Back by popular demand!
I created this edit to show my love and appreciation for Melbourne Australia’s Sound of Thought Collective. The track was premiered at their party on my second tour of the continent. I am well pleased to know that this track sets the dance-floor on FIRE!
Six years later….
This youtube video was shared on “The Book” by a friend and supporter of my artist page so I re-posted; it prompted by the fond memories it evoked. The response was a bit overwhelming. Since the track has not been available to download for almost five years (an entire lifetime in clubland years), I am aware that there is a new generation of heads who never had access to it.
Thus, this evening’s post.
Just like then, the same is true now. This was a true labor of love. I spent almost 8 hours getting this track updated sound-wise. As the sub-bass was a bit lacking. At the time I made it, I was in the bedroom of the host’s house for the Melbourne leg of my tour. I only had my headphones to monitor, and so they, as many headphones often do, were a bit deceiving. The track sounded fuller than it actually was.
Not that anyone on any dance-floor minded.
I could have re-released it as is, but me being me, this could not pass.
So my original plan was to completely do it over with a new kick, a fresh mix-down, and re-mastered. The first problem therewith was that the original source file has been lost. Bear in mind, I am three hard drives, and two laptops removed from the one I created this track on. I could find the drum track, but the song itself has gone missing.
After recording the song again as an HQ wav file, I proceeded to do the do.
No joy! First I had to re-“beat map” it. Abelton users call this “warp” but in Acid Pro, which I use, it is called “beat mapping”. No matter what I did things just didn’t sync up correctly. Not to mention, the drums did not sound the same. The drum track itself hits harder, but when I would compare it to the video, the raw essence of the O.G. (original) was lost.
Oh yeah, the song itself was never released as a high quality wav file. It has crackles and pops. Which are tiny breeches. Small sections of the sound are cut out. These create those pops you hear. I spent a good three hours just repairing those in Sound Forge all for naught.
At any rate, I eventually had to concede and give up on the idea of remaking the track.
Luckily I do still have the edit you hear on youtube, so then the focus was enhancing the sub-bass, and remastering the unmastered original final version. I am quite fortunate to have had a version that wasn’t already mastered.
So then,
To save bandwidth, I thought to upload it to SoundCloud which was taking forever. Halfway through, I remembered that SoundCloud would likely delete it, since it is an edit of someone else’s song. Mission aborted. Then I uploaded it to my cloud which took FOREVER!
Upon a bit of investigation, I realized I had rendered it as a 32 bit 192 wav. The track was almost a gig in size. WHOA! So after about 45 minutes of uploading, I had to abort mission again. This was truly a labor of love. I lost my entire studio day to this track that I am giving away for free. This is how much I love you all.
The saying goes, “it takes money to make money”. Another saying is time is money”. So in essence. I give you a free full day’s labor along with this free download. And, I am happy to do so knowing that there are heads out there who will happily listen to, and or play this in their sets.
Now, if any of you have a bit of spare change to put in my donation box, I will be ever so grateful. Any and all moneys collected are funneled back into this web-store.
The shirts and merchandise you see were made possible by the generous donations of some of my staunchest supporters.
Ok then, time to link this to the book, eat my well past midnight dinner, cut my hair, and go to bed. As I’ve got some manual laboring to do tomorrow.
It is tough work, bit I am very fortunate to have it.
Shout out Sound of Thought. I miss you all. Thank you for the inspiration, and thank you for the vibes.
Amir Alexander xx
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