Produced 6 years ago (almost to the day), Battery is an alternate version of Alkaline, a track released in 2003 on one of New York’s premier techno labels: Gotham Grooves. Alkaline was a B-side on the Funk Matter EP, which featured remixes of the title track by Agent Orange and Valentino Kanzyani and will be covered here more directly later, but for now we’ll just focus on the Alkaline‘s gentler sibling.
Unlike the released version which has a darker, mangled vibe, Battery is a funkier jam with a free style bassline. Until now, only a couple of select few DJs had access to this rare mix. Now you do too.
Atera is a Techno House track from 2006. Like many Biotic tracks, it features a driving, tribal beat with lots of percussion, vocal stabs and a thick bass line. What balances is out is the gentler sound of the Rhodes keys which give it a splash of a down-tempo vibe. The track took a while to complete and went through a few revisions, partly to fine tune the crowded low-end, but also due to the marriage the softer and harsher elements which also made it difficult to market. Subsequently, the track wasn’t shopped much and ended up rotting on some disc.
Aside from the drums, the foundation of the track is the simple pulsating bass played by the Photone Synth (see screenshot), a child of the previously mentioned Reaktor software. Interestingly, the sound used for this part was not a tweaked sound or a preset, but the raw generator tone with no filters or processing applied. I’ve always liked the basic sound of this synth and have used it on a few occasions. Reaktor and Absynth were used for the remaining synth sounds. The TubeVST plugin was used to fatten up some of the sounds and give them a more airy tone. The Focusrite ComPounder was used for this purpose as well.
In addition to the MP3 and WAV versions of the completed track, included is the midi file for the main bass line, if you’d like to use it for something or simply get a kick out of playing it in your midi player. Lastly, I’ll be adding the BPM field for all tracks shortly. For now, this one is at 135 beats per minute, a common tempo for Biotic tracks.
August 28, 2009 / admin / Comments Off on Exclusive: Upstanding Citizens present Funkadelic Sexy
Unless you’re really in-the-know, it may come as a surprise that Upstanding Citizens is a project of old buddies Rus Deep (Mr. Preverted Groove himself) and Alek Biotic. But even if you were familiar with the duo and their track Cannibal Carnival featured on Rus and David Sambor’s 2003 CD Sounds Under New York, the only way you could have heard the follow up Funkadelic Sexy would have been during a Rus Deep or Alek Biotic live set. But even then you wouldn’t have known it.
Well, here it is now, to set things straight.
Recorded in Alek’s Brooklyn studio in late 2003 and mastered shortly after, the track features the vintage Rus Deep tear-down and re-build, with the classic NYC Progressive House vibe. Once again, original Wav file is included.
Goliath is a tech-trance jam from 2002. The title comes from the sample used in it, taken from the 1997 Sci-fi flick Event Horizon. If you haven’t seen this movie and you’re into the genre I recommend it, though Sam Neill’s annoying character (and his lame lines) ruined the ending for me.
I am generally not a fan of sampling stuff from movies, but I made an exception here since the track was inspired by the movie and the line (delivered by Laurence Fishburne) fit the bill. The sound of thunder in the background also came from the movie and I always wondered what it was doing there since (unless the thunder was somehow on the space ship) it wouldn’t have been heard in space. Hollywood… whatever.
Another interesting production note is that the bass is not played by a synth but is a heavily filtered sample of an Autechre track Rae from LP5, a sick album which I was heavily into around this time. Rae remains one of my Autechre faves.
Initially, the track was not a Part anything. It was just a track of its own. But a few months later I wrote a different track based largely on it (sans the Fishbourne sample) and that became Part 2, making this one its prequel. Look for the follow-up here in the future.
We’re going way back to year 2000 for this one. Its one of the very early Alek Biotic productions, in fact, its number 11. But of well over a hundred tracks this one stands out since its the one and only progressive trance track.
Since this genre wasn’t really my style this track was never shopped and subsequently never released. Until now.
This track also features the awesome Nord Lead keyboard, as well as the Quasimidi Polymorph module, now long discontinued (the company folded around the time this track was made). Drum programming and sequencing on the track was done on the legendary Akai MPC-2000 sampler workstation, and the track was recorded to DAT before mastering on the PC.
This track was my submission for a CLR (Chris Liebing’s awesome label) remix competition. Chris had released his Evolution LP around this time (2004) and the challenge was to remix the track American Madness. My remix didn’t make the cut but since its completely different from the original I dropped the first word from the title and it was officially a track of its own.
Aside from it being produced for a specific (though, unmet) purpose, the track’s beat always stood out from the bunch and it was one of the rare tracks that featured the FM7 synth (the legato stab in the breaks). I meant to use this synth more since I really liked the sound, but it never ended up anywhere else.
Once again, the original, mastered .wav file is available for your listening (and mixing!) pleasure.
Decade Of Dissonance started out as a remix of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. That idea was quickly dropped and the track took a direction of its own. However, things kept getting in the way and it would take more than a year before it was done. Its another relatively long track and it takes a bit of turn around the 5th minute before getting back on, well… track.
The main line is played through Native Instruments’ insane modular software studio (to put it mildly), Reaktor, which allows you to create your own instruments and ensembles by literally drawing out the components (generators, knobs, faders, etc.) and connecting them into the signal flow as you see fit. NI produces some of my favorite software based instruments including Absynth (also used on this track), Battery and the newer Massive. To beef up the tone and give it some air I usually run the digital sounds through an analog device, preferably a preamp and/or a compressor, which was the case here.
(Speaking of preamps and compressors, I’ve gone through a few over the years and some of the highlights were a JoeMeek box, a Focusrite compressor (which I still have), and FMR Audio’s RNC 1773. Nowadays, I find that the Universal Audio’s UAD powered plugins provide accurate emulations of the favorite analog hardware while allowing project-related presets.)
Yet another NI plugin, Guitar Rig was used on the guitar which meanders in the background and is more prominent in the break. Guitar Rig does a decent job of simulating classic guitar amps and sounds, but it also offers some weird effects such as the one used here.
Exclusive: As you’ll see below, this post features the original (wav) format file for download. This the mastered version of the original mixdown available here with no compression. Enjoy.
We’re going back to 2002 for this one. Clusterfuck was (and still is) a personal favorite but it never made it out, until now. The track is very raw and is based on a couple of rusty drum samples and a simple synth riff produced by the amazing Virus B synth. That riff always reminded me of Pink Floyd’s “On The Run” which featured the impossible to find (or afford) EMS VCS 3.
Also heard on the track is the Nord Lead 2 keyboard which supplied the underlying bass sound. The drums and the main line are all sample-based and played through the Akai S5000 sampler. (The photo shows the studio setup from this period. Seen in the upper right of the photo is the tiny 12 channel Mackie analog mixer which is one of the best sounding mixers I’ve ever used.)
Like many other producers, I’ve since moved on to a predominantly software-based setup, but Steinberg’s Nuendo software used to arrange and record the track is still in use, although upgraded to a more recent version.
