Nil

Core Alter is Steve Baxter and Elliott Watson. m-Realizable was made swapping sysex files back and forth between Brisbane, Australia, and San Diego, USA, mastered from the raw edits of its creative sessions. m-Realizable is sonically equally spacious and dense, disruptive and meditative, fiercely digital and organic all at once. Opaque yet open-ended in its unfolding narrative and how you’ll distill the music. Rather than hyping each tune, we urge you to dive in, and to absorb it fully. You might pick a few possible influences while listening to m-Realizable, yet I’m positive you’ll quickly realize how personal, honest, deep and singular this 7 tracker is. As a related note, this is the perfect release to kickstart 3OP : the label almost created itself before our eyes (Elliott’s, Steve’s and mine), and it was a spontaneous yet obvious decision to release a Core Alter opus first. Asking Andrew Bates to handle visuals was our next move as a collective. I’m delighted I get to master our catalogue. Dream team work at play. -Nil This release is dedicated to the memory of our friend Salvatorin (Philip Josef Glowa). Written and Performed by Steve Baxter and Elliott Watson Mastered by Nil Hartman Artwork by Andrew Bates Limited archive edition, 20 copies : Preview / Megamix :

What a stellar album Computer Series is !

One of the very few techno producer I love.

I've had these videso bookmarked somewhere for a while, great content.

Same. Lush package I must say. I’ve yet to listen to the whole album, though considering how brilliant Beating the Odds and his upcoming 3OP release are, I can already say : Computer Series, AOTY.

https://ooh-sounds.bandcamp.com/album/synalegg-computer-series ► French experimentalist Synalegg launches his austere yet sparkling Computer Series, flirting with the control and aesthetics of randomness. Synalegg´s notes about ComputerSeries; Computer Series is a musical and graphic project performed by a computer in an algorithmic environment designed by a human being. Above all, it’s an experiment that shifts the role of the artist to that of an “aesthetician responsible for his algorithm” (A. Moles). Initially, the work begins with a long phase of development involving many decisions to determine a suf ciently complete and autonomous modular system. The performance is then fully entrusted to the computer which, through its exceptional capacity to generate multiples, is able to combine and permute the data as desired. And potentially reveal some singular combinations that the system’s creator would not have considered? Perhaps also clumsiness or oddities. Here is a selection of these computer proposals pulled from several captures and grouped together as 10 tracks/10 visuals with no subsequent modi cations (except for editing and mastering). Each track comes from a combination of sequences, sound engines, sound processing and mixing determined by the computer. This same process was then adapted to generate graphic abstractions using data structures and combining primitive shapes, colors, sizes, layers... Music and visuals generated from a Pure Data patch designed by Synalegg Packaging design by Aï Synalegg’s one of the most talented producer around, period. Absolutely stellar and beyond !

https://www.instagram.com/3op3op3op/

Instabought, even though I’ve yet to listen to Bokuseki… but have been listening to Fluidity on repeat these last few weeks

Are you performing ? If so, I guess using SC ?

Thanks ! We'll soon set an Instagram account I suppose. A website too. Until then, feel free to follow either @eczem or me, we'll definitely post anything 3OP related. We'll also create topics for each release in the New & Upcoming Releases subforum. Thanks mates ! I had no clue about the Lynch / Dune reference, that's neat. I'm by no mean a designer, so I went for something simple. Looks great on a teeshirt as well, eh.

Barker & Baumecker's set. Overall insane line-up.

On Gearslutz/Gearspace, former Motown in-house sound engineer Bob Ohlsson often shares his wisdom. He now offers his services as a mastering engineer. I love his posts for the unique, honest perspective they offer. Loudness has always been a consideration, even in the good ol’ days of vinyle and tape. Obviously, digital brickwall limiting has allowed for higher volume at the expense of transient definition and dynamics / contrast. But eh, pushing analogue gear is also a form of (soft) clipping. And now, for better and for worse, clipping and limiting is part of the sounds many producers are also seeking. I teach electronic music production, and I can tell you that not everyone loves a dynamic mix/master : some miss the suffocating sound of an abused limiter and hard clipping. No matter the educational listening sessions that reveal the sonic shortcomings of a super loud master. I would love to live in a world in which every device that play sounds would normalize audio to say -23 LUFS Integrated : squashing a mix to death would become an aesthetic decision, not a manifestation of the fear not to be heard. Skrillex would sound tiny in such a world, ah ! But that’s not the world we’re living in. I’ll even add that, as long as SoundCloud doesn’t normalize loudness, and as long as streaming platforms and IOS/Android don’t force loudness normalization (you can still disable it on Spotify for instance), then we’ll still hear tunes clipping several dBs over 0dB FS and aiming for -5LUFS Integrated. -14 LUFS Integrated is still quiet for a mastered tunes by current standards (even if it often does sound great). Not so many urban / electronic producers would dare to release music mastered at such level. Not yet. I’m not even talking about pop/rock/metal. As an artist you can of course refuse loudness war, but that’s a personal, deliberate initiative, not a global trend. Someday, maybe ? That’d be great. I’ve once read that targeting, on the loudest part of a tune, -10 to -8 LUFS Short Term, with true peaks not going over -.3dB FS was a healthy compromise. I 100% agree. We’re talking Oversteps loudness here IIRC. This last few years I’ve discovered that limiting done right can actually sound awesome though. Same for clipping. It all depends on how tastefully it’s done. Anyway I digress. A possible workflow that can be effective when mastering is to set your limiter first. Then to EQ / compress etc… into it (if needed). Depending on what you do, you might eventually get a similar density while reducing the limiter action / obvious soundprint. Every now and then I’ll use hard clipping to shave the occasional excessive peak, before the the limiter. I’m a huge fan of Voxengo here, Elephant is hands down my favorite limiter, and OVC-128 lets us monitor the clipped portion of the signal : as long as you don’t hear anything remotely melodic in what’s chopped off, your mix should be ok. While EQing, I’ll suggest to climb up the spectrum, from bottom to top. More often than not, mixes have plenty of low end, so you might need to sculpt the lows, to lock them in place rather than emphasizing the fundamental of kicks and basses (they already eat enough headroom raw). Work their harmonics instead ? Low shelves are often overlooked but are amazing tools (even instead of an HPF, or to favor mono compatibility with some M/S processing). Once you’ve secured the lows, the rest is often much easier to dial. I’d say the limiter (because of the way it’ll affect transients and contain the mix) and EQ (to rebalance rather than to correct) are the 2 most crucial tools here. Compressors are fascinating devices, I love them, but they’re not always needed in a mastering session.

Amazing tune ! I haven’t listened to it on my monitors yet, will do ASAP.

The hype is legit and 100% justified, I can’t believe how lucky we are to release what we’re about to release. I’ll resist the urge to talk about each EP/LP ? Top human beings as well I must say. I’ve posted at length on IG, and I must add here that our friend @Stickfigger was paramount in the creation of 3OP, the third 3OG.

I stay away from visual analyser as much as possible, though have you noticed anything weird running these mixes through SPAN or similar piece if software ?

Hi WATMM, @eczem and I are launching 3OP. Artworks will use @oscillik 's stunning pictures. I'll be mastering the releases. First entries to our catalog are insanely good. 3OP001 is out September 2021. I'm trying to keep my post as concise and factual as possible, but I'm ecstatic. I'm so grateful to everyone's involved !

As long as the mix isn’t clipped, it’s trivial to recreate headroom.

Mastering engineers are going as loud as the clients ask them too, simple as that. @Zephyr_Nova which kind of loudness are you aiming for ? Loudness is so material dependant, some arrangements/mixes can be pushed while others will collapse when you go past a couple of dB of limiting. And limiting is just a part of the equation (but you already know that) If your mix sounds awesome and huge (I’d love to hear), then there’s no reason it shouldn’t sound equally as good once mastered. What’s your workflow ?

TV series is rumored to focus on the Bene Gesserit IIRC. Which could be totally awesome.

100 000 000x this.

Powell x Éditions Mego = genuinely curious.

Yes. And yes.

Instabought, just like anything William releases.

I have a Griffin Powermate gathering dust somewhere, quite similar to the nOb. I've found that the scroll wheel of my Kensington Expert Mouse trackball to do the task extremely well.