud or soft volume.
  • Ensure that the full stereo field is occupied and balanced: centre, left to centre, and centre to right.

How does one know when the composition is finished? When:

  • each sample’s potential has been maximized in terms of both its contribution to the whole and sonic quality;
  • the internal logic of the composition’s structure and progression has been resolved;
  • sonic homogeneity (a sense of organic wholeness) has been achieved;
  • nothing can be either added or subtracted without detracting from that whole;
  • one can listen to the track again and again without wincing at any point.

1.30 pm. I returned the sound studio to scrutinize the composition under headphones. (Now, I listened to the detail.) After ten mixdowns — parento optimum. ‘Weaknesses, Sicknesses, Diseases of All Kinds’ is complete:

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This is not the final stage, however. The track will need to be mastered in order to bring it in line with the sonic character of the other compositions in the suite of works, collectively entitled Free Delivery (Deliverance) End-Time Deliverance Ministry.

3.30 pm. ‘Image & Inscription’, is the final composition to be undertaken for the new CD. Until the vinyl pressings of the voice recordings are delivered, I cannot move further with it. Until then, I begin sampling extracts from old 33-rpm and 78-rpm records with a religious theme:

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I’ve no idea how these will be deployed, eventually. So often, for me, the artwork’s concept and the procedure is discovered through hearing and manipulating the materials.

7.00 pm. I continued with the recordings, capturing untreated and modulated versions of the same tracks. Once completed, these will be stored until such time as either a governing idea emerges or a entirely different set of samples converges upon them. Presently, the recordings sound like a Mellotron having a beautiful nightmare:

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