Remastering the Future of Moonside
That first batch of remasters were somewhat of a no-brainer, given that our predominant means of recording back then was through Audacity, and the tracks’ individual files are all I have to work with. Our later sessions, however, were recorded primarily to MiniDisc, then briefly to stereo compact cassette, then soon after to 4track cassette, and then VHS alongside 4track a while later (really, it’s only been quite lately that I’ve come back to recording straight to a DAW and only for particular types of projects). So, owing to a massive mishandling of project data some years back, I’ll need to go straight to the source and pipe it back into workable
PCM encoding.
This presents some interesting opportunity, considering my new (and old) range of tools and a more rapidly expansive habit of skill acquisition (a modest dimension in my personal integration of what I deem
rapid expedition). For instance, having acquired the ES-8 with its four inputs (vs.
my old interface, which only had two), I’ve discovered one interesting use for it in also discovering that an old HiFi graphic EQ (Pioneer SG-9500) in my possession has the incidental ability to simultaneously pass a dry and wet signal. This is useful when passing a stereo mix (most particularly my MiniDisc recordings) since I prefer to do as much work with the sound as possible in a tactile fashion with analog hardware before encoding. Though since I might find that I’m not satisfied, I may prefer to work with something closer to the original mix.
My intended use of those four inputs, however, was for the discrete track outputs of my
424, but that largely hinged on an erroneous presumption based on my failing to recognize the difference between the
ADAT and
S/PDIF optical formats (mistakenly assuming that my
UCA202 would be able to pass a stereo signal through the
ES-8’s optical input for two additional tracks), as I would need at least two additional inputs to pass the 424’s stereo mix apart from the individual tracks. For this, I would require the
ES-6 as an expansion of the ES-8, but this has the added benefit of allowing me to pass that stereo mix through the aforementioned graphic EQ and capture both signals simultaneously, not to mention the 424’s two effects sends (which I had not previously considered); plus, in the course of this I discovered that the 202 makes an okay USB-powered headphone pre-amp for monitoring (though I usually use the 424 for this).
While this all will prove incredibly helpful for the remastering of Moonside’s 4track material, it will obviously prove as helpful for future 4track recordings (to which I plan an immanent return and with which I’ve been experimenting a bit behind the scenes, as I hope to demonstrate in our next issue), but perhaps most significantly, those additional inputs will help me to make good use of my particular
choice of sequencer (and first eurorack module, as it so happens) in conjunction with
VCV Rack and hopefully prep me for its use in my upcoming album,
Aerocaptivity (for which I’ve got a
single available as its prelude, incidentally). In fact, I’ve been able already to do just that in some limited fashion with only the ES-8 currently at my disposal: