Artist:Richard J Valeo
Title: Hardware Sessions, Session 1 & 2
Catalog Number: trans.010
Type: Digital EP
Release Date: 26.07.2008
Format: 320 CBR MP3
Duration: 19 minutes
Size: 30 meg
Download Here:

As of lately I have had a real fascination with hardware and making it sound as raw it can sound.

I really love the texture and grit of equipment, especially when something isn’t working right. My ears prick up when I can hear the values step on tunings due to dirty pots and knobs. My favorite is when oscillators sound like eggs being cooked in corn oil, all spittery and sputtery.

I thought about it for a while and decided that I wanted to find a hardware delay that sounded kinda nasty. I wanted to hear the low bit rate of an old digital delay, so I sought one out. I knew that I would be tweaking it out so I wasn’t worried when I first took a listen to it.

At first the DM1000 sounded rather nice. No real grit to speak of, no real bit rate degradation.

I opened it up (with the encouragement of Matt Scopp) and found some nice little pots that said, of all things, clock. Nice.

Actual 4 bit sound playback sounds totally different than 4 bit crushed audio, played back and output as 24 bit from a computer. The real 4 bit output has real crunch, density and presence

In order to make some nice sounds I hooked up a few more pieces of gear. My trusty Oberheim OB-1 that has just been resurrected from the grave, and, i dug up the ‘wrekah’ — a bent ibanez distortion pedal that does one thing, wreck sound

I hooked the wrekah up to the Elektron Machinedrum. You can hear it come in at 4:32 in session 2.

All of that and some midiverb 4, and away we go.

There are 2 different pieces in this series. The first piece is entitled ‘oberheim’, and it was the third take during the first session. That session took place during Matt Scopp’s visit. The second piece is entitled ‘hardware’ and was recorded earlier today. I mastered both of these tracks today, July 26 2008.

Theses pieces are about playing with tension and release, challenging the listener’s focus, and the suspension of disbelief. These are themes that I enjoy exploring again and again. I feel there is a lot of work that can be done in this realm.

I found it interesting to look at both of these waveforms side by side so I decided to share the screen grabs. It appears that both performances have a similar overarching structure, as well as, interestingly enough, timing. It could almost be said that they are different performances based on the same score.

Session 1 Overview

Listen to a clip of session 1: oberheim

oberheim session clip

Session 2 Overview

Listen to a clip of session 2: hardware

hardware session clip

Zip of both sessions.

Follow the link below to download both sessions mp3s in their entirety.

Download zip of MP3s here - [30 meg / 2 files]

No Love Live - Recorded early 1997

Title: No Love Live - NYC ‘97
Artist: Transelectronic Theory
Catalog Number: TRANS.005
Type: Live Performance
Year Recorded: 1997
Format: VBR MP3
Duration: 32 Minutes +- a few
Size: 65 meg
Link:

Back in the late ’90’s I was recording and releasing ‘underground’ diy cassettes, and later CDs, under the moniker of Transelectronic Theory. During that time I had played gigs at several raves on Long Island, as well as at a few of the NYEX parties that were going on at the time.

In January/February of 1997 I released “Sunrise” (which can be found as a digital re-issue in the downloads section), and this live set was, in a sense, a live performance of that style of music.

The promoter of the event was expecting me to play a techno set for some reason, not that I had any intent on doing that as Sunrise was anything but techno and this was the first live performance I was playing following the release of Sunrise.

To perform the set I brought out a bunch of hardware, some in a nice 8 space rack - Oberheim OB-1, Oberheim Matrix 1000, Alesis EFX units, Roland S-550 sampler, Yamaha TX81Z, DBX compressor, Alesis Microgate, a 22 channel mixer, and a few assorted stomp boxes. All of this was controlled by an old Powerbook 140 used for midi sequencing. The Powerbook was old school - it had a Motorola 68030 chip running at a massive 16 mhz. The whole thing was sequenced as patterns in Opcode’s Vision - so I could mute and un-mute parts, switch between the different patterns, copy and paste new patterns, all on the fly, and all via midi. The idea was for it to be as “live” as possible allowing me to explore each section and pattern, in order to work the crowd.

Well, there was some drama with the performance. There were some of the old school NY techno heads there, think mid-late ’90’s NYC techno and you’ll know who I am talking about, and they were saying shit like “That isn’t a live PA, he is using a computer” and shit. I took a beating from them. Not only did they bash on my live rig, they really weren’t into the music. Oh well. Sucks to be them, or at the time, it was sucking to be me.

On with the show. As soon as I started playing all of the party-goers decided to sit down and listen instead of dance. I guess that is what happens when you play an IDM set (although I hadn’t even heard of the term IDM at the time) at a techno party. About half way through the set the main promoter comes up to me and says “When are you done? You need to finish soon!” Shit! I had only been playing for 15 minutes at that time, and I had spent like 40 hours preparing for the gig! For the rest of the set he kept asking me “When are you done?!?” After a little more than 30 minutes of “torture” my set was over, and I must say, I was extremely happy with the performance, even if no one else was. Funny how that happens…

Hence the name “No Love Live in NYC”.

Listening back on the set I still find it quite enjoyable, even if it does sound like it is a little old. That is ok, it IS old, 11 years old to be exact.

I hope that you enjoy this recording of one of the finer Transelectronic Theory live performances.

Listen to the set: [audio:http://transelectronic.net/livesets/transelectronic_theory-no_love_live_nyex_10_1997.mp3]