Dark Ambient - Bad News - 80s News, Korg Ms10, Fostex XR3 4 Track Recorder
Somewhere in a parallel world is a version of this that got made twice as quickly because I didn't accidentally record over the start of track 2 with the beat on. FFuuuuuu. Oh well, I think I managed to make a better version as a result, though I'm still not happy with this arrangement. Keeping things interesting over 6 minutes isn't that easy when you're recording to 4 track in this way to be honest.
So the news clip belongs to the BBC obviously and dates from the 80s judging from the content. It's on a tape of a documentary I found in a sort of lucky dip box of tapes I bought from a car boot sale at some point. I have no idea if anyone cares about the copyright of such an old bit of radio but I'll roll the dice on that one and see what happens I guess...
The Hitachi tape deck is not particularly good, this one doesn't even rewind anymore, but you've got to love that ridiculously chunky design and leatherette carry case with microphone pocket 😁
I'm using the DJXII for beats which is the only thing I ever use it for. Ahhh, the DJXII. That thing sure has some strange design decisions. It has some great preset rhythms for whenever you need to do something quickly, plus the beats can be processed through the effects, filter and EQ. My battery and blu-tac 'Cyberpunk Hack' as someone called it on one of my other videos is pressing the pitch bend/BPM which pitches down the drums, so there's quite a lot that can be done there. On the positive side you can switch toggle various elements of the drum loop, but on the negative side you have to manually hit new patterns in time by hand as they have no sync at all. But the keyboard sounds, the damn things aren't sent through the filter and the keyboard doesn't have velocity despite both those things being available over midi. Why would they do that? Kind of makes me want a DJX 1 which does do this apparently, kind of like a cut down CS1X or something. Oh well, it's not like I can't do all that elsewhere.
The Korg Ms10 takes on the role of bass and lead here with my custom expander on top helping with an extra oscillator and basic high pass filter to help tame the bottom end before it hits tape.
It's recorded on a Fostex XR-3, mixed through a Inkel MX880E with reverb added from a Zoom 1201. Boom
I ended up in dark ambient territory by accident again by the way, though that has happened so often now I wonder if I have enough to release a dark ambient companion to my Proper Ambient Music album soon perhaps....
