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Record Highlight — Surachai

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The following excerpts are from Surachai’s Trash Audio interview about his new album – Ritual.

Pre-Production
After several years of creating complex arrangements and aurally dense albums, I decided to simplify the tools and work with its impact on composition and sound. One of my favorite synthesizers is the semi-modular Cwejman S1 MKII and knew that it was complex enough to shape all the sounds I needed for an album. 

Recording
The signal chain was short. Cwejman S1 MKII output > Eventide Space > RME Fireface UC. The Cwejman was sequenced by the Make Noise RENE. The Dynaverb algorithm in the Eventide Space was the only reverb model used, except 20 (00) where a Tip Top Audio Z5000 delay preset was utilized. The album was tracked into Logic X and like my previous albums, everything was recorded into one large session but this time only 4 tracks were used.

Sync & Editing
Sync was placed by hand – not quantized on a grid or snapped to a BPM. A drifting master clock might be considered “charming” or give the album “personality” but it presented an unnecessary task of syncing audio files that would eventually sound like a train wreck if not reorganized. Although the drifting was unintended, by the end, I grew fond of this quirk, at points, and let some parts go their own way.

Mixing & Mastering

Unlike past albums, I didn’t dwell on the mix for very long – hell, I didn’t even EQ anything! Because of the unique and versatile filters in the Cwejman S1 MKII, I was able to carve out unwanted frequencies during the recording process and simply had to automate volume changes in post. The bass in the Cwejman is very intense, and even with proper monitoring, I didn’t understand its depth until I went to Richard Devine’s studio that has subs. His system revealed frequencies I didn’t know existed in the recordings until monitoring on his system. I decided to leave all this extra information for Shawn Hatfield to play with.

Mastering
The mastering duties were conducted by Shawn Hatfield of Audible Oddities. My biggest concern was keeping the Cwejman envelope aggression as well as the intense bass frequencies. The references I sent Shawn was Raime’s Quarter Turns Over a Living Line and Grischa Lichtenberger’s And IV (Inertia). As always, he glued it all together, didn’t compromise the mix and extended its volume slightly.

Artwork
For my previous albums I’ve worked with some of my favorite artists that I’m fortunate enough to call friends and Ritual was no different. I’ve followed Emilie Elizabeth’s photography for years and have always admired her style, sets, and aesthetic. John Crawford was involved throughout the process and provided his post production expertise that helped the images reach another level of unsettling. John also created the Waveform Gate which is an altered Necronomicon Gate Key with the 7 waveforms of the Cwejman S1 – one of many subtle and original touches this team obsessed over. They made me a bit uncomfortable by asking for my input so often. This is an abbreviated version of Emilie’s responses, the full length article can be found: Surachai.org.

 

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