New Monday #116

Happy Monday -

We get techy geeky for the next few weeks.

The High Pass Filter Controversy

For some reason, this has been popping up in forums and videos. Evidently, using hi-pass (low-cut) filters, is a bad idea. A big no-no. But how can that be? It’s been a standard tool of the trade since forever? I’ve seen mixes on SSLs and every channel had hi-pass filters lit up.

I wrote an explanation of the problem (technical but clear) and some practical wisdom you can apply to your engineering. Because we want things to sound awesomesauce.

Click here to read --> The High Pass Filter Controversy

British Krautrock?

I hadn’t heard this song in ages. It begins a bit slow and dreamy, with someone hitting a glass jar with a pencil, a washy guitar and an electric piano... then there’s a kick drum that’s so well recorded you can hear the color of the paint job, and then the bass stomps in, it's SO DAMN GOOD.

https://youtu.be/_QfISgmIZSg?si=n93zHNNDKMDslnON

Ultravox was a British band from the late 70s, early 80s. They sit somewhere after punk but before New Wave. It’s electronic music, but it’s analog electronic music: real drummers, an actual bassist, and analog synths.

Astradyne was the lead track off their album Vienna. I suppose it is considered these days to be a minor masterpiece. It's definitely worth a listen.

If you know your Krautrock, Vienna will sound very familiar, and with good reason. It was recorded by the godfather of Krautrock and German electronic music, Conny Plank, at his studio outside of Cologne, Conny’s Studio. Conny was an engineer’s engineer, building his own studio, including his own 56-channel console.

I wrote a bunch on Krautrock a few years ago. There are details on Conny Plank’s equipment, the groups he worked with, and there’s a Krautrock playlist.

If you’ve not done a dive into Krautrock, you should. There’s so much to take for inspiration.

LATCH

This is an acronym for Live, Analog, Trusted, Curated, Human. It’s a framework of thought for how human artists can approach the rising tide of Ai.

I hate the fact that we have to even think about this stuff, but it affects all of us. This article is not strictly about music, because Ai is about way more than music. If it can be turned into numbers, Ai wants to play with it. It’s not a long read, and it is well worth it.

https://entertainment.substack.com/p/one-future-of-post-ai-generated-art

The SITRAL

We've released an update to our SITRAL Klankfilter 295 equalizer plug-in. There’s now much improved CPU performance—a bunch of you were clamouring for that and we heard you—as well as improvements and bug fixes all over the place.

New Monday is short. Go read The High Pass Filter Controversy.

Warm regards,

Luke