Having successfuly launched from the Mangrove Mountain Control Centre (which I might add is in an area getting fried to bits by the bushfires right now...) we docked the mission at DDJ's place to see what we got.
Our 5inch Mono Nagra reels from the Mangrove Mountain launch, next to The Lonely Few's latest Cassingle.
DDJ graciously volunteered his time and effort to decode the strange alien signals we recorded at Mangrove Mountain. We got some mixed results, leading to DDJ posting that The Lonely Few's Spacejunk is better than Stormcellars space junk. Welll....he might have something there...
The Nagra speed synch has gone Kaputski. this is DDJ's Nagra. We also tried it on another quarter inch machine. No dice. We will try again on the originating machine.
A working machine: The Lonely few's second Cassingle, recorded on spacejunk at Goose Studios. Sounds like Dr Who meets the Who!
DDJ hooked up and tested the 8 track. We had further mixed results.
The tape stock on one reel had lost most of its dynamic range and tracks 6 and 3 on the 8 track were playing up, leading to low level output.
It looked pretty grim for the mission.
DDJ decided that a straight Ananlogue mix for this stuff was going to be out, so he opted to get at least a sample onto digital.
Overnight the tape ran. In the morning, DDJ found something. Out of the various tracks we tried, the ones on the 'good tape' were ok, the lot on the second tape were a bit squishy.But I think what did it was the version we got of Sweet Misery. Its a damn fine version, tape hiss and all. It made us realise that we could get more from the Spacejunk approach, so the other tracks will remain in the background as we think we can do it better.
We may try another machine or a tweak of the existing one to see what more we can uncover, but suffice to say, we wound up with three useable tracks form the first mission, and one gem of a take.
So we did some mixing and DDJ showed off The Lonely Few's Spacejunk:
Ah yes, the Mike Sabre, a weapon from a more elegant age.
DDJ has been sniping these bits of spacejunk from Ebay with the usual random gems and junk results. Some awesome, some...not so aweome (or working). Some with a history...
As per usual, whilst someone else is doing the mixing, I am messing around with the mikes..
Thus by the end of the session we had a 'Good' take of Swamp Monster, an OK take of Merchandise, but a Very Nice Thankyou take of Sweet Misery, the sort you only randomly get every now and again. Made it all worthwhile.
However, as our objective was to go AAA, we'll be messing around with the tape and devices to see if we cant squeeze a little more out.
The next step will be to repeat the recording process in at Goose Station (studio!) which is in permanent geostationary orbit in Leichhardt.
I am considering posting some of the sample tracks on myspace and here as a download, visible to registered users. Still thinking about it.
In any case, despite the issues with the bits What Went Wrong, there are flashes of light from within the existing recordings that make this adventure entirely worthwhile.
Ah, the high Analogue frontiers. We must be completely, stark, raving, bat-guano mad.
TRANSMISSION ENDS