After the international success of "Air Conditioner Duet No.1" which was a live modular synth session recorded to stereo analog tape, a sequel had always been on my mind.
While eating lunch at an Italian cafe this summer, I observed a sonic symphony of industrial air conditioning units hanging off the side of a building, humming away and running through their cooling cycles. The pasta, Brio, and espresso kickstarted my imagination, and gave me an idea.
So a few days later I returned, armed with eight microphones, stands, cables, and a portable multitrack recorder. This time it would be multitracked and mixed into surround!
This past winter I took that field recording, and improvised a modular synth session overtop of the eight A/C unit drone orchestra: an air conditioner octet! Then I mixed it to stereo, and listened to it for a while. After letting that ferment in my brain, I went back to the multitracks & mixed it into quadraphonic surround, with an LFE which really helps with the wide frequency range of the modular synth voices.
So I present to you, the discrete quad mix of "Air Conditioner Duet No.2 ( Octet )" on Bandcamp. Those are pictures of the actual A/C units.
Link:
Electric Moo Air Conditioner Duet No.2
It's a 56 minute long mellow, meditative modular synth session interweaved with the mechanical sounds & cycles of the eight A/C units, plus other ambient noises from the field recording.
For $5 you get both the initial Stereo mix and the Quadraphonic mix, both in 24/96 lossless FLAC format. Since those files are too big to host on bandcamp, the download links are in the bonus item after you purchase the bandcamp 16/44.1 stereo track. You don't really need the 16/44.1 track but I guess you could burn it to CD.
The Quad FLAC file is 4.1 in a 5.1 wrapper, with silent center channel for ease of compatability with hardware.
Enjoy!
While eating lunch at an Italian cafe this summer, I observed a sonic symphony of industrial air conditioning units hanging off the side of a building, humming away and running through their cooling cycles. The pasta, Brio, and espresso kickstarted my imagination, and gave me an idea.
So a few days later I returned, armed with eight microphones, stands, cables, and a portable multitrack recorder. This time it would be multitracked and mixed into surround!
This past winter I took that field recording, and improvised a modular synth session overtop of the eight A/C unit drone orchestra: an air conditioner octet! Then I mixed it to stereo, and listened to it for a while. After letting that ferment in my brain, I went back to the multitracks & mixed it into quadraphonic surround, with an LFE which really helps with the wide frequency range of the modular synth voices.
So I present to you, the discrete quad mix of "Air Conditioner Duet No.2 ( Octet )" on Bandcamp. Those are pictures of the actual A/C units.
Link:
Electric Moo Air Conditioner Duet No.2
It's a 56 minute long mellow, meditative modular synth session interweaved with the mechanical sounds & cycles of the eight A/C units, plus other ambient noises from the field recording.
For $5 you get both the initial Stereo mix and the Quadraphonic mix, both in 24/96 lossless FLAC format. Since those files are too big to host on bandcamp, the download links are in the bonus item after you purchase the bandcamp 16/44.1 stereo track. You don't really need the 16/44.1 track but I guess you could burn it to CD.
The Quad FLAC file is 4.1 in a 5.1 wrapper, with silent center channel for ease of compatability with hardware.
Enjoy!
Last edited:
