PRESETS, by LUKE FOWLER AND RICHARD YOUNGS

PRESETS

by LUKE FOWLER AND RICHARD YOUNGS

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of PRESETS, Shadazz 2: The Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds, Jobs For Beasts, THE HETRADELPH'S DAUGHTER, SHADAZZ 10 YEAR SAMPLER, SHADAZZ 3: Merlin Modules for Mirriam, and FREE FLEXI WITH SHADAZZ - The Scottish Demo Collective (Winter 2000). , and , .

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LUKE FOWLER AND RICHARD YOUNGS - PRESETS 29:54

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about

PRESETS was written over a series of regular weekly sessions, which took place in my home studio at my parents house. The tracks presented here were inspired by a combination of early digital preset synths, ipad sequencing and hand-played instruments. After completion the album was put aside as we focussed on other projects and then subsequently forgotten about.

The central idea behind the record was to eschew the analogue synthesisers that we had previously been exploring, in order to embrace the immediacy of preset sounds. The kinds of sounds which are still found in plentiful supply on cheap and obsolete digital synthesisers from the 1980's.

Although Richard is more known for his work with Casios, for this record we used two synth modules I owned; the Japanese Kawai K1r and the British Cheetah Ms800. The Kawai uses a type of synthesis called Digital PCM wave synthesis – whilst the Cheetah uses wavetable synthesis.

We decided to both embrace and de-familiarise the “Preset” nature of these boxes in a few different ways. Firstly by using midi controllers and sysex editors - we quickly deviated and deformed the machines’ onboard sounds. Secondly it was perhaps more in how we choose to interact with the presets themselves - choosing to turn off and disregard the ubiquitous “grid” of common midi sequencers, opting instead to embrace a more human and performative style of playing . After the first pass of synths and drums went down we overdubbed a fresh pass of live percussion and shakuhachi (played by Richard), at times completely ignoring the backing track, for an even looser groove.

Upon finishing the tracks, sometime around 2012-13, the album sat unmixed for some years, unsure as to the strangeness of what we had jointly produced. At one point I recall becoming increasingly curious about mixing through hardware mixers – I knew Green Door had a very nice old Studer desk - so I decided to book in “after-hours” to try it out; grabbing these stems to have something to work with. After sometime I finally finished a pass of mixes on the Studer – Sam Smith (the studio’s in-house producer) then suggested contrasting my mixes by running the whole album again through their “secondary mixer” – a brown coloured early 80’s Allen and Heath desk. Due to suffering severe sleep deprivation at the time I relinquished responsibility of this second mix to Sam - who masterfully threw up these mixes whilst I drifted off.

credits

released September 6, 2024

written by Luke Fowler and Richard Youngs
Mixed by Samual J. Smith at Green Door Studios (2015)
Mastered by Finlay Shakespeare (2024)