review "project X"49 paranormal Soundtracks in 3D !by Jeff Obee / Electronic Musician 9/98
After listening to the first couple tracks on Project X (USD 39 audio CD only), I had to light candles in my studio to provide the proper ambience for listening to the rest,. The disk is rich with sensuous pads, panning textures, squirrely arpeggiations, liquid filter sweeps, and percolating electronic rhythms that are thoroughly enjoyable. Ambience in spades Project X is composed of 49 short synth compositions, ranging in length from 39 seconds to almost 3 minutes. They are described as ´paranormal´ soundtracks, and although that seems like a somewhat vague and cliche label, is suits this collection. The majority of the pieces are titled with ´space´names, like ´Mothership Connection´and ´Stargate´, and there is a definite spacey, trance/ambient approach to the music. You won´t hear traditional melodies, and the music is heavily laden with reverb and other effects. This is not a sampling CD, per se, although you could certainly sample snippets of it for use in your own compositions, as long as you credit the disk as your source. The material is rich with potential uses, from video post-production, games, and environmental soundscapes to looping portions of the disk for extendes ambient collages or background textures for various electronic styles of music. Masterbits even suggested using it for short meditations - mini relaxation tapes, if you will. How´d they do it? Along with a Lexicon PCM-90, the main effects processor used in the creation of these tracks was the Roland RSS-10, which takes a mono source and moves it around in a 3-dimensional space. This gives a wonderful depth to the music - by all means, listen with headphones! The synths used were on Oberheim Xpander, a Kurzweil PX-100, a Roland JD 990 and S-760, a Yamaha TG77, and a Studio Electronics SE-1. All the recording was done using Digidesign´s Pro Tools. Faves Delineating some of my favorites is a tad difficult, because quite frankly, I really liked the whole disk. ´Alien Factory´ captured my attention with its industrial yet harmonically pleasing backdrop and its ´pointy´, metallic sounds that rolled across the sound plane. The NASA samples from Masterbits Add Lips Vocals CD, which I recently reviewed (see the September 1998 EM), were used sumptuoulsy in a piece called ´Moon Talk´. Track 18, ´Mindscanner´, is one of the longer pieces on the disk and is a fine ambient sound experience. Long, unfolding textures are the backdrop with some bloopy droplets panning across, and some sawtooth, sample-and -hold-type sounds and other analog goodies ´move in space´with them. The five ´Waterworld´pieces present some great textures as well - watery patches that lay nicely in the 3-D environment, with some slightly Doppleresque effects to give the pads an underwater sound. My only slight misgiving about the collection as a whole is that the tracks have a certain ´sameness´ to them, but perhaps that sameness is the point of a disk like this. It was entirely written and recorded in four days by producer Hans-Jörg Scheffler, a fact which undoubtedly contributes to the similarity among the pieces, but also adds an immediacy that I liked. Scheffler´s use of textures is excellent and his choice of sounds superb. Verdict For a great price, Project X give you a lot of delicious synthesizer music with plenty of potential uses. You really can´t go wrong! The audio is fabulous and the music intriguing - I heartily recommend it. Meter Overall EM Rating (1 through 5) : 5
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