I like to experiment with music, and I feel like breaking the rules today.  I’m going to not only give you an alternate, instrumental version…but I’m also going to let you hear the individual performances as they were recorded for this remix in the spring of 2009.  The piano was performed by me, and the violin was hired out.

Enjoy this look beneath the surface!

You’ll find, as usual, that I’ve tweaked the vocals with Melodyne…and given it an entirely different feel than the original.

Make sure you check the next post, with an instrumental version and even a “behind the scenes” listen to the individual performances that went into the remix.

How confident are you that it can maintain sonic integrity when there are infrasonic standing waves under massive subwoofer-only bass drones stacked on top of low-midrange textures?  Do you think it will sound good or just distort like crap?

Let’s find out!

Mackie MR-8

Here is some random sound design I have done today out of boredom.  It’s about four minutes worth, and it’s designed to push sound systems to their limits.  I designed these sounds in Absynth 4 and Omnisphere to calibrate my studio reference monitors and their bass response, but I’ve re-purposed it as a challenge.

If you’re a real audiophile, grab the FLAC version, burn it to a CD or whatever, and play it on your best sound system as loud as you can without breaking it.  Tell me if your subwoofer could take the punishment and if your other speakers put out anything but distortion during more than half of the demonstration.

My sound system (Mackie MR-8 studio reference monitors) can handle it.  The ice in my drink next to the speaker vibrated and made an interesting noise, but they correctly reproduced it (i.e., no distortion).  I’m interested to “hear” your results.  There’s the 320Kbps MP3 below, but grab the FLAC file as mentioned earlier for true sonic integrity.

At the very least, you’re about to find out what your subwoofer can do (and quite possible the resonant frequency of the room you listen in).

Notes: I don’t recommend playing this if you live in an apartment or have close neighbors, as the infrasonic bass YOU can’t hear they most likely WILL.  Also, do NOT listen to this with headphones.  It will only give you tired ears and probably a headache.