this is just to say, that the first of a number of applications-based albums is well underway, it now has a title “fairlight fifty” (many thanks to colin bathgate for that title), and there are a number of completed compositions now ready to go on to the mix/mastering stage, and more new tracks are appearing all the time….
three things have spurred me on to commit totally to this project:
1) the bizarre and unique nature of the compositions I am doing on the fairlight pro is an absolute inspiration, the tracks are utterly unique; like nothing I’ve ever done before and like nothing on earth that I’ve ever heard before
2) I accidentally filmed some birds the other morning, including crows and jackdaws, which became my latest video and the newest upload on the new applicationHD channel, presenting the first single from the record, “feast for crow”
3) I realised that for some strange reason, the average length of an average dave stafford fairlight pro track is about two minutes or less (one or two tracks stretch out to a lengthy three or even four minutes long, but in the main, they all seem to be right around the two minute mark); originally, I jokingly said “I will just wait until I have fifty and then I will release them” but now – I take that completely seriously, because if the most recent tracks are anything to go by, when I reach fifty, there will be then be fifty of the most bizarre and unique tracks I’ve ever recorded…
why not? at the moment, I am planning on an early 2013 release, as only about a dozen of the required fifty tracks even exist, and I have several other projects that I really want to complete and get under my belt this year – so I can have the freedom to then turn to the fairlight pro project and complete it hopefully in time.
during the mastering of the audio for the “feast for crow” video, I also re-assessed the last few pieces that I have recorded, “unwinding prophecy”, “guitarilla”, “fun with cardboard”, “petroglyph”, and a brand new, partially completed piece entitled “seagulls” – I realised that these pieces are even more unusual, unique, strange, weird and bizarre than my usual fare, and frankly – thanks to the amazing design of the fairlight pro application, with it’s strange approach of triggering real samples of real instruments and controlling note pitch, volume, duration, pan, etc. as you sequence the samples – that these pieces of music make up a very special group of songs, each one made with a different customised eight part instrument – and that to gather up fifty of them as an album would be a very, very interesting sonic experience indeed, I hope, ending up as utterly unique as the dozen existing tracks sound now…I just can’t resist the temptation – so, an album there shall be!
fairlight fifty – I like it! (and so – the fairlight fifty album project is officially born…).
on monday night, after having mastered the audio for “feast for crow” on sunday, I assembled the video using the footage that I had taken just a few mornings previously at the end of april. the video was a lot of fun to make, demonstrating an epic struggle of nature, with the more intelligent crows ending up in possession of the prize – the feast – and the dullard seagulls were defeated once again due to their overwhelming desire to posture and flap their wings and fight and chase each other off – while the crows patiently wait, eat what they can, and end up with the food anyway because the gulls had basically all chased each other completely away – a really cool avian slice of life/real-life bird video to accompany this most peculiar of songs.
best of all, the “lead crow” then does a victorious hopping exit stage left at the end of the video, which I just loved – you would almost believe that they knew I was filming, the way they behaved…
“feast for crow” is one of the very, very first songs I created with the fairlight pro app, and given that I didn’t really know or quite understand what I was doing at the time, it came out quite, quite well all things considered. I believe that for the album, I am going to record these pieces utterly flat, with no EQ or reverb or any alterations except to match levels – because I love the way they sound flat! I experimented with adding reverb, EQ and other effects when working on “feast for crow” but in the end, decided against anything, so I reverted it back to the basic captured track and mastered from that.
I am seriously thinking I will do the whole album that way – but, possibly, with a twist – once completed in it’s “plain vanilla” version, I might then take “breeze” or other effects, and really go wild on copies of all fifty tracks – reverb them, flange them, chorus them, delay them, echo them, because while I love them plain – I am also sure that some of them at least, would really, really benefit from some serious “treatments” – I can’t wait!
another possibility is doing a single energy-bow guitar overdub of each track, which might be a very interesting musical experiment indeed – but we will see – I really feel that these unusual tracks have so much potential, so I do plan on spending a lot of quality time in the studio with them, to see what is…possible.
that would mean producing two masters of each track, but the tracks are so short, it will be easy to do that – so I think I will move forward on that basis.
I guess that means then that we will have both “fairlight fifty” and “fairlight fifty (enhanced)” – and maybe – “fairlight fifty (energy bow jam version)” too – to look forward to next year. I can’t wait!!!
pureambient / dave stafford 