I wanna be like BT

jasinski · Post by **jasinski** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 2:07 am

jb61264 wrote:
nebulae wrote:His latest record, "This Binary Universe" has lots and lots of rain all over it. Very dramatic. Yeah.
I was just going to buy TBU this weekend...the price finally came down to where its fairly reasonable than when it was first released.

BT has a stutter effect that everybody says you can find information about on the internet...can something similar be accomplished if one uses Sampler...I saw the Sampler video and it looks like if you drag the sample end selection you can get the repeat stutter effect...could you map different lengths of the same sample (but at different lengths) to different keys to give you the capability to do something similar?

you know, you can do this with Simpler....

FaX-01 · Post by **FaX-01** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 2:10 am

nebulae wrote:I'm going to go and sample some rain, and then quantize it to perfect 256ths.

How unoriginal.
I had a No.1 track Mp3.com several years back when i owned the RS7000.
I sampled hail on the tin roof during a storm.
Performed a slice and seq job on it then programmed an intro that started off as the hail and storm and morphed into ryhtmic metallic pings that where the basis of the entire rythm track with slices split across tracks and midi channels 1-7 with filtering, detuning, repitching and time stretching on various slices to create the backdrop to the entire track.
That was some 5 odd years ago I might add.

jasinski · Post by **jasinski** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 2:11 am

I met BT at the premier of TBU and have talked to him a few times since then. He was very down to earth, very into software, and quite brilliant. He gave a lecture and Q&A before the viewing of the video and had a lot of quite interesting things to say. I have a lot of respect for him musically.

For TBU did you know that he scored a lot of it for orchestra and conducted the recording sessions of it? Then took those recordings and glitched them... how cool would THAT be?

jasinski · Post by **jasinski** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 2:14 am

Hey! i remember the 'good old days' at MP3.com- remember when they paid you money for every listen you got??? Ah.. the dot com dayz.

Sampling rain/found sounds isn't new.. Art of Noise, Orbital, heck- Depeche Mode!....

but TBU is still an amazing work- the closest thing to 'serious' music evolving out of the pop-electronic world I have heard for quite some time.

FaX-01 wrote:
nebulae wrote:I'm going to go and sample some rain, and then quantize it to perfect 256ths.

How unoriginal.
I had a No.1 track Mp3.com several years back when i owned the RS7000.
I sampled hail on the tin roof during a storm.
Performed a slice and seq job on it then programmed an intro that started off as the hail and storm and morphed into ryhtmic metallic pings that where the basis of the entire rythm track with slices split across tracks and midi channels 1-7 with filtering, detuning, repitching and time stretching on various slices to create the backdrop to the entire track.
That was some 5 odd years ago I might add.

msticman · Post by **msticman** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 2:18 am

yes. in my opinion, TBU is by far the best work ive heard from him. it showcases his many talents in not just electronic, but his classical background as well.

i have a interview from future music mag with him. he talks about the making of the album. seems like it was a labor intensive project for him. he stated that he didnt set out to do a whole album. he had a song going and one of his friends persuaded him to do a whole album.

btw, he mentions that it is best heard in surround sound. i definately have to agree with this. it has much more depth to it when listening to it this way. my favorite is good morning kaia. such an emotional piece this is. especially the video.

he is one of the nicest, talented artists i have had the pleasure of seeing. i got to see him in dallas using live in his laptop symphony. the way he warmed up to the fans after his set, was great. i wish i had the opportunity to see TBU live. how many other artists would put on a event like that and then take questions and interact with the audience? not many i think.

artists like him are truly inspiring in that their ego is definately not ahead of the fans.

ARDJ · Post by **ARDJ** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 3:00 am

he talks all about it in this video interview:

http://stage6.divx.com/BT/show_video/1052242

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 3:07 am

LOL, I'm loving this thread.
I do admire TBU a lot. Love the strange time signatures. Could give the glitch a rest, but overall a great record.

And just for shits, if I was BT's therapist, I'd tell him to record something in pure midi and endure the midi slop, as part of his therapy to de-anal-ize him.

theshaggyfreak · Post by **theshaggyfreak** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 3:37 am

sgx wrote:
theshaggyfreak wrote:I recently saw This Binary Universe live (the BT and Thomas Dolby tour). It was quite a good show although the live version of TBU had much different dynamic than the CD/DVD. It's a good disc, though, and I enjoy it quite a bit.
Hey did you see it at SONAR in Baltimore? I was there too. Might have bumped into you.

It was a great show. I saw him on the Movement in Still Life tour and that was more mind-blowing but mainly because that music fit the concert/club venue better than the largely downtempo TBU did, but TBU was cool. It was interesting how they substituted the string lead parts for the herdy gerdy .

Naw, I was at the Birchmere show the following night. One of the guys that sat with us said that the Sonar show wasn't as mixed as well as the show we saw. I'm personally more into sit down shows anyway since my bad legs have issues with standing in one place for more than 15 minutes.

I enjoyed both Thomas Dolby and BT, though. One of the best shows I've seen in a long time. It's the first concert that I've ever been to that was in 5.1 .

Silverfish · Post by **Silverfish** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 4:02 am

This is kind of embarrassing, but I've been a BT fan for a long time. Having said that, TBU is a very interesting album and for me is of special interest. I'm currently studying both classical and electronic music at Iowa State University (yes, Iowa has schools, electricity and *shock* even computers). Before the albums release I remember hearing something about it maybe being the first significant electronic music work of the 21st century. When I heard the album, I thought, "meh". It's certainly grown on me, and it's certainly different from most of the electronic music people are used to hearing, but my issues with the album have less to do with what it does and more with what it doesn't do. The use of surround sound is great. It's done in a way that is less gimmick and more intentional art. The inclusion of visual work is a major step in the right direction, as well. Nothing groundbreaking, but well done, nonetheless. The original orchestral scoring is great- but here's my complaint: the orchestral parts could have been better in terms of compositional content, and he could have done more with the ensemble as an instrument. The Antikythera Mechanism, for instance, starts out really strong, but the damn orchestra never actually goes anywhere!!!! Then he bails out completely by taking the recording and going all crazy IDM on it (which normally would be fine... but.... on a full orchestra?

) Having worked with a full orchestra, there are so many sounds he could have tapped that would put most stutter edits to shame. I'm sure I sound like a pretentious ass, but that's what collegiate music training is for, I suppose. Over all, I thought it was a very refreshing album, and I hope that more people do start to work in a way that combines both electronic music and more traditional classical music styles into something new and refreshing (which is kind of my personal music goal in life, I think).

Freakybeatz · Post by **Freakybeatz** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 4:12 am

BT is a huge musical talent...period..

You cant please all the people all of the time and Love him or hate him, you cant deny that talent.

This Binary Universe is by no means my favourite peice of his work, but its a clever bit of multimedia and worth a listen.

Although his haircut is another story....(but a serious step up from his spiky blonde slightly camp hairdresser days...)

Freaky...

jb61264 · Post by **jb61264** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 4:20 am

jasinski wrote:
jb61264 wrote:
nebulae wrote:His latest record, "This Binary Universe" has lots and lots of rain all over it. Very dramatic. Yeah.
I was just going to buy TBU this weekend...the price finally came down to where its fairly reasonable than when it was first released.

BT has a stutter effect that everybody says you can find information about on the internet...can something similar be accomplished if one uses Sampler...I saw the Sampler video and it looks like if you drag the sample end selection you can get the repeat stutter effect...could you map different lengths of the same sample (but at different lengths) to different keys to give you the capability to do something similar?
you know, you can do this with Simpler....

would you do it the same way that i sorta described above or are you thinking it would be accomplished in some other manner?

jb61264 · Post by **jb61264** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 4:22 am

jasinski wrote:I met BT at the premier of TBU and have talked to him a few times since then. He was very down to earth, very into software, and quite brilliant. He gave a lecture and Q&A before the viewing of the video and had a lot of quite interesting things to say. I have a lot of respect for him musically.

For TBU did you know that he scored a lot of it for orchestra and conducted the recording sessions of it? Then took those recordings and glitched them... how cool would THAT be?

+1 musically jasinski...alot of people tend to rail him on this forum but for me personally, i like most of his music...i won't say "all" of his music but he is definately a major influence like Crystal Method and Chemical Brothers are to me.

theshaggyfreak · Post by **theshaggyfreak** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 4:25 am

jb61264 wrote: +1 musically jasinski...alot of people tend to rail him on this forum but for me personally, i like most of his music...i won't say "all" of his music but he is definately a major influence like Crystal Method and Chemical Brothers are to me.

For me I really dig the soundscapes he creates. Hearing that sort of thing live was really trippy. I'm more into stuff like Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Thomas Dolby, Deep Forest, etc. Not so much of the dancy stuff but more of the atmospheric kind of music.

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 4:35 am

I like most of his stuff too. However, I *CRINGE* anytime a magazine write that he's the creator of trance music. Nothing he's done sounds anything like trance to me.

nuperspective · Post by **nuperspective** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 5:24 am

regardless of his musical styles his ideas and sounds are always one step ahead.

epic house - done it
prog house - done it
prog breaks - done it
glitch - done it

and usually before everyone else. and usually leaving most people to think 'how did he do that and how do i do it?'. 12 months later the sounds are everywhere.

not saying he invented the sounds, but he knows how to make you listen and take notice and think 'shit that was cool'.

I wanna be like BT

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Re: I wanna be like BT