what's it all about?

well - duh?  the reasons why are slightly more complicated.  in some respects it's a little obvious, but then these are the things that are important to me.  it's very difficult not to be obvious under these circumstances.  while we're still not getting it right, there's always these things to be said.

instruments & tone sources

almost all the sound sources here are the roland GR1 guitar synth.  all the pads, basses, pianos etc came from the guitar synth.  this was mainly because i didn't have the jv by that point.  drums are zoom 234 and an old roland r5 for the 808 kick drum.

the speakers are: martin luther king (of course); albert einstein (who was far more of an ethics and human rights advocate than most people ever gave him credit for); nelson mandela; and lyndon b johnson.

production comments

this was my first venture into slightly more dancey electronica and i feel much better now.  it was recorded about the time we were doing 'helium' for helen turner, and so the feel of the two tracks sort of evolved together.  it was fun to do.  again no sequencers on this one - mainly because i was still working in Audiodesk only.  there's no self-righteous reasons here - i just didn't have that facility in-house to do this track two years ago in that way.

this track to my mind is a little bass heavy, and needs a little something in the mid-range, but i didn't want anything to cut across the speeches.  i didn't really want to change it because the whole album is a bit of a historical record of the first couple of years in the studio, and i wanted some things to stay the way they were recorded at the time for posterity.  the next album will be a little more consistent i hope.

with most of the sources being the gr1, i think the synths are that bit thinner and not quite as rich.  the gr1 is designed as a performance tool, and not really for recording work, unless it's a sound that is unique to that whole 'guitar as controller' area; so if i was redoing the track i'd probably go back to the JV again.

i also think 'helium' was a much better second attempt. zoom 234 drums; JV pads; ebow guitars and chapman stick and of course helen's sublime vocal performance all created a much more rounded track.