[ Hypnos Forum ]

Hi all,

just to let you know that I've finally decided to make ['ramp]'s steel and steam album available as a digital download (FLAC) through Bandcamp:

https://ramp1.bandcamp.com/album/steel-and-steam

As some of you may remember, half of the tracks was recorded in collaboration with Mark Shreeve of Redshift so you might want to call this a ['ramp]-meets-Redshift album to some extent.

I guess it's about time to set out to London again. Oh well, some day...

Thank you for your Support,

Stephen.

Hi all,

it's shameless self-promotion season again, apologies for that .

I've uploaded the CDR Version of my 2010 limited-edition album permafrost as a digital download album on Bandcamp:

https://stephenparsick.bandcamp.com/album/permafrost

It was recorded between February and March 2010 during an exceptionally cold winter; many field recordings used on this album have to do with ice in some way or other. For example, I close-miked a frozen pond to record the crackle of ice, tree trunks and rocks tossed onto the surface of a frozen lake (which the local police found a bit, well... interesting), and of ice floes grinding against each other on a frozen canal. As a contrast, I also recorded the sound of fire which was used very prominently in Part Four of the album. These recordings were processed in the studio and combined with textural sound from various analogue and digital synthesisers.

There is a 3 1/2-hour version of this album as well which I might upload eventually but for the time being, I am happy to treat you to the album-length rendition of permafrost.

Thanks for listening and, of course, for your support.

Stephen

There is plenty of them around. The problem is, most of them are "vintage" and thus fairly pricey.

The Sound Workshop 242 is a classic stereo spring reverb, a bit like the Klark Teknik DN 50 (which is also stereo). Both are 19" rackmounts. Fostex, D&R, Tapco, Quad/Eight, Masterroom, Vesta Fire, Furman, and Korg also made rackmounts.

The Great British Spring is a stereo device but fairly awkward to carry around (let alone place in the studio). Shipping one of these could be a real challenge.

The king of springs would be the AKG BX-20 but this one has become extremely expensive recently, as well as its smaller siblings, the BX-25(E), BX-15, or BX-10. I would not spend a fortune on a BX-5. Too limited for the price it fetches.

For guitar and instant Dick Dale the Lafayette Reverb is interesting (marketed under different brand names), as well as the Schaller Reverb. These two are mono.

Vermona RetroVerb is one of the more contemporary (and affordable) offerings. Ekdahl Moisturizer probably is a bit too hip and correspondingly more expensive.

My personal favourite would be a BBD echo, combined with a spring reverb (e. g. Evans/Electra EP-250). This, or a Roland RE-201/301/501/555. Sweet tone.

Stephen

Depends on what you are looking for. I've always found TC reverbs to be on the clinical and cold side -- which can be a good thing if you want contrast in your mixes. If it's your only reverb, it might be a tad too sterile. The long-discontinued Behringer V-Verb is rumoured to have been modelled on the TC 3000/4000, and, in fact, the reverbs tend to be on the clear but cold side. Which is nice, if only for contrasts.

But that's only me, of course. I could never warm up to the fabled TC 1210 Chorus Flanger either. Had two of them, sold them both (but always kept at least one Roland Dimension D).

Never liked (or used) reverb stompboxes -- I'm not really into this sort of gimmickry either.

Stephen

[...] Too much choice can be paralyzing.  [...]

It makes people docile -- and hope for someone to make all the important choices for them because the world has become a tad too complicated.

Stephen

If you know the location from actually having been there, you will have found out it is a rotten, crumbling, run-down, filthy place (I was tempted to write "piss-hole") with (bad) graffitis all over the place. The qualities of the place in terms of "ambience" or "reverb" are pretty much non-existing -- the only intriguing bit would be the cold-war connotations it evokes.

Stephen

And now for something a little more pleasant (before it gets *really* bad) and tranquil:

https://stephenparsick.bandcamp.com/album/planetary-music

"Planetary Music" has just been made available -- a concert from March 2008, recorded at Osnabrück planetarium. The programme was billed as "Planetary Unfolding" in order to pay homage to Michael Stearns'  highly influential space music album -- interestingly, a local newspaper described "doombient" as "a hybrid of new-age music and death metal." This I'd love to hear -- if only once.

Anyway, thanks for your attention. Feel free to enjoy,

Stephen.

I received an email from Hearts of Space earlier this morning... apparently, one of the tracks Markus Reuter and I created was played on last night's broadcast, all across the USA:

=--------------------------------------------------------------------=
    PGM 1134 : "AFTER THE BURN"
=--------------------------------------------------------------------=
    PGM NOTE : the nostalgic sound of a world without us
=--------------------------------------------------------------------=
    FEED DATE : 1-13-17
=--------------------------------------------------------------------=

  ROBERT RICH
   "Corvid Collections" (beginning) < 0:00->2:52 >
   "Soft Rains Fall" < 2:52->6:47 >
   "Corvid Collections" (ending) < 6:47->10:23 >
    : WHAT WE LEFT BEHIND; Soundscape Productions SP027; 2016
    : Info: www.robertrich.com

  ROBERT RICH
   "Equipoise and Dissolution" (edited) < 10:23->17:41 >
    : VESTIGES; Soundscape Productions SP029; 2016
    : Info: www.robertrich.com

  ROBERT RICH
   "Aerial on Warm Seas" (part) < 17:41->21:37 >
    : WHAT WE LEFT BEHIND; Soundscape Productions SP027; 2016
    : Info: www.robertrich.com

  SECRET DRUID SOCIETY
   "Lonely Moon" < 21:37->25:18 >
    : RESTLESS; First Fallen Star ffs006; 2010
    : Info: www.secretdruidsociety.bandcamp.com

  STEPHEN PARSICK and MARKUS REUTER
   "Weightless Particles" < 25:18->32:43 >
    : LAMENT; Gterma Records gterma003; Sweden 2012
      http://www.markusreuter.bandcamp.com/album/lament
    : Info: www.gterma.blogspot.com; www.parsick.com;
      www.markusreuter.com

  ROBERT RICH
   "Night Seas Luminesce" < 32:43->39:10 >
   "Anchorless on Quiet Tide" (edited) < 39:10->44:05 >
    : VESTIGES; Soundscape Productions SP029; 2016
    : Info: www.robertrich.com

  ALIO DIE and SYLVI ALLI
   "Crepuscular Birds" < 44:05->54:27 >
    : AMIDST THE CIRCLING SPIRES; Projekt PRO292; 2014
    : Info: www.projekt.com; www.aliodie.com; www.verticalpool.com

  ROBERT RICH
   "Obscured by Leaf Shadows" (edited) < 54:27->58:59 >
    : VESTIGES; Soundscape Productions SP029; 2016
    : Info: www.robertrich.com

=--------------------------------------------------------------------=
    PRODUCED BY : STEVE DAVIS and STEPHEN HILL
=--------------------------------------------------------------------=
    BAY AREA WEATHER : waterlogged
=--------------------------------------------------------------------=
    (c) 2017 Hearts of Space
=--------------------------------------------------------------------=


Wow.

Took me more than twenty years to get there.

BTW, "rhizophora -- music for mangroves" will be up on Bandcamp soon. I still am amazed at how this music makes time dissolve. Extremely slow, deep-listening stuff.

Stephen (smiling with satisfaction).

Hi all,

as already discussed elsewhere on this forum, I decided to take a sabbatical from releasing music after the Bochum Planetarium Show in July 2012. The workload of running a label enterprise (even a tiny-scale operation as mine), creating and producing music, and working a day job which pays the electric bill turned out to be a tad too much.

My hands have not been idle, though, and I kept producing music in the meantime, although perhaps not as ambitiously as in the past -- I'm getting older as well. I hope to be releasing one, if not two new ['ramp] albums on CD in the course of the new year which I finished off in 2016 (with a third album waiting in line). Also, I hope to get my website (ho-hum...) up and running -- it took me all of 2016 to elaborate on the concept, write the texts, and sift through my archives for some pictures I might want to upload.

The first step to get things going again was signing up to Bandcamp. Some of you may know how reluctant I am to release music online but people really seem to embrace this format as I could tell from past experience with Iapetus. I took the time around Christmas to start uploading not only ['ramp]'s back catalogue but also some music I created under my name. I hope to have some more albums added to my discography (download-o-graphy?) soon:

https://stephenparsick.bandcamp.com/

https://ramp1.bandcamp.com/

There are two ambient music albums I have had in the pipeline for some time which I decided to upload to Bandcamp, "music to walk through" and "a beginner's guide to doombient". I hope you will enjoy listening to them. You can order downloads and physical releases (if available) directly through Bandcamp while my own webshop is still inactive. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with me.

Many thanks to all who have sent emails, encouragement, and moral support -- much appreciated.

Thanks for your time,

Stephen.

[...] and now we know the meaning of VCS3, I wonder what AKS stands for   

A krappy sequencer.

Aye, kool shite.

Just an idea...

Stephen