Welcome to the third installment of Secret Chiefs 3 "Musica Practica"!
It was your requests that brought this one here. This time we're going way back to 2005.
Inspired by working on this Geek Pack, I DEFINITELY have a few new mixes of this song coming. But first let's just get the Geek Pack out there for the tail end of Bandcamp Friday.
It's been a decade and a half now that people have been asking me for raw tracks for this and other Book of Horizons songs. They ask because in the liner notes to that album, anyone who thought this music was "sampled" and not performed by musicians had been promised (threatened?) with me filling up their hard drive with billions of raw files.
Circa 2005 it wasn't really the most 'actionable' thing, and was a bit sardonic, but I've found that people took the meaning correctly.
Lately more and more good listeners with good memories have been reminding me that the Geek Pack idea offers a nice opportunity to "make good" on that ancient promise/threat. So here we go!
In this third installment of Musica Practica I am decidedly not putting the emphasis on production process. This time it's more about natural musical things like performance nuances and the overall arrangement rationale. With all these tracks at your disposal, you get to go as deeply as you want into the part writing. You can also zoom out into the "section" tracks to hear how everything fits together, how sections have to make room for each other, and how decisions have been made for everything to speak in the way that is most musically satisfying. You'll find easy access into the blend of the different instruments, the "divisi" parts within sections, and all the insights to be derived from their "movements in space".
Among the many tracks there are three types: Individual, Section, and Ensemble.
When you have each track individually numbered (viola 1, viola 2, viola 3 etc) you know that these performances made up the ensemble sections. When you listen to the corresponding "section" track you simply hear how those combined individual tracks "should" sound in the end (they're called things like "section_violas", etc). Those "section" tracks act as a final unit, where a collective acoustic space is shared with the wider ensemble.
In the liner notes it is explained that some EQs as well as SOME panning and volume information has been maintained. But that's just so things will be clean and uncomplicated for you. Extreme panning and volume spikes have been de-emphasized so that entirely new mixes can be built with these files.
Again, everything is formatted so you can get in there and hear all the little performance characteristics. The changes in mic position, the psychological characters being played out within a section, the imperfections, the mistakes -- everything that distinguishes an overdubbing 'section' into something alive and vital, as opposed to being an excercize of lifeless and robotic repetition. Overdubbing marathons notoriously overburden a production with a kind of dead-weighted energy. It can really clutter up a mix with a heavy feeling of mass, the exact opposite of conveying that open, glorious expansive quality you were shooting for. And no EQ can get you out of the bog. Why oh why did you chain yourself to this unforgiving mammon of quantity?
Even though this song was from Book of Horizons, a marathon-esque album rife with Promethean shame, this Geek Pack is about decluttering arrangements and mixes. It is about cutting through the dense mass of sound with a sword and making room for exciting things to happen. As you will see, the sterile hand of perfectionism hasn't really tainted these circa 2004/2005 tracks. The guitar performances are pure irrationality and slop.There are bad edits everywhere. Things are out of tune. But I have to say, the arrangement works and the "spirit of the thing" is completely intact -- in the end "the spirit of the thing" is what matters to the listerner. Well, if it ain't in the tracks, it ain't gonna be in their ears either.
Go ahead and get this one into your ears!
If you move fast, you might be able to beat me to a remix.
'Cause this Geek pack makes that really easy, and I'm definitely going for it.
* Full isolated drum tracks
* Individual tracks within all orchestral string sections
* you get optional "Section" tracks of those to see how things blend
* isolated timpani, cymbals, concert bass drum
* instrumental groups are NOT submixed, everything is discreet
* that means all guitars, bass, pianos etc are discreet
* choir has WAY too many tracks, so they are broken into "male" and "female" sections
credits
released March 5, 2021
UPDATED March 6, 2021
In the original 03/05/21upload, six individual violin tracks were missing which are now present. If you downloaded this already & put it in a session, no worries. You can keep everything and just add these new tracks (marked VIOLIN 1 -6). You'll also want to replace the SECTION_VIOLINS track with todays updated one.
Apologies for the oversight!
Written by Ernest Gold as title music for the film "Exodus"
Trey Spruance - arrangement, production, guitar, organ, male choir, piano, etc
William Winant – orchestral percussion
Danny Heifetz – drums
Eyvind Kang – violin, viola
Timb Harris – violin
Jesse Quattro – female choir
Tim Smolens – bass
supported by 49 fans who also own “MUSICA PRACTICA "Geek Pack 3" Book T: EXODUS”
Quite a departure from the wild territories they ventured into with their major label releases. So far, the greatest thrash metal I've heard released in the 2020's. Plus, it's not everyday you hear Rhea Perlman on a metal record. t0cktock
supported by 29 fans who also own “MUSICA PRACTICA "Geek Pack 3" Book T: EXODUS”
This music is the kind that you can always find something new every time you listen. Its like taking a musical voyage throughout the world and hearing all the different tribes and local musicians in all corners of the globe ChairMan of the Bored
