Making of Geogaddi

I've asked at twoism but no one can really give me an insight really. I would put this in the boards forum but it wouldn't get far there either..so here goes.

I find Geogaddi one of the most fascinatingly put together albums ever. dense and lush and all them other words...but how was it made.?

Music has...: lots of sampling and some sequenced hardware probably recorded to tape and mixed down to dat

Campfire...: some sampling and sequenced hardware probably recorded and mixed in logic (it's got that logic sheen)

Harvest....: Lots of sequenced hardware probably record to a lush tape machine then mixed down to 2trk tape.

Geogaddi: lots of sampling and resamping and more sampling but i don't know how they've sequenced a lot of it. mentioned in interviews are playing samples live to tape and a sequencer with a quirk.

i'm just lost sometimes when i listen to it, the synths must be sampled and re sampled but they must soon run out of sampling time, you can hear some of the drums are quite low rez so that makes sense they sample stuff down but every thing else seems so lush. They can't surly sequenced the synths and samplers at same time as the recall process would be immense!

so how do you think they build up songs on Geogaddi, it's said they worked on loads of tracks at the same time to did they just jam over the tracks and sample the bits the arrange them with a sequencer?

I think they used a daw or some kind of tracker

Drums are samplers, sequenced (obviously)

But the synths were performed

(aside from arpeggios and other step-sequencer stuff)

I'm not mystified by this kinda stuff anymore

Not because I've figured it out or anything

But rather because the method isn't hugely important

(And anyways, it would seem banal if you learned what it was)

Geogaddi could be made one of a thousand ways

But anyways, I would guess they used a daw

Just for the organizational convenience

Conceivably Geogaddi could've been made on an MPC

(As I suspect MHTR2C was...but I haven't looked around)

But I would bet that they used a daw as a 'tape deck'

Jammed/sequenced out the sections

Ran performances through samplers and consumer reel-to-reels

Dumped everything into a daw

And then collage'd it all together into the Geogaddi we all know and love

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Probably a mixture of stuff right? I hear some microphone recordings of portable cassette recorders and I also hear distortion on several elements either from overdriven speakers or a distortion pedal or something

Just giving Music is Math a listen and can hear many independent samples - I'm sure they did a lot of purely sonic experiments

Maybe they recorded some stuff onto VHS and then used a half broken tape or machine or just stuck their fingers in the machine while it played

You get some similar sounds out of this spy mic I bought from the pound shop once as some stuff in Gyroscope

btw what does lush mean?

There was an interview with a producer this year (I thought it was Mike P, but I guess not) talking about his favorite albums from the 90s. He talked about Boards of Canada quite a bit and how they did their things to their sound to age it, like recording to tape and wearing the tape down or something.

Can't find / remember who it was for the life of me.

there are lots of backwards keyboard parts on this one.

also sounds like a lot of the vocal samples are processed in the computer (i recall there were a variety of plugins starting to get released around that time)

It's probably all the black magic and satanism and shit

I am genuinely intrigued though, my favourite of their albums and still sounds fresh.

oh also tomorrow's harvest sounds like it was multitracked on a computer interface and then split out onto a console and then mixed back into that interface. doesn't sound as good as geogaddi strictly in terms of sound quality, regardless of whether you like the music more or less.

I'd be surprised if Geo was tracked to a DAW but it would be easy to put together if it was...and makes sense now i think about it cause they were working on 90+ tracks....but just to throw a spanner in the works...if it was a DAW how did they preform the tracks live? i doubt they would rely on a computer..

ATP was April 2001 and laptops even pc's were crap performance. theres a few tracks off geo from that gig.

Hardware sequenced elements and samples. Arranged and mixed in DAW (assuming). I don't think it's all that mystical just that they put an enormous effort into sourcing, effecting pre digital and probably even more effort sending busses out and back for a more effect and getting elements to sit with each other. I think the main thing is grouping and getting things sounding like they are all one source, marrying everything perfectly.

It's actually one of a few albums I use for reference to how I work and get my sound. On a different level of course ha.

  On 10/15/2015 at 11:06 AM, miim said:

I'd be surprised if Geo was tracked to a DAW but it would be easy to put together if it was...and makes sense now i think about it cause they were working on 90+ tracks....but just to throw a spanner in the works...if it was a DAW how did they preform the tracks live? i doubt they would rely on a computer..

ATP was April 2001 and laptops even pc's were crap performance. theres a few tracks off geo from that gig.

Gear spotting session?

http://bocpages.org/w/images/Lighthouse_pudstah.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/H6sMi.jpg

  On 10/15/2015 at 12:59 PM, Psychotronic said:

 

Gear spotting session?

 

http://bocpages.org/w/images/Lighthouse_pudstah.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/H6sMi.jpg

 

SKB racks. North Face jacket.

CS1x

  On 10/15/2015 at 1:21 PM, Chesney said:

CS1x

Yeah right. We need more hi res pics to find out what's in those racks.

Going to make a thread.

ha, well, it's more likely a An1x. amazing for taking analogue sounds on the road. But the CS1x is a great controller.

Never had one of those. Which of both would fit the boc sound?

  On 10/15/2015 at 12:59 PM, Psychotronic said:

 

  On 10/15/2015 at 11:06 AM, miim said:

I'd be surprised if Geo was tracked to a DAW but it would be easy to put together if it was...and makes sense now i think about it cause they were working on 90+ tracks....but just to throw a spanner in the works...if it was a DAW how did they preform the tracks live? i doubt they would rely on a computer..

ATP was April 2001 and laptops even pc's were crap performance. theres a few tracks off geo from that gig.

Gear spotting session?

 

http://bocpages.org/w/images/Lighthouse_pudstah.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/H6sMi.jpg

 

Just look at the mixer, there's only 4 cables going in to it. maybe a dat machine on phono cables too?

I'm saying 2 samplers with stereo outputs......

No idea how they're sequencing it?

They'll have some sort of summing mixer in the rack for all the samplers, drum machines etc. There is definitely an Akai sampler in there at the bottom of this. An S950 or 1000 maybe.

The An1x is a great synth. probably the most analogue sounding VA there is. You could totally get BoC's 101 and CS sounds out of it. They would be putting it through some effects anyway to get them sounding like their output.

Summing mixer or magic element definitely in that case where all the wires from the sampler and that unit with the scsi cable comes out.

I really know nothing about gear stuff

  On 10/15/2015 at 1:52 PM, miim said:

I'm saying 2 samplers with stereo outputs......

 

No idea how they're sequencing it?

Maybe they didnt. Need to see what's in the racks. They could just have looped long prerecorded samples.

Sampler on bottom is a Akai S3000 with scsi drive connected which is on the left

The one above it is a Yamaha A3000 with scsi connected.

Both have the midi cables going in

Nicely hunted.

  On 10/15/2015 at 2:27 PM, miim said:

Sampler on bottom is a Akai S3000 with scsi drive connected which is on the left

 

The one above it is a Yamaha A3000 with scsi connected.

Yeah! You are right, it's not the Z8. It's the S3000.

http://medias.audiofanzine.com/images/normal/akai-s3000-8765.jpg

  On 10/15/2015 at 2:27 PM, miim said:

Both have the midi cables going in

So where is the sequencer?

Could be MPC secretly in that case although case is not deep enough for an MPC60 with scsi. Possibly for a 2000xl?