Thursday, 26 June 2014

Campfire Headphase Production Techniques Part 2



This is part 2  on The Campfire Headphase Production Techniques.


This one is going to concentrate on Dayvan Cowboy, a track which i think is closer in spirit to My Bloody Valentine than anything BoC have done before or since.

I hinted in my last post at the influence MBV have had on BoC and BoC have also revealed them as an influence on their work.

In recent interviews last year,BoC also stated that they don't really listen to electronic music for inspiration but are more inclined to listen to a wide range of genres far away from the genre that they themselves operate in.

Here are a couple of quotes from BoC on their influences

Apart from these soundtracks, you also name drop Joni Mitchell and the Incredible String Band when it comes to instrumentation. What was so special about their musical aproach?

"Much of the music we like is not electronic, although we've probably been influenced by Devo. We love acoustic music on old recordings because they tend to have natural qualities such as tape compression and distortion. But I think Joni Mitchell's voice is so beautiful it almost sounds synthesised, so maybe there's the connection. The Incredible String Band still sound unusual today, because they changed the arrangement for every song, and their own influences were far and wide apart, and they always wrote emotional melodies which were a bit unusual, you know, with melodies which took unexpected twists. A unique band."
What else do you consider important musical influences, past and present?
"Devo, Walter/Wendy Carlos, DAF, television themes, corporate jingles from TV and film, Jeff Wayne, Julian Cope,My Bloody Valentine, 80's pop music."

For Dayvan Cowboy, The guitar part is the signature of the whole song and holds everything together.This shows that BoC were focusing on more traditional ideas such as traditional song arrangement.

The opening part of the track is typical BoC.The atmosphere is a hazy half heard half imagined melody,suggesting the more definitive melody that kicks in when the main guitar part kicks in.

The sounds in the intro are heavy on the reverb and sound really distant.The Equalisation on this part is interesting as most of the low end is filtered out as is the high end.All the sound is concentrated in the mid frequencies,similar to the telephone effect.The way BoC use reverb and EQ is also interesting.

When most producers use EQ ,they search for the resonant frequency and then cut it.From what i can hear in this intro,BoC tend to find the resonant frequency(usually stands out like a sore thumb,ie whistling type sounds) and then mush the sound using reverb.

This brings out the resonant tones and uses them to enhance the sound creating notes ,tones and drones within the patchwork of the music.It all adds to a wall of sound effect where the sounds start to become indistinct from each other but BoC do it so well that the sounds don't end up being a mush.

The track really kicks in when the guitar part come in. The part is simple but in typical BoC fashion it has been played by them into the sampler.The guitar part may be in a drop D tuning which is ideal for extra drones and character.

There seems to be 2 guitar parts going on.The main part is a simple 4 chord progression ( try A C G D), which tends to pop up in different forms in other BoC tracks, Alpha Omega being an example.

The other guitar part stays on the one chord and is a clear sample but adds to the feel of the track by creating an obvious sample to a backdrop of a fairly conventional chord progression.

The beauty of the guitar sounds is in the way that BoC degrade the sound instead of the boring way in which most producers treat acoustic instruments(as if acoustic instruments are holy and must be preserved in all their natural beauty or else).

Here's a quote from one of the BoC guys on their philosophy behind this.


   Mike: We're not huge fans of electronica specifically. Technology has made it so easy for anyone to get into producing music, especially electronic music, that the whole electronica scene has been diluted. It's allowing a lot of mediocre music to be released.'
 "On this album it's interesting," says Sandison, "because we are really overtly playing riffs on guitars, and although we've aged it and made it more like it's been recorded 25 years ago or something, with each track that we've used the guitars on, we've put things in it which are impossible on a 1970s record. Sometimes we'll construct an entire song out of samples that we'll make, so we'll maybe take instruments and play parts or play notes and we'll make entire spans of notes out of sounds we really like, and then play them in ways that the original instrument couldn't have played. You could take a span of lots of notes on the guitar, and then you would play chords on t"hat guitar by hitting them all at once, in a way that a real guitar could never be played. And then of course we would do a lot of other things to the guitar to really tweak it and make it sound very, very gnarly and damaged.

This way of degrading acoustic instruments and creating a new type of sound from them is inspiring and inventive.

I think the way they treat the guitars on Dayvan Cowboy is very similar to how they may have done it on Chromakey Dreamcoat (check my previous post for this).

 


In my next post, i'll take a look at how BoC create some of their beats.It's a part of their sound that often gets overlooked but they really install great character into their beats so i'll do that.

Cheers for now Papas St Germain










Monday, 2 June 2014

Campfire Headphase Boards Of Canada   Production Techniques     By Papas St Germain


This latest post concentrates on some of the production techniques used by Boards of Canada on the Campfire Headphase.The sounds on this record are a massive influence on all my sample packs released under the Papas St Germain moniker.

I'll take a look at some of the individual sounds on the album and dissect them.I'm going to do this over a few posts.

Overall, this album seeems to divide opinion amongst BoC fans.

They used more traditional instrumentation on this album but the sounds are infused with the same character as their previous releases.Personally, i think it's their most fully realised record with the most interesting sounds,song structures and melodies.This album marries digital and analogue technology very effectively.

Chromeakey Dreamcoat

One of the main parts to this track, is the repeating guitar line which seems to be sourced from an acoustic guitar sample played by BoC.

The part has been put into a sampler and judging by a recent interview with BoC it is likely to be an old hardware Akai S series sampler.Below is an excerpt from a question asked by fellow producer Jon Hopkins.

http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11104

This the link to the blog at BoC pages where lots of other artists ask BoC questions.The paragraph below shows the answer to the Jon Hopkins question.


JON HOPKINS
Is there an instrument that has always given you inspiration and what is your relationship with it?

MS : Good question. Probably the Akai sampler. I keep going back to my old Akai. We use them more like synthesizers than samplers we record our own instrumental parts on it and then manipulate them. It’s not really an instrument in the sense that it doesn’t have it’s own sound, it's just a tool. I love the old stuff, the memories they hold and the efforts of memory they require. Also, they look like stuff in Soviet hospitals, which encourages us to do depressing music.

These samplers do have a unique quality and in the earlier samplers the 8 bit setting could be used and often had to be used to free up memory.This creates a pleasing  degraded quality to the sound.

If you listen carefully to each pass of the riff, there is a degradation in sound from the previous riff.
This happens 3 times and then repeats itself,starting from fairly high fidelity to lo fi by the 3rd repeat.

There are various ways which this may have been done

  • Reducing the bit rate on the sampler for each loop and then putting them in sequence
  • Using some tape processing techniques where the sounds are re recorded a number of times to tape to degrade the sound,you can hear a slight tape warble in the sound by the 3rd pass
  • Using EQ and filters to take more high end frequencies out of the sound each time ,lessening the clarity and creating a muddy sound
The interesting part of this way of production is that although BoC are using real instruments,they aren't trying to preserve the quality of the recording or playing.Quite the opposite.

They are creating a specific looped,degraded quality deliberately and the sound is totally unique to them.
This opens up the possibilities of what can be achieved with samplers in general.

Compare a lot of BoC's work on this album with some of the philosophies that MBV had embraced when they recorded Loveless.

LINKS

http://ambientguitarsvol3.blogspot.co.uk/

sampledelicsounds.com





Thursday, 8 May 2014

Only Shallow Part 2      My Bloody Valentine Production Techniques 

by Papas St Germain



MBV had started to get interested in some of the processes more associated with Hip-Hop and dance music productions namely sampling.

 MBV, however, were more interested in sampling their own sounds and textures and putting these sounds back into the mix. This is apparent on the start of the track, Only Shallow, where the sound has been compared to” an air-raid siren”.

 This sound that is achieved is integral to the whole track and could even be looked on as a hook in the track so it is important to understand how this was achieved.

 Again, as with the other guitars, the original recorded signal is important but the processes used to further enhance and shape the sound into what it becomes on record are equally important. Sampling an already recorded sound is an important part of the process.

The following is a quote from Kevin Shields explaining how this sound was achieved

.” We chose organic sounds, that’s why people didn’t immediately go ,that’s a keyboard, even though it is."

 Shields continues.

 “ There are multi-layered parts to some songs like the opening of only shallow, with me playing the same thing 3 or 4 times. It was the usual rock and roll bending the strings type of thing, but I had two amps facing each other with two different tremelo’s on them.”

This explanation shows how a basic guitar sound was achieved but Kevin Shields goes on to explain how this sound is sampled and added to the mix to create the unique sound on record.

” I then sampled it and put it an octave higher on the sampler. ” For us, where the sampler had a great value was that instead of having the option to play things on a keyboard based on some sounds you could find anywhere, we’d sample our own feedback,which instead of just being one tone , could be a tone having bends and quirks in it.

This way of working,was unique for a guitar band at this time and probably still is but it shows some of the ideas that shaped MBV’S philosophy behind making records and the track only shallow in particular.

 The basic guitar recordings have a distinct sound due to the techniques used in the guitar playing and this allied to the sampling of guitar and putting this in the mix creates a totally unique and distinctive sound.

The vocals on the track are unusual on this track in the way that they are placed in the mix. Instead of being pushed to the fore front of the mix, they are submerged in the mix and are really slightly lower than the level of the guitars.

 It is also quite obvious that the vocals are multitracked and although this is standard in a lot of productions, in the case of MBV there are several tracks of the same vocals with maybe a couple pushed up on the desk to give a bit of clarity to the vocals.

This technique creates a big vocal sound but also an overall ambience to the whole sound which adds to the wall of sound effect.

 Kevin Shields explains the technique.

” We’d take one vocal track that I liked and ever so slightly edge it forward so that the articulation’s coming from that. But then the sound and the whole thickness of it’s coming from ten or fifteen vocals “.

This is a deliberate ploy by Kevin Shields who had a clear idea of how the vocals should sit within the overall sound with the vocals sitting within the track as part of an overall cohesive sound.

 There doesn’t appear to be much separation between instruments at all.

 The bass guitar in the track follows what the guitars are doing and it’s purpose is to provide another texture in the track but it’s presence adds to the feel of the song rather than being a standout element . The whole track is heavily compressed which means that the volume of the track is fairly constant with very little in the way of dynamics even though there is a loud part to the song.

The guitars in particular are heavily compressed at source sound and thereafter. This compression also helps the different elements blend together to create a cohesive wall of sound.

The purpose of this method of mixing the separate elements ,is to create a wall of sound. This technique was popular in the 60’s with producer Phil Spector and also Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

 Kevin Shields goes on to explain his ideas behind what he was trying to achieve.

” Basically the art of record making is to create something that sounds the same no matter where you hear it. Most people make records so that they sound the same everywhere but to achieve that, you have to work with a limited frequency range. I wanted to make records that sound really different, the tiny speakers off a computer, or hearing it in a club, it’s still basically what I wanted, which is that the guitar is prominent. It was important to always have the guitars louder than the vocals. It’s largely just the fact that the vocals have a place in the music in a frequency sense and they don’t stick out more than some other sounds”.

It is this idea of a cohesive wall of sound  that has it’s individual elements separated by their frequency ranges which makes this track fairly unique in modern record making and mixing. There is very little left and right stereo separation in the track and it is basically in mono. The main guitars on only shallow are in the middle of the stereo image along with the drums vocals and the “air raid siren” guitar sound also.

This is quite unusual for a rock record in modern times as there is usually a lot of left and right stereo separation to create a wide stereo image. In this case however, everything is in mono apart from the rythmn guitars in the main loud part of the track which seem to be slightly panned but not much.

 Any separation in the track is actually achieved through equalisation and also reverb in order to place the various elements in the mix.

Equalisation in particular, is the main way in which Kevin Shields wanted to layer the individual parts within the mix. The intention , is to give each element of the track a frequency range which it sits in so that you know the presence of the part but it doesn’t immediately stand out or become obvious.

As  hinted at before , the vocals are treated as another sound rather than the lead or main focus for the track so they operate at a mid frequency that sits well within the mix and adds to the whole sound.

 Kevin Shields explains his intentions on how he wanted to mix in general and how his ideas relate to his admiration of 60’s producers Phil Spector and Brian Wilson.

 “ Everything I did is mostly mono- there’s no set area of separation. The bigness just comes from the depth of perception”, he continues” Pet sounds and Phil Spector’s productions were mono as well- it’s more the balance of frequencies that creates a sense of depth than stereo separation.

The drums on Only Shallow , are fairly submerged in the mix and are really not a priority in the way they are treated on the track. With so much going on in the mix, they really just keep a simple rhythm and hold the tempo which works within the mix.

The drummer plays on only shallow but was unable to play on the rest of Loveless so his parts had to be programmed.

 This shows that drums were fairly low on Shield’s list of priorities in making a great record at this time.” We had lost the Who-type influence and were going for something more simplistic, more pure.”

Overall, there were a lot of different studios and engineers used for the making of the Loveless album of which Only Shallow is the opening track. Kevin Shields insists that of all the engineers credited on the album (18 in all), only 3 or 4 made significant contribution to the final product with the main engineer being Alan Moulder ( whom Shields was full of praise for) and significant help from Guy Fixsen and Anjali Dutt.


            The role of Alan Moulder in his role of mix engineer on this track was to make sure that any effects processing added to individual recorded tracks didn’t adversely affect how that track fitted into the final mix. Moulder would also ensure that there is a fairly equal balance of frequencies within the final mix and that there are no obvious clashes of certain frequencies in the final mix.  As mixing engineer, Alan Moulder would also have ensured that the balance in levels between the recorded elements of the song was such , that no individual elements of the final mix stood out too obviously and that all the individual parts of Only Shallow, blended together as a whole. 



 It seems that most of the work on the record was done when Alan Moulder was engineering, with Shields calling the shots on production. There were numerous studios used for recording and mixing the record but the band encountered various technical glitches in these studios so their time in many of them was unproductive. The bands most productive work , took place at Trident 2, Falconer studios in Chalk farm, The Stone Room for mixing work ,Blackwing studios and Protocol studios in Holloway.


The track Only Shallow is a good example of a conventional guitar band stretching themselves and creating a type of music that hadn’t been done in this way  before. By using a mixture of unusual playing techniques, modern sampling, multi-layering of vocals and feedback and almost completely ignoring the idea of modern stereo separation, MBV  created a very unique sound which has gone on to be very influential on the alternative music scene ever since.

Next post in 2 weeks time will take a look at some of the production techniques used by Boards of Canada on The Campfire Headphase.

Tuesday, 6 May 2014

Ambient Guitars Vol 3 Inspirations and Influence: Only Shallow         My Bloody Valentine Productio...

Ambient Guitars Vol 3 Inspirations and Influence: Only Shallow         My Bloody Valentine Productio...: Only Shallow         My Bloody Valentine Production In Depth         PART 1 BAND: My Bloody Valentine Album: Loveless Track: Only Sh...

Only Shallow         My Bloody Valentine Production In Depth         PART 1





BAND: My Bloody Valentine
Album: Loveless
Track: Only Shallow



My Bloody Valentine were a basic 4-piece alternative band who had been around since 1984/85 playing fairly standard indie guitar pop. Kevin Shields was the leader of the band and by his own admission, they were copyists of the Jesus and Mary Chain, a band who hailed from East Kilbride and who released their first single on Alan McGee’s Creation records.

 This record label became the most successful and influential on the British alternative music scene in the mid 80’s to 2000 and signed MBV to the label where they released several critically acclaimed EP’S and their first album Isn’t Anything which were also successful.

 This provided the backdrop to where MBV were going to go next with their next album , Loveless. The making of this album was not without it’s problems and took roughly 3 years to make and allegedly cost £250,000 to make although Kevin Shields insists that this figure has been wildly exaggerated.

 Nevertheless, Creation and MBV went their separate ways and MBV  took another 22 years to make another record.

The actual track I am going to analyse is Only Shallow, the first track on Loveless.

 As well as being the leader in MBV , Kevin Shields was keen to produce the record with assistance from engineers when needed. He had a lot of specific and unique ideas for how he wanted to approach the making of the record and wasn’t willing to compromise.

This led to a lot of problems with some of the in house studio engineers who didn’t agree with a lot of these ideas. There are several engineers credited on the album but Shields insists that only 3 or 4 contributed to the creation of the record, we will look at this in more detail later on. In the end, it was Shields specific ideas that defined the sound but it probably wouldn’t have been possible without the technical knowledge of these engineers on the sessions.


ONLY SHALLOW

Only Shallow opens the album and is a heavy guitar orientated track with soft sounding vocals within the mix and a distinctive sound in the loud parts of the track which has been compared to an air-raid siren.

 It is obvious from the start that there is a lot going on in the track and a lot of various processes from sound source through to final processing to arrive at the finished sound.

 Probably the most noticeable part of the track to start with is the prominence of the guitars. Kevin Shields wanted the guitars pushed to the fore front in the mix and to have the vocals mixed at a fairly low level whilst sharing much of the same mid-frequencies as each other.

 The intention is to create a cohesive wall of sound rather than a mix where there is clear separation between the different elements in the track.

 The instrumentation of the track is basically drums,bass,guitars and vocals with some samples but the nature of this track and the sounds being created are far more than a standard 4/5 piece rock band.

 One of the most noticeable parts of the song is the guitars and here are some of the techniques which are being used to create the sound.



Kevin Shields had previously developed a style of playing guitar which was extremely distinctive. It involved a Fender Jaguar/Jazzmaster and constant use of the tremolo arm,which he kept in his hand at all times whilst playing.

He would use an effect called reverse reverb (Acually a preset on the Alesis Midi Verb ) play through a Vox AC30 amplifier and would often use alternate open tunings. A combination of these techniques would help him achieve the pitch shifting sound he was going for. Here are some direct quotes from Kevin Shields explaining how he achieved this.


The basic thing is using chord structures with open strings and different weird tunings combined with a guitar going through a Vox amplifier. That amp has the capacity to play almost anything through it and reproduces the sound of the weird chords very well.

Shields continues to explain his technique with the tremolo arm.

“ I just kind of found my own way and my own feel, my own way of playing. It’s really hard to do unless you set the guitar up in a very specific way. I modified all the tremolo arms. I never did it with stock position, if you do it normally it doesn’t work at all. Normally when people use a tremolo arm you can hear them bending it, going up and down. For me, it was making it sound sort of unconscious, so that it didn’t sound like someone was doing it”.

This guitar sound is central to Kevin Sheilds ideas on how records should be made and to what he is trying to achieve on this track in particular but there are a lot of processes besides this guitar technique going on.

IN the next post i'll delve further into some of the sampling and processing techniques on Only Shallow.

Links to Ambient Guitars Vol 3




Sunday, 4 May 2014

My Bloody Valentine  Ambient Guitars 3 inspirations and Influences

The sounds on Loveless were a major influence on the sounds that i produced for my latest sample pack Ambient Guitars Volume 3. Here are some insights on some of the production techniques used on the record Loveless by My Bloody Valentine.



8 PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES ON LOVELESS by My Bloody Valentine


1 Kevin Shields decided early on in the production process that nearly every element on Loveless would be in mono.His reasoning came from the way the early Spector and Beach boys records were produced.Shields seperated the individual elements through Equalisation rather than using stereo width.The low frequencies would be stacked at the bottom while the high elements could peak through the mix by accentuating the high frequencies.This was a reaction to the abysmal 80s productions that Shields felt lacked power.


2 There is a massive misconception that there are loads of multi tracked guitars on Loveless but this isn't the case.Shields states that there are probably only about 3 to 4 main guitar tracks on each song.He states that there are as many guitars on this record as most guitar bands would have on their demos.

3 Most of the drums on Loveless had to be programmed and sequenced due to the drummer being ill during the making of the record.The first song Only Shallow is in fact the only song where Colm played live.

4 The vocal tracks on Loveless take the opposite approach from the guitars.On some songs there are up to 15 vocal tracks.Shields would then push one through slightly higher in the mix and Put some high frequency boost to help it cut through ever so slightly.

5 Sampling was a massive part of this record and many of the Valentines techniques were closer in spirit to the pioneering techniques of the Bomb Squad(Public Enemy) and electronic artists.An example of this is the flute type sound on Sometimes.That sound is actually a flute type patch on the sampler mixed with Belinda Butcher's voice,creating a kind of organic electronic sound.

6 Much is made of Shields guitar technique.One paricular technique that he is renowned for is his use of the tremelo arm on the Fender Jaguar.Kevin Shields would have the tremelo fitted very loose and held with some tape.This would allow him to cup the tremelo in his hand gently whilst strumming and then when he wanted to change the pitch he would just use a small amount of force to pitch shift the chords when needed.He doesn't even claim to be the originator of the technique but no one else has used it as effectively as shields and integrated into the songwriting as well as him.Just an opinion.

7 Another important element of the guitar sound on Loveless are the tunings used.Shields uses a lot of varied tunings.He uses various drop D tunings including DADGAD and would sometimes even have a couple of strings pitched within a semi tone of each other.This creates a lot of drones and discordant,melodic atmospheres within the chord changes.The Actual chord changes the Valentines use are like no other guitar band out there,possibly Sonic Youth are the only others i can think of that have that combination of spine chilling chord changes,melodic overtones and a drone like feel constantly through the songs.Again,just an opinion.

8 For the guitar lead part on Only Shallow, Kevin Shields used a really interesting technique to create the startling bent out of shape sound.He placed two Vox AC30 amplifiers facing each other and set two tremelo speeds for each one,fast and then half the speed for the other.This was recorded and then put into the Akai S1000 sampler.In the sampler the whole sound was pitched and played in a full octave higher.This was then blended into the original recording to create an astonishing lead part.Shields also uses the technique of bending the g string on guitar up 2 semitones much beloved of many guitarists,from Chuck Berry to Joey Santiago.

Discover more on Ambient Guitars Volume 3 at these links


sampledelicsounds.com

sampleism.com

Sunday, 27 April 2014

Friday, 25 April 2014

Ambient Guitars Vol 3

Inspiration and Influences

get the samples and check out the sounds at the links below,free sounds at the sound cloud link


https://soundcloud.com/papas-st-germain






Welcome to Papas St Germain's latest blog.



On April 25th 2014 ,ambient Guitars Volume 3 will be released at sampleism.com . This is Papas St Germain's 11th sample pack and is inspired by many different artists,sounds and techniques.

On this blog , i am going to go into some of the artists that inspired the library and delve into some of the techniques,equipment and processes i went through to create the sounds.Hopefully this will give y'all some insight into some of the production techniques of these influences and maybe give you some ideas for your own productions.

For this post, i'll just give an introduction into some of the musicians that inspired the sounds for the new sample pack,a list of main influences if you like.

One of the main influences on all my ambient guitar work is My Bloody Valentine.My main attraction to Kevin Sheilds style is his ability to make the guitar sounds completely unique and unlike the boring rockisms that many guitar players fall back on.He twists and bends the sounds into unusual tones and is extreme in his use of dynamic effects such as distortion and compression.I love the attitude that the guitar is a machine to be manipulated into something very different from the source sound. I'm going to post an essay on Sheilds production skills and guitar style later on in this blog.

Another big influence for me are Boards of Canada.They have a similar aesthetic to MBV in that they use interesting source sounds but arrive at and end sounds that is very different.They also use techniques such as resampling to tape numerous times ,de grading the sounds and giving them a totally unique character.

One thing that MBV and BoC have in common is a unique musicality in approaching sounds and composition.They rarely use conventional tunings when using guitars and this allows them to come up with haunting,surreal and stunningly beautiful chord progressions which gives their music a unique quality.

For Ambient Guitars Vol 3 , i also used different tunings and capos and slides,e bow etc to create sounds ,chords and chord changes that were unique to this sample pack.I'll expand further into this later on in future posts.

Other major influences i turned to for inspiration were Brian Eno(oblique strategies,blissful ambience,melody) ,Fripp(loops and repetition),Global communications(sound design,analogue processes),Jon Hopkins(melody and atmospheres), Nick Mcabe(atmospheres and delays),Philip Glass(minimal soundscapes,repetition),The Orb(repetition,balearic hooks).

All of these musicians contributed to my ideas for the sample pack and i'll explain how in future posts.

Get Ambient Guitars Vol 3 at this link

sampledelic sounds.com

Peace Papas St Germain

Amb GIT3 dagad capo 3rd 4 note hymnal Ambient guitars Vol 3 Taster

Amb GIT3 dagad capo 3rd 4 note hymnal Ambient guitars Vol 3 Taster





This is a new sample from Ambient Guitars Vol 3 from Papas St Germain.Inspired by artists such as Boards of Canada,My Bloody Valentine,Aphex Twin,Brian Eno,Burial and Global Communication.Recorded using a vintage Music Man Amplifier and loads of analogue pedals.