AMIGA MUSIC MAKING with Rhythm Release [by bc1am1 and rs1am1]


Richard: Rhythm Release, a Hampshire based band consisting of the two of us
(Richard and Ben), have been producing music for several years now. During
that time our equipment list has expanded and the quality of the music has
improved, but always, at the heart of the recording, has been an Amiga. Ben
explains how it's used.

Ben: Basically, when we had use of our first Amiga (around 1989) we created
all our pieces of music on that one machine and fed the Amiga's outputs
into our 4-track tape recorder. These would be on the first two tracks, for
left and right sound respectively. The last two tracks on the 4-track
recorder were used mainly for effects and overlaying voice samples and
breakbeats. This was all done on very limited equipment, for breakbeats I
had a selection of records that were part of a breakbeat series, still
available now, by Simon Harris. I had a very basic belt drive turntable
that I removed the belt from to achieve free floating movement. In that
way, we could spin records at any speed we needed and also achieve
scratching effects which were commonly used in late 80's house/rap tracks.

So that was almost the entirety of our equipment back then. I'll now hand
you over to Richard, who'll explain a few things about our first album.

Richard: The Rushing Sound of Broken Leaves by Leadsfit was our first
outing into the world of music making. Many of the tunes were composed
using Noisetracker previous to the decision to make an album. We then added
a few more tracks to bring the number up to a decent level. These included
an appallingly bad rendition of the theme tune to The Hitch Hiker's Guide
To The Galaxy, as well as tracks such as The Awakening and The Dominators
which wouldn't be out of place in an Amiga demo. Needless to say, this
wasn't quite the sound we were looking for, even though the tape raised
some money for charity at our local Secondary School. Ben now tells a
little of how the second album came about.

Ben: For this second album we had acquired a fair amount of equipment.
Richard had his own Amiga, (we had borrowed a friend's for the first album)
by then. By this time I had also managed to acquire myself two lovely
Technics SL1210 MKII turntables, also a good mixer and a Yamaha PSS-780
keyboard. Having listened a (little) bit to our first album we decided that
not only was the quality of recording a bit dire but the songs seemed very
rushed, too short and not of the style we would like to really make. So,
under our new name of Devoid we decided to record a second album to be sold
in our Tertiary college. The title of our second album is Images Et Mots.

On the first side of the album there was 45 minutes worth of tunes,
including vocals for the first time, courtesy of our fellow A-level student
Stuart Allen. There were three songs with Stuart in, and I had managed to
get hold of a few effects pedals, normally used with guitars, but we
thought we'd give them a try with the microphone. This provided us with a
better quality of sound as we had echo available to us. The backing tracks
for Stuart were all composed on ProTracker. Other tracks on the first side
didn't use the Amiga in any way, while others were written solely using the
machine.

Richard: The second side (the Mots side) was intended as a concept album
based loosely on the War Of The Worlds idea. The tracks were all composed
on the Amiga including a couple of tracks that had appeared on the first
album, remixed. The story linking the music gave the second side a theme
and we made sure we spent more time editing and mixing the tracks until we
had what we wanted, something sadly lacking on the first album. I'd just
heard the Enigma album, MCMXCAD, and was quite influenced by it on the
pieces I wrote, especially apparent on the tracks New Life and Wraith of
Mists II.

We were far more pleased with the second album which was a definite
progression both in style and quality from The Rushing Sound Of Broken
Leaves. Both albums were forgotten, however, when we made a useful
discovery.

Ben: We realised one day that we could quadruple the number of tracks that
we had available to us from 4 to 16. We thought that why not, since there
are 4 tracks on the Amiga and 4 tracks on the 4-track tape recorder, record
a different 4 track module from the Amiga onto each single track of the
4-track recorder to build up a complete tune, i.e. one module for drums,
another for bass, etc. This would therefore give us a total of 16 tracks.
The main problem, as we found out, was synchronising those modules. We
overcame this by placing a series of clicks (such as regular hihats, or
rimshots) at the start of each module. That way we would know when to start
each module on the tape.

Another problem was keeping those modules in time with each other once they
had started. We thought that we may be able to adjust the speed of the
module we were recording by using the pitch control on the 4-track tape
recorder but that would have sounded horrendous as the instruments would
keep changing pitch. We got around this problem by using the tempo button
provided on ProTracker versions 1.3 up. This changes the speed without
altering the pitch luckily.

Richard: The quality improvement was tremendous, especially now that we had
room to place echo and reverb on selected instruments in Protracker without
sacrificing the number of samples we used. The tracks on the Leviathan
Flower Arrangement E.P. which were composed using this method under the
name of Rhythm Release, occasionally suffer from overcrowding of
instruments (some voices drown others out) and the odd slip in timing, but
the overall effect is far more professional, varied and interesting. The
four tracks consist of three original pieces of 16 and 12 channels and
Wraith of Mists which I converted to 8-channels, improving this piece quite
dramatically from its 4-track predecessor.

We are currently recording a 16-channel version of Rose Royce's Wishing On
A Star, composed in 4 parts on the Amiga with vocals by my girlfriend, Liz,
who sings through Technosound Turbo to add reverb to her voice. I have
composed an original, 16-channel piece called Quiet Night In to accompany
the main track and remixes of it, again featuring Liz on lead and backing
vocals.

Ben: We also now use a reel to reel recorder, which is very high quality.
This we'll use to bounce the 4 tracks of the backing to Quiet Night In down
to only two track stereo. This leaves us with two extra tracks with which
we can record the lead and backing vocals with the same vocalist.

From the 4 years or so since we started we've gained a lot of experience in
recording and producing. Since we can't afford a decent midi setup the
Amiga certainly seems the best for us. The quality is as good as you make
it. If you have the memory, you can choose high sample rates and thereby
keep the quality you need for professional recordings. If you are
interested in making music, the minimum or cheapest road you could take
would be to invest in an Amiga and a cheap or second-hand 4-track recorder.

Richard: If you are interested in obtaining a copy of any of our work
(except the first album which we're too embarrassed about!), i.e. Images Et
Mots, L.F.A. E.P., or Wishing On A Star E.P. (due for unsigned release
imminently) then write to either of us. Prices are just a paltry £2.50 per
tape to hear what we've achieved with the Amiga (although the album has
more tracks, bear in mind that the latter E.P.s are of a higher standard
and are thus the same price).

Write to Mr Richard Salter, 39, The Maltings, Liphook, Hants, GU30 7DG.

Please make any cheques (don't send cash!) payable to Richard Salter.

Thanks for listening!