So I was listening to the pasted together takes of the title track of the album and heard Paul sing "I feel it, I feel it, I feel it now. I feel it, I feel it, I feel it. Gotta be free now, wanna be free now."
That's one of my favorite pieces of the Liverpool Sound Collage project Paul did I the early 2000s for Peter Blake's art expo.
It blew my mind when I heard it. I don't know why, but I just had to share it with everyone here.
The little song Paul bursts into at about the 2:08 mark of Take 9 of the Sgt. Pepper title track is also heard numerous times throughout Paul's own 2000 avant-garde album Liverpool Sound Collage, most prominently on the fifth and final track, Free Now. I haven't seen anyone point this out yet, which struck me as odd.
So, I've been delving into the solo years for the past several weeks. I don't think I've seen this album mentioned here. I've come to think it's awesome. Obviously one has to be of a mind to listen to something like this; if you're in the mood for sweet, sweet melodies...well, Liverpool Sound Collage doesn't have that. But it's still pretty darned catchy.
Does anyone know anything more about the credits for this album? I know there were collaborators, but I'm trying to figure out who did what. Information on the internet is a little sparse in this regard.
Any other LSC fans?
I have recently immersed myself in composing a lot of sound collage music.
After analyzing each of my samples for pitch content and deciding on a key / scale for my current arrangement, I choose a sample whose pitches are subsets of the current scale. I approach my arrangements of samples pandiatonically: any sample will sound good with another sample as long as the pitch content of both are in the same scale.
To make my compositions more interesting, I like to modulate and change the scale.
I have recently been obsessed with the idea of scale networks as a framework for modulating to and from different scale types (including diatonic, harmonic major, harmonic minor, acoustic, hexatonic, whole tone, and octatonic). Here's a graph that I made to help me when I am trying to figure out what scale to visit next.
Here's one of my recent sound collages, in case you're curious to know how it sounds. It starts off in F diatonic, and then flip flops back and forth between C diatonic and E diatonic.
Here's another sound collage that flip flops back and forth between C diatonic and Aβ harmonic minor.
Do other people approach sound collage tonally / pandiatonically? Curious to know if other composers have similar workflows.
I just wanna know how Rob made that on an 8 track and also what the sources of the sounds were.
Arca has a pretty distinct way of mixing where there are often little to no dynamics in the loudest parts of a track, but things never feel too cluttered and the sub-bass comes through the mix extremely well. to me, it's very remarkable given how dense and varied the production and sound design is. i have never been able to achieve anything like this on my own. when i try to crush the dynamics with an L2 on the mix buss (pretty much all i use there besides maybe a small EQ boost/cut), people tell me it sounds like i'm trying to put everything up front in the mix and that it sounds crowded. how can you SMASH the dynamics without putting everything too far up in your face? is the problem that i'm starting everything too 'hot' (it doesn't clip on the master but it is loud) before i process it with my limiter?
in terms of the sub-bass, i've experimented with multiband sidechain compression and just switched to multiplicity so my bass will push through the low end of other parts of the track. it's working pretty well but i would love to hear any other tips you have for mixing the bass to sound similar to what i posted.
for reference, i know that they have a degree in mix engineering from NYU and use an L2 ultramaximizer on the mix buss. i've heard rumors that they sometimes record things to tape or process it with a tape emulator.
a couple examples:
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXyhCpHPLUI (i LOVE the way the short sub bass samples are mixed in the first part of this track. i have no idea how to do something like that.)
2: https://youtu.be/4e38S2Amvc0?t=9 (very interesting mono/stereo play here, but i have no idea how the mix has such an unusual 'tint' or 'color' to it once things get loud)
3: https://youtu.be/wUHDz9icgWo?t=386 (also love the way the kick/sub hits in this part)
