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Gruff Rhys

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Taster - Listen to this immersive version of Seeking New Gods

Gruff is probably the most creative person I've ever known. He always has brilliant ideas rattling around in his brain. I could go back and tell you stories of his childhood his mom has shared with me that illustrates his brilliance from birth, but I assume you have other things to do than read my ramblings all night, right?

Many of his ideas are the kind you get excited about as soon as you hear them because you can easily picture how great they'll be, and then there are those where you look at him like maybe he's gone a bit mad and has proposed the impossible. A perfect example of the latter would be when he said to me several months ago, "I'm thinking of doing this thing where you would listen to my record through multiple devices like telephones."

"You mean like ?"

"Well, sort of, but everybody would bring their own phone or iPad or whatever."

"Yeah, dude, that's been done, and it's a real pain to get everything to sync up."

"No, this would all be synced up via a website or an app."

"Sure, dude, whatever."

A month or so later, I was introduced to , who informed me that he was working on just such a tool that would allow just such a thing. That was a good reminder that every time I doubt Gruff, he proves me wrong. (Don't worry, I'm sure I'll doubt him on something else in the next couple of days. In fact, I doubt he's remembered to top up the oil in his van recently.)

The new album, which is what you'll be sampling using the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Audio Orchestrator tool, was recorded two and a half years ago in , at the end of our American tour. It was mixed about a year later in Los Angeles with the great . (known for having engineered and mixed , among other things). And then I had the honour of being asked to remix it for multiple channels to be played through this thing I thought Gruff was insane for suggesting.

Oh, I should probably mention I played drums on it and had to argue with the owner of the studio in Joshua Tree when he wanted to charge Gruff for a full three days of recording, even though we didn't get anything done on the first day due to some weird ghost in the machine that wouldn't let the mixing console communicate with Pro Tools.

I had a lot of fun remixing the album for multiple devices and playing around with the placing of the various instruments and voices. I am a child of the '70s, so I remember when were sort of a thing, and I sought to sort of emulate that kind of experience.

Â鶹ԼÅÄ R&D - Research into quadraphonic recording and reproduction techniques

Â鶹ԼÅÄ R&D - Research into listening to quadraphonic sound

If you can, please place the devices in four corners as if they're a wall and you and your friends sit inside the perimeter. If I have done what I set out to do, some songs will just sound like you're in the room while the band was recording (we did, in fact, record the album all playing together in the same room), and some songs will make those who are prone to motion sickness quite dizzy with the movement of different things. It all kind of varies depending on the song. I wanted to honour the songs first and foremost and play with the format second. You may have cottoned on to the fact that I'm a big fan of Gruff's. Well, that all began by me being a fan of his music, so that's what remains most important to me. If you find that the drums are too loud in any song, well, you'll know whose ego got the best of them while mixing.

Kliph Scurlock

Being that the Audio Orchestrator tool is still in development, I hope to get to do more things with it in the future when it's become more stable, and the bugs have all been worked out. Who knows? Maybe I'll get to remix Gruff's next album for 32 channels...

I hope you get at least a fraction of the enjoyment I got out of being part of this grand experiment as you take part in this grand experiment. Does grand sound too pretentious?

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Â鶹ԼÅÄ MakerBox - Audio Orchestrator

Â鶹ԼÅÄ R&D - Vostok K Incident - Immersive Spatial Sound Using Personal Audio Devices

Â鶹ԼÅÄ R&D - Vostok-K Incident: Immersive Audio Drama on Personal Devices

Â鶹ԼÅÄ R&D - Evaluation of an immersive audio experience

Â鶹ԼÅÄ R&D - The Mermaid's Tears