A full day today, working on new music for the Synaesthesia remaster. Safe House was a short track of largely sound effects, which I've remade by ear. I couldn't rip the samples easily (I originally recorded them live from a medium-wave or possibly long-wave radio, which I don't have any more) so I loaded the whole file as 'raw' into SoundForge, and voila, I could extract them.
The Journey was another short 'audio scene' had two very different versions. The 1999 version was all television clips. The 2001 and 2015 versions included a disturbing drone and wailing child, like the 'hell' background sound I used in my 'Seventh Circle' exhibition at The Cubby Hole. For the new version of The Journey I've used television clips again. Finding free to use ones was difficult in 1999, but now the Internet Archive contains lots of public domain television clips from decades ago.
I've also reworked Resurrection. This was the most catchy track of all. The 2015 version was okay, it was one of the two that I recreated back then, but the balancing needed some tweaking. Generally this meant tidying some of the muddy bass sounds. Bass sounds need to be punchy and cut off sharply. Gentle hums are okay too, but often decaying, fading bass sounds are to be avoided. Even when bass drums reverberate with power (as in Islands of Memory) the reverb tail needs to have the bass attenuated.
Deb called to deliver some goods but we couldn't meet due to the isolation restrictions, so we had to see each other from afar.
A long day ends. I feel exhausted and ready to sleep. I'm avoiding television, radio, books, or any social contact, so am working optimally. I like this. I am generally, these days, filled with positive energy and inspiration. I have lots of ideas for future work of all sorts and working full time to make them happen. Tomorrow I need to work on the final track for this: Waltz of the Ghosts. Then I can work on the album art, and move on to new work rather than reworking this old stuff. Happy though I am with it, this music is still very old and not my contemporary style at all.
And I must find time to promote Burn of God.
