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Wolfgang's Ill Guitars

by Spooly the Editor

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YEAR 2.5

One night at The Sunset Room in Victoria--at a time when I had only been into bass music for a year of so, and had been using the Numark digital decks for less than a year--I heard Wolfgang Gartner's track "Illmerica" in mid-urination. It struck me so much I cut the deposit short mid-stream and headed out to hear it in the sweet spot (equalateral triangle with the speakers and hands over backs of ears to cut down on echo) to hear as much of it as I could, and to find out the name of it. Months later I decided to mix it up a bit and put it on the left and right top decks and did a lot of manual delay, repeat, flanger, and tremolo, with a few effects (filters, reverb) here and there. Of course I think I've improved the song and I'd like to think that someone out there likes it enough to play the virgin track and this back to back and find out which things I changed. A tasty riddle for the ears and mind perhaps.

Be aware that in a song such as this one, you will think it is more repetitive than it really is. What seems like the same 4-bar measure repeated 16 times always has something changing--an instrument fading in, fading out, changing into another instrument, getting filtered out from top to bottom, etc. When you start listening closely, loudly, many times, and want to hear everything and understand the song very well, mechanically and also what the artist was trying to communicate. There's an especially complex little timing bit at the end of the song, maybe 7 measures or so, done mostly with automatic looping of constantly changing lengths (a rare instance of using auto looping instead of manual. Manual is much more fun and flexible, and no problem with acoustic music and no beatgrids. But if you need to do spot on, loops over and over with changing length and end up right on point at the end of it, without losing the first or last bit of any sound envelopes, auto is your game, unless you're superhuman or possibly dudes like Kid Koala).

And there, then, lies another sonic riddle.

credits

released October 28, 2014
Illmerica by Wolfgang Gartner
129, and plus and minus several score per cent bpm
7:38 (original track is 7:23. they often end up longer)
2 passes, then 1 more edit a year later

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Spooly the Editor Victoria, British Columbia

All my edits have 5 things: Me, Others, Technology, Real Time Improvisation, and "Mistakes". I have been researching & playing with music intensely since 2011 on the Numark NS6. The screen shot is a sound grab from Sunset Room in Victoria, BC, using an ipod app. I recommend playing these tracks quite loud and downloading the better quality files. Music is fragile; handle with care. ... more

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