SOUND PIECE | metal machine music & feedback research
https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/6690-lou-reed/
'If Metal Machine is anything, it's energy and physicality, and you should be able to physically feel it, and it takes a lot of energy to perform it'
'It defies transcription.'
'There's a lot of ways [to listen], if you're gonna listen to it [at all]. But if you can't listen to it like that, like the way you just said, then it's just a mishmash of noise.
But if you go in, and you scope it, and put your attention here, there, wherever you think the fun is, then it has shape.'
'Pitchfork: It requires a certain energy from the audience, too.
Reed: Well, the thing is coming at you. But, you know, it's friendly.'
'"Fire Music" just kills me. We mastered it...if you ever get to hear it on a big system, cause it's only two or three minutes long, but that thing, about two-thirds of the way through, rises up and advances out of the speakers, and I swear to you, it is amazing. I was up at [producer] Bob Ludwig's where he listening on these huge, God knows what...and that thing just rises up like this huge sonic wave, it's amazing.'
'In the Velvet Underground, my guitar solos were always feedback solos, so it wasn't that big of a leap to say I want to do something that's nothing but guitar feedback, that doesn't have a steady beat and doesn't have a key. All we have to do is just have fun on the guitar, you don't have to worry about key and tempo. We just had tons of feedback and melody and licks flying around all over the place. I had two huge amps, and I would take two guitars and tune them a certain way and lean them against the amps so they would start feeding back. And once they started feeding back, both of them, their sounds would collide and that would produce a third sound, and then that would start feeding and causing another one and another one, and I would play along with all of them.'
'Feedback is a complete style of playing. People get better and better and better at it. Controlled feedback is really...I've devoted a lot of time to trying to do that. To have what I call the good harmonics, and avoid-- through electronics and the way the thing is built and the distance from the amp-- the bad harmonics.'
https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/5956/why-did-lou-reed-make-metal-machine-music
Prokofiev's Visions Fugitives
NIN - The Downward Spiral
https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsTalkMusic/comments/287n60/lets_talk_lou_reeds_metal_machine_music/
'the impression I kinda get is that it is kinda hypnotic? I found myself falling asleep to it, and then it jolted me awake, and then relaxed me again. It's a really bizarre experience actually. It seems to me to feel anything while listening to it, you kinda have to force yourself to get through more than a few minutes. I was really surprised when i saw id got through 15 minutes just like that
Behind all the screaming theres some quite nice emerging harmonies and textures, and it's not all rough as fuck, theres some dynamics but its subtle and completely random. Seems like atmospheric noise taken to its logical conclusion. The fact there obviously really isnt much instrumentation gives it quite an immediate feel, and makes it a lot less tense, really.'
throbbing gristle
nurse with wound
current 93
brainwash - flipper
https://www.dallasobserver.com/music/why-metal-machine-music-is-lou-reeds-greatest-album-7073091
'On vinyl, there are four sides to this event; the last of which denotes its length with an infinity symbol. There's a locked groove on this side that plays the last few seconds of music endlessly, until stopped.'
'But for us, the throbbing frequencies stop abruptly, snuffed out. The experiment ends, it's over, the idea emptied. Now what? We are cleansed; we've been baptized in an audible fire. We made it to the other side. You've never been this empty before. You've never been this full before. This is a new you, you've been remade. Thank Lou Reed'
https://www.soundonsound.com/people/lou-reed-zeitkratzer
“What I did is I had a bunch of 4x12 amplifiers, and I would set them up with various repeat and tremolo units, and then I would tune all the strings to a certain note, and then I would figure out a good distance to have the guitar in proximity to the cabinet, and then it would start feeding back naturally. And then I would have another guitar doing the same thing from another 4x12. And then these harmonics would hit one another, causing a third one. And I would be playing another guitar over those, while I was recording it.
I had a three–speed reel–to–reel. Sometimes while I was recording it I would overload the reverb, or sometimes I would change the speed of the tape. I didn’t make any loops. I don’t think it was a four–track recorder, I think it was stereo. I don’t think you could overdub onto that; I don’t actually remember, but it would have been pretty hard.”
'The recording took place in Reed’s New York loft.'
https://thequietus.com/articles/04037-lou-reed-interview-metal-machine-music
'Given the nature of analogue versus digital. Presumably it must have been harder to make ‘Fire Music' given the nature of digital recording.
LR: Much harder. I can't explain the process but there are certain things that I wanted to do to do with speeding up tapes and I just couldn't do in the digital and have it still have it have the same power in the same key. They have these programmes that allow music to stay in the same key when you speed it up so it doesn't change key. Anyway you start losing frames as I understand it and that causes it to be not so powerful. That was like one less tool in the metal machine bag.'
feedback:
this video is really cool. Want to try get a mic and delay pedal to try it out.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Guitar_feedback_why_does_the_pitch_of_the_feedback_change_when_I_change_my_position_relative_to_the_amplifier2
https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/2518/what-are-some-techniques-to-control-feedback-in-a-musical-setting
https://www.coupdemainmagazine.com/the-1975/11540
good hack bc i havent got a vocoder!!:
' because how a vocoder works, is you sing into it, and then you play the notes that you want it to play. What we've always done is recorded each note individually, so that you get this full kind of choral harmony, which isn't totally artificial'
was thinking of trying this anyway but now i think i will def try.
https://www.soundonsound.com/people/secrets-mix-engineers-mike-crossey
this is a good interview, however it uses a lot of equipment jargon that i either don't fully understand or can't get my hands on. It talks about the process though, which i found helpful.
'If Metal Machine is anything, it's energy and physicality, and you should be able to physically feel it, and it takes a lot of energy to perform it'
'It defies transcription.'
'There's a lot of ways [to listen], if you're gonna listen to it [at all]. But if you can't listen to it like that, like the way you just said, then it's just a mishmash of noise.
But if you go in, and you scope it, and put your attention here, there, wherever you think the fun is, then it has shape.'
'Pitchfork: It requires a certain energy from the audience, too.
Reed: Well, the thing is coming at you. But, you know, it's friendly.'
'"Fire Music" just kills me. We mastered it...if you ever get to hear it on a big system, cause it's only two or three minutes long, but that thing, about two-thirds of the way through, rises up and advances out of the speakers, and I swear to you, it is amazing. I was up at [producer] Bob Ludwig's where he listening on these huge, God knows what...and that thing just rises up like this huge sonic wave, it's amazing.'
'In the Velvet Underground, my guitar solos were always feedback solos, so it wasn't that big of a leap to say I want to do something that's nothing but guitar feedback, that doesn't have a steady beat and doesn't have a key. All we have to do is just have fun on the guitar, you don't have to worry about key and tempo. We just had tons of feedback and melody and licks flying around all over the place. I had two huge amps, and I would take two guitars and tune them a certain way and lean them against the amps so they would start feeding back. And once they started feeding back, both of them, their sounds would collide and that would produce a third sound, and then that would start feeding and causing another one and another one, and I would play along with all of them.'
'Feedback is a complete style of playing. People get better and better and better at it. Controlled feedback is really...I've devoted a lot of time to trying to do that. To have what I call the good harmonics, and avoid-- through electronics and the way the thing is built and the distance from the amp-- the bad harmonics.'
https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/5956/why-did-lou-reed-make-metal-machine-music
Prokofiev's Visions Fugitives
NIN - The Downward Spiral
https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsTalkMusic/comments/287n60/lets_talk_lou_reeds_metal_machine_music/
'the impression I kinda get is that it is kinda hypnotic? I found myself falling asleep to it, and then it jolted me awake, and then relaxed me again. It's a really bizarre experience actually. It seems to me to feel anything while listening to it, you kinda have to force yourself to get through more than a few minutes. I was really surprised when i saw id got through 15 minutes just like that
Behind all the screaming theres some quite nice emerging harmonies and textures, and it's not all rough as fuck, theres some dynamics but its subtle and completely random. Seems like atmospheric noise taken to its logical conclusion. The fact there obviously really isnt much instrumentation gives it quite an immediate feel, and makes it a lot less tense, really.'
throbbing gristle
nurse with wound
current 93
brainwash - flipper
https://www.dallasobserver.com/music/why-metal-machine-music-is-lou-reeds-greatest-album-7073091
'On vinyl, there are four sides to this event; the last of which denotes its length with an infinity symbol. There's a locked groove on this side that plays the last few seconds of music endlessly, until stopped.'
'But for us, the throbbing frequencies stop abruptly, snuffed out. The experiment ends, it's over, the idea emptied. Now what? We are cleansed; we've been baptized in an audible fire. We made it to the other side. You've never been this empty before. You've never been this full before. This is a new you, you've been remade. Thank Lou Reed'
https://www.soundonsound.com/people/lou-reed-zeitkratzer
“What I did is I had a bunch of 4x12 amplifiers, and I would set them up with various repeat and tremolo units, and then I would tune all the strings to a certain note, and then I would figure out a good distance to have the guitar in proximity to the cabinet, and then it would start feeding back naturally. And then I would have another guitar doing the same thing from another 4x12. And then these harmonics would hit one another, causing a third one. And I would be playing another guitar over those, while I was recording it.
I had a three–speed reel–to–reel. Sometimes while I was recording it I would overload the reverb, or sometimes I would change the speed of the tape. I didn’t make any loops. I don’t think it was a four–track recorder, I think it was stereo. I don’t think you could overdub onto that; I don’t actually remember, but it would have been pretty hard.”
'The recording took place in Reed’s New York loft.'
https://thequietus.com/articles/04037-lou-reed-interview-metal-machine-music
'Given the nature of analogue versus digital. Presumably it must have been harder to make ‘Fire Music' given the nature of digital recording.
LR: Much harder. I can't explain the process but there are certain things that I wanted to do to do with speeding up tapes and I just couldn't do in the digital and have it still have it have the same power in the same key. They have these programmes that allow music to stay in the same key when you speed it up so it doesn't change key. Anyway you start losing frames as I understand it and that causes it to be not so powerful. That was like one less tool in the metal machine bag.'
feedback:
this video is really cool. Want to try get a mic and delay pedal to try it out.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Guitar_feedback_why_does_the_pitch_of_the_feedback_change_when_I_change_my_position_relative_to_the_amplifier2
https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/2518/what-are-some-techniques-to-control-feedback-in-a-musical-setting
https://www.coupdemainmagazine.com/the-1975/11540
good hack bc i havent got a vocoder!!:
' because how a vocoder works, is you sing into it, and then you play the notes that you want it to play. What we've always done is recorded each note individually, so that you get this full kind of choral harmony, which isn't totally artificial'
was thinking of trying this anyway but now i think i will def try.
https://www.soundonsound.com/people/secrets-mix-engineers-mike-crossey
this is a good interview, however it uses a lot of equipment jargon that i either don't fully understand or can't get my hands on. It talks about the process though, which i found helpful.
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