Ghost Signs - These Small Things Rebuild

[iainx]

Finally got everything recorded and sounding good, so here is my new album, 4 tracks of lovely noisey droney tape loop ambience and lots of goodies bundled with it too.

Available on Bandcamp for £5. I hope you enjoy it.

https://ghostsigns.bandcamp.com

Cover 2.jpg

[iainx]

Remembered I can embed a player

[synkrotron]

Hi Iain,

I am going to cue this up for a full listen later... I've sampled a few minutes of each so far and I am liking what I hear.

Back later

cheers

andy

[iainx]

Cheers Andy, I look forward to hearing your thoughts

[synkrotron]

Listening now... :listening:

[synkrotron]

I enjoyed that Iain.

Not something I have listened to before so I am slightly uncomfortable commenting really.

I know that magnetic tape is your medium here but, apart from a general lofi and monophonic output, the overall quality sounds pretty good.

For tape, I am expecting a large amount of hiss for starters, but there is none. So are you recording to hard drive first? Or has tape recording technology moved on so much?

And what tape format do you use, if you are going straight to tape? You mention 2ips in your write-up but from what I can remember from my old tape recording days tape speed was 4ips.

Good piece of work though and I also enjoyed the accompanying video you made.

Cheers

andy :D

[iainx]

Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for taking the time for a considered response

I'm not recording the performances to tape, I just record onto the computer but I've got a lot of low-pass filters in places to try to remove the worst of the hiss, and the only real post production stuff I do on the final recording is to put a low pass filter and an amp modeller on it, to make up for not being able to record it from my amp.

The tape loops are just on old cassettes that I've begged, borrowed, stolen or bought from charity shops.

Yeah, I think the standard speed of a cassette was somewhere between 3.5 and 4 ips but the "high-end" machines (in quotes cos you get them for 40quid on eBay these days) have pitch controls, which was probably supposed to be used to fix any pitch errors caused by tape stretching, but I use it to slow the loops down to give a longer loop time and the tape looks like it travels at about 2ips to my eye.

You noticed the monophonic recordings... Once I get my proper mixer back, I'm hoping to be able to do stereo recordings, but at the moment I don't have room for the mixer on my desk. Gotta work with what you've got.

[synkrotron]

Once I get my proper mixer back, I'm hoping to be able to do stereo recordings

Ah... So the mono recording wasn't an artistic choice. Well, it still sounded okay to my ears and, like you say, you got to work with what you have

cheers

andy

[seismic1]

I think standard cassette speed was 1 7/8 ips - 4.76cm/sec

[synkrotron]

Thanks Tim.

I didn't remember the exact details but I know that my little portastudio ran at double the speed of an ordinary cassette player

[iainx]

You're right, I was thinking of the doubled speed ones, but meh, it's not important for the story

[aoVI]

Just got around to listening to this tonight.

So beautiful in it's sonic imperfections that it hurts. Really wonderful work.

Still listening.

[iainx]

So beautiful in it's sonic imperfections that it hurts.

Wow, thank you! Seriously, if I had a poster that'd be the quote for it

[iainx]

I made a live video for Black and White Dreams of a Distant Faded Past from These Small Things Rebuild if anyone wants to check it out.

Filmed one winter night underneath an old mill. The waterwheel would have sat in a 9 foot deep trench literally 6" behind my chair and the whole time I was at risk of falling back into it. Was kinda fun. The wheel is gone now, but the river still runs through it. It had the right atmosphere for what I was doing.

[synkrotron]

An excellent audio-visual experience Iain... Nicely done