Boards of Canada Holy Grail & Who Mastered MHTRTC

[chimetraveler]

Hey Twoismers & BoC fanatics!

I haven’t posted in eons and I no longer have access to my old account, (under the same name) as a result I’m sure, but I want to share with you a BoC holy grail I got off of Discogs earlier this year. I bought it from the gentleman who mastered MHTRTC, Hi Scores, the Aquarius single and the Boards track on Mask 100!!! I think you’ll all appreciate what came with the purchase and who the mastering engineer is!…I’m not 100% sure if this is common knowledge or not. I did a quick search and found nothing. Instead of me explaining everything in this post, I’ve created a YouTube video about it. I can post proper photos later if you’re interested...As diehard BoC fans I know that we all appreciate this kind of thing. Thank you if you do decide to check it out!

https://youtu.be/Tv70Nm4XTo8

Jason

[TheStatPow]

OMFG just realised Mike used "you're" instead of "your". THEY'RE HUMAN LIKE US AFTERALL!!



Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

[TheStatPow]

Interesting fact, in the recommended music by Mike he mentions: DESERT SCORES By Ian O'brien on FEROX records

Could this be what Transmisiones Ferox was referring to? maybe

[luminousdusk]

Awesome! Very jealous.. but also really happy for you at the same time having those peices of electronic history!

[chimetraveler]

So cool right?! Glad you guys appreciate and find all of this interesting.

[gestell]

OMFG just realised Mike used "you're" instead of "your".

But he used it correctly

[gestell]

Hey Twoismers & BoC fanatics!

I haven’t posted in eons and I no longer have access to my old account, (under the same name) as a result I’m sure, but I want to share with you a BoC holy grail I got off of Discogs earlier this year. I bought it from the gentleman who mastered MHTRTC, Hi Scores, the Aquarius single and the Boards track on Mask 100!!! I think you’ll all appreciate what came with the purchase and who the mastering engineer is!…I’m not 100% sure if this is common knowledge or not. I did a quick search and found nothing. Instead of me explaining everything in this post, I’ve created a YouTube video about it. I can post proper photos later if you’re interested...As diehard BoC fans I know that we all appreciate this kind of thing. Thank you if you do decide to check it out!

https://youtu.be/Tv70Nm4XTo8

Jason

This is amazing!! Also, Bola made some cool music too ..
Thank you for sharing this.

[chimetraveler]

Glad you appreciate this as much as I do! You’re right, he has made some great music over the years too. I’ve heard the odd Bola song over time and I especially remember hearing Forcasa 1 (I think out of the 3) in a few electronic music mixes. Very cool.

[TheStatPow]

OMFG just realised Mike used "you're" instead of "your".

But he used it correctly

He said "if you haven't sold you're studio"

Guess this is the correct way to spell it now

[gestell]

OMFG just realised Mike used "you're" instead of "your".

But he used it correctly

He said "if you haven't sold you're studio"

Guess this is the correct way to spell it now

Oh, you're right! Sorry. Although, he didn't actually write "you're studio" but "youre studio".
I thought you were referring to "If you're at all interested we'd like to ..." where you're is used correctly.

[ZosoCon]

Thanks for sharing that chimetraveler! What a gem. Interesting about the 2 "hidden tracks"on Side A and B written on the mastering notes. On the sheet written by Mike, he's calling them "untitled tracks" at the end of A5 Triangles and Rhombuses and B1 Sixtyten. Nothing out of the ordinary on my copy (i have the normal black-sleeved promo). Must mean the little vignettes at the end of Triangles and Rhombuses and Sixtyten were not originally part of the tracks. Not a crazy revelation but neat nevertheless.

[Ottomatik]

Thank you for sharing! You are making a lot of people jealous here haha

I love the postcard from Mike with the little drawn character and the music suggestions. I've listened to the albums he mentioned a little bit, they surely are interesting records!

[Valotonin]

Interesting fact, in the recommended music by Mike he mentions: DESERT SCORES By Ian O'brien on FEROX records

Could this be what Transmisiones Ferox was referring to? maybe

Aaa beat me to it. I was just about to write this.
Anyway, congratulations on your first video, the production is really decent.

[chimetraveler]

Thanks for sharing that chimetraveler! What a gem. Interesting about the 2 "hidden tracks"on Side A and B written on the mastering notes. On the sheet written by Mike, he's calling them "untitled tracks" at the end of A5 Triangles and Rhombuses and B1 Sixtyten. Nothing out of the ordinary on my copy (i have the normal black-sleeved promo). Must mean the little vignettes at the end of Triangles and Rhombuses and Sixtyten were not originally part of the tracks. Not a crazy revelation but neat nevertheless.

My pleasure ZosoCon. I'm glad you got something out of it. Yeah; I thought the same things about the "hidden tracks". Very interesting.

[chimetraveler]

Thank you for sharing! You are making a lot of people jealous here haha

I love the postcard from Mike with the little drawn character and the music suggestions. I've listened to the albums he mentioned a little bit, they surely are interesting records!

My pleasure! Haha!! I'm sure it is.

I love all of that too. The first thing I looked up after reading everything when I received the package was Mike's musical suggestions. I agree that the music is interesting, and good. I can only imagine all of the music that they're fans of now.

[chimetraveler]

Interesting fact, in the recommended music by Mike he mentions: DESERT SCORES By Ian O'brien on FEROX records

Could this be what Transmisiones Ferox was referring to? maybe

Aaa beat me to it. I was just about to write this.
Anyway, congratulations on your first video, the production is really decent.

Thank you for checking it out and for your kind feedback! I appreciate it.

[drhumr]

This is really cool! Thanks for doing this.

What kind of baffles me are the gear references. On one hand there's Pultec, which is a legendary passive tube EQ commonly used (in one form or another) in mastering, but there's also the UREI gear, while great for tracking and/or mixing, that couldn't be less suitable for that application, especially the 1176 limiter.

Would be nice to find out what it was all about.

[chimetraveler]

This is really cool! Thanks for doing this.

What kind of baffles me are the gear references. On one hand there's Pultec, which is a legendary passive tube EQ commonly used (in one form or another) in mastering, but there's also the UREI gear, while great for tracking and/or mixing, that couldn't be less suitable for that application, especially the 1176 limiter.

Would be nice to find out what it was all about.

Glad you like it! Thank you for checking it out.

Interesting. Unfortunately I'm not up on most older music gear but now that you mention it, I'll do a bit of research soon to understand more about these.

[drhumr]

This is really cool! Thanks for doing this.

What kind of baffles me are the gear references. On one hand there's Pultec, which is a legendary passive tube EQ commonly used (in one form or another) in mastering, but there's also the UREI gear, while great for tracking and/or mixing, that couldn't be less suitable for that application, especially the 1176 limiter.

Would be nice to find out what it was all about.

Glad you like it! Thank you for checking it out.

Interesting. Unfortunately I'm not up on most older music gear but now that you mention it, I'll do a bit of research soon to understand more about these.

Basically, the "problem" with the 1176 compressor is that it's super fast. As in, the fastest attack time is 20 microseconds, which is kinda insane, considering it's a piece of analog equipment designed in the 1960s.

Now, these attack times are quite desirable for smoothing out peaks while tracking vocals, bass etc. (I've got one right here for that very purpose) What would one be generally aiming for in mastering is a lot slower, to let the transients through while still providing the "glue effect", around 10-30 milliseconds. The slowest time the 1176 is capable of is 800 microseconds.

The thing is, while there's definitely compression all over MHTRTC (as with any other record), the master doesn't sound squashed, which is what would happen if the 1176 was used. Come to think of it, a quite plausible explanation would be that the compressor (actually compressors, it is a mono unit) was used only as a "color box", meaning just passing the signal through it would impart a certain sound due to its being transformer balanced.

[chimetraveler]

This is really cool! Thanks for doing this.

What kind of baffles me are the gear references. On one hand there's Pultec, which is a legendary passive tube EQ commonly used (in one form or another) in mastering, but there's also the UREI gear, while great for tracking and/or mixing, that couldn't be less suitable for that application, especially the 1176 limiter.

Would be nice to find out what it was all about.

Glad you like it! Thank you for checking it out.

Interesting. Unfortunately I'm not up on most older music gear but now that you mention it, I'll do a bit of research soon to understand more about these.

Basically, the "problem" with the 1176 compressor is that it's super fast. As in, the fastest attack time is 20 microseconds, which is kinda insane, considering it's a piece of analog equipment designed in the 1960s.

Now, these attack times are quite desirable for smoothing out peaks while tracking vocals, bass etc. (I've got one right here for that very purpose) What would one be generally aiming for in mastering is a lot slower, to let the transients through while still providing the "glue effect", around 10-30 milliseconds. The slowest time the 1176 is capable of is 800 microseconds.

The thing is, while there's definitely compression all over MHTRTC (as with any other record), the master doesn't sound squashed, which is what would happen if the 1176 was used. Come to think of it, a quite plausible explanation would be that the compressor (actually compressors, it is a mono unit) was used only as a "color box", meaning just passing the signal through it would impart a certain sound due to its being transformer balanced.

Wow! Super interesting. You know your stuff. I haven't checked out your older posts but I figure you're a musician, and if so, please lead me in the direction of where I might be able to hear your work. Thanks.