Wolfgang Voigt's GAS Project: the Poll

voigt's best work, in my opinion, still some of the most striking ambient music i've ever heard. i'm not sure which one i'll pick - when i listen to gas i find myself needing to pull out all of these.

not sure why the image isn't showing, but whatever.

pop i guess

I think pull out Konigsforest a little more, but it's all good.

Aren't these hard to come by/horrifically expensive? I found a copy of Pop in HMV about 2 years ago and it looked like it had been there a while. Fantastic stuff but I don't feel qualified to vote as I haven't heard the others.

I've been on a major Wolfgang Voigt kick lately. The GAS stuff in particular is perfect for this time of the year. As of right now I think I have to go with Zauberberg. Wish they would reissue all of these, although I did manage to get Pop and Zauberberg on CD a few years ago.

yea they SERIOUSLY need to reissue these. i'm surprised that voigt hasn't.

i actually downloaded all of them from kompakt's mp3 website. you can get each of them for about the price of a new cd.

actually i'm not sure if oktember's on there.

I picked up his brother's Sturmgesten recently hoping some of the magic would be there... I didn't find it

I'm also just re-visiting Pop Ambient 2007 and getting way more into it than I ever did originally--the first half in particular.

königsforst for me

Zauberberg, and not just for the title alone.

Yeah, I bought these when they came out and was surprised to discover recently how expensive/rare these are now. I'm glad to hear that they are now available via the Kompakt site because they are timeless records.

timeless, yes. i love these.

Konigsforst, definitely. I love how parts of it are so lo-fi that they sound almost mono.

absolutely timeless. quite addicting, too.

re: pop ambient 2007 - that gas track is one of his best, too, i think. ("nach 1912" or something like that?) it's incredible.

i might go with zauberberg, i'm not sure. it's possibly the most consistent of them.

but i think i might vote pop, it's such a weird, weird record. it's got this uneasiness to it, even in what most people think are the calming tracks. the way it shifts moods from soothing to disturbing, contemplative to restless, etc., makes it such an interesting listening experience.

königsforst for me

-- omar little, Thursday, 10 January 2008 22:13 (1 hour ago)

pop just over königsforst 4 me

i'd be interested in hearing why voigt decided to discontinue the gas project

Königsforst

if anyone goes out and buys all of these i'd hate to see their GAS BILL!!!! HAHAHAHAHHA

oh man

i still laughed though

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

these are so good.

Konigsforst for me, altho "Oktober" is pretty amazing. By the way, I don't think it was a 12" - it was released as part of the Raster-Noton 20 to 2000" series as a 3" CD in 5" plastic.

my mistake - discogs had it listed as a 12", but i've never actually seen the physical release so i wouldn't know. it is pretty amazing!

i've only heard three of these, but based on that, Pop wins.

probably my favorite music ever, i have to go with the s/t lp but really all of these are like 11/10

i'm pretty sure "moderne" is still in print; i see it often enough anyway.. the other stuff is mille plateaux and i don't think they've gotten around to reissuing anything since restarting last year or whatever

must mention the tal track that opens pop ambient 2002 and closes that harvest cologne comp.. beyond gorgeous...

All the mint stuff is absolutely essential too (there needs to be a comp of it)

oktember 12" = track one of the koningsforst cd issue + 20 to 2000 on the flip (i've never heard the 20 to 2000 cd -- so i'm assuming here)

here's the discogs' link, fwiw.

ha, selling for $80. i can't believe how much gas stuff sells for.

well, prices LISTED on discogs are often a bit higher than the real value... oktember is one of the more expensive ones. if you look at the market price history for the 2xlps, there are a bunch offered at ridiculous prices but the ones that actually sell are priced much lower (altho still quite expensive)

yea i think i saw one of the albums (in cd version) sell for $30 or $40 on amazon once, which is very expensive but not horribly so.

Voigt's 20 to 2000 contribution, "20 Minuten Gas im November," was released under his own name, not as Gas, and was exclusive to the series. it was not the b-side of the "Oktember" 12"

I voted Pop; probably my favorite ambient album by any artist.

Zauberberg for $270

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0000064R7/ref=dp_olp_2/105-0171235-9350048?ie=UTF8&qid=1200427715&sr=1-1

lol

wow

you'd think they would do the the favor of shipping it.

i'd be interested in hearing why voigt decided to discontinue the gas project

That said, check out the MassStab and Studio 1 series because those are pretty great as well. Similarly minimal, but with dense patterns of samples instead of washes of sound.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wow my gas bill joke just gets more and more prescient in hindsight. WOW

i'm surprised there weren't more votes for zauberberg

The first two tracks of Zauberberg back-to-back kill me. Highs not quite as high as Königsforst though. Pop is amazing but definitely its own thing. Also search All singles.

So is there anywhere one can buy Oktember at a reasonable price? It's not on the Kompakt site. And is Modern 12" only?

Mark- It's the third track on Zauberberg that really gets me. This album somehow manages to both creep me out and pacify me at the same time.

Also, the only way to suitably describe the last track is heavenly.

yea zauberberg is really bizarre, isn't it? you have the first and last tracks which are completely gorgeous - yea, heavenly, the third track (which is one of my favorite Gas tracks) which kind of envelopes you in this really calm way, but all the other tracks are downright creepy.

the last track on konigsforst always makes me think of a sunrise because it sounds like a warped/looped "william tell overture", that waking-up music they use in cartoons

i wonder if any classical heads can trainspot what pieces he samples

I actually thought about e-mailing Alex Ross about Gas. He's probably pretty busy though.

I’m listening to the CD on an Onkyo with my Sennheiser headphones plugged directly in to the player and I don’t hear it…

i should have said, i've been listening to the Spotify version the whole time. not sure if format makes a difference or not

Would be kind of funny if he added the frequency and the fade/sudden starts only to the streaming versions.

I've tried this on several devices and speakers and I still can't hear it. I don't know if it's because I'm focusing hard on the higher frequencies or if the beeps are triggering it, but it seems to exacerbate my tinnitus every time I listen to it.

I put the first track into Audacity and looked at the spectral pitch display. Both the c. 10khz and c. 16khz beeps are clearly visible - little dotted lines. I tried using the EQ to turn down the 10khz as low as it would go, but this also stripped out some other sounds like the higher-frequency crackles. Then I tried using the marquee tool to select and delete the dotted line at 10khz, and that worked much better. I guess my hearing isn't good enough to hear the 16khz beeps - I don't notice them at all.

Then I started thinking that if I have to actively edit an album in order to enjoy it, maybe I should just say I don't enjoy the album and listen to something else. But it was kind of a fun exercise to excise that persistent beep.

Not Audacity, Audition.

the beep doesn't become audible until about 3 minutes into the first track. but then it's in all the others, from the very beginning, i think

sorry, then it's in all the others, all the way to the end, i meant

Yes. In the first track you can start to see the dotted line at about 2:30.

screenshot, screenshot, screenshot!

sorry, i'm getting worked up here

Track 1

https://i.imgur.com/bcjCIQm.jpg

the proof is in the pudding

Track 7 (and end of 6, beginning of 8): a new, higher frequency beep appears, way up at 19khz. I can't hear it.

https://i.imgur.com/SHRsNSM.jpg

Thanks for the pics, Chinchilla! I can't hear the beeps but the pitched bom-bom march beat is driving me nuts (OK, what did I expect from an album called "the Long March", fine) so I think I'm out anyway.

Does the beep line up with the higher or the lower-pitched kick or neither?

Somewhat depressing not to hear it though. I remember probably 10-15 years ago a friend was saying that electronic artists should retire at 35 because they can't hear the treble well enough and their beats become insufficiently punchy. Which seemed a bit harsh at the time (& even aged <30 I couldn't hear the alleged problem), but now I'm in my 40s and still daydreaming of maybe putting out some little blurts of bleepy thumpy stuff on bandcamp one of these decades, only to realise that I'm missing at least half of the CD-quality spectrum...

At least I now feel vindicated in my decision not to buy this thing unheard on Bandcamp Friday in protest at there being no streamable preview tracks.

Chinchilla did you rip a CD or was it a download?

Thank you for those EQ settings, octobeard.

Yes, thanks - that post inspired me to tinker.

The images above are from a FLAC CD rip. I bought the download on Bandcamp, but the individual tracks there are faded out at the end (still not sure why he or anyone thought this was desirable). The continuous mix is one big file. What I wanted was no fades and individual tracks, so I went to that illicit place where Souls are Sought and found a CD rip. Individual tracks, no fades. But now I'm back to working with the big long full-album file, to make it easier to strip out those frequencies across the whole album. Then if I'm feeling ambitious I'll split it up into tracks myself.

I'm not actually that obsessed with this, but I'm a casual/for fun user of Audition who is still learning, and this gives me a good chance to learn some new skills.

I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I listened to the tracks on Apple Music (lossless setting, no eq override, soundcheck turned off) and didn’t hear the beep

listened on youtube (quality unknown) and did hear the beep

yup, checked two more tracks and I’m not going crazy — the youtube tracks have everything that has been mentioned, apple music does not

I wonder if it’s been re-uploaded there, or if something in the mastering process/file export got botched

for what it’s worth, the apple music version also has no fade-outs or gaps between the tracks

I listened to the 1 track version of this from slsk. Initially I couldn't hear the beep at all on my laptop speakers, but when I plugged into my stereo (and verified that the beeps were there in the sonogram) I could make them out. If no one had said anything I doubt that I would have noticed, but now that I do - I can't miss it. Sorta like hearing John Bonham's squeaky bass drum pedal - you may not notice it, but once you ID it you can't not hear it.

Looking at old and new files confirms that they have replaced the beepy version. mh's posts got me to listen anew on streaming - beeps gone. So I redownloaded from bandcamp and looked at the spectral display - beeps stripped out, and the new files look much like the ones I edited for myself (needn't have spent that time, I guess). Dotted line replaced with empty space.

I listened on Spotify just to hear this beep (GAS is not really my thing) and I couldn't hear it at all. I can usually pick out pretty high frequencies so I wondered if maybe I heard the fixed versions

When I was looking around for streaming examples, I noticed the new one wasn’t listed on boomkat and some others. I’m guessing they may have yanked the release

the one on YT is very beepy on my computer speakers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGLmnvv8hjM

i listened to the spotify version on my phone and i could still hear something but way less pronounced

Wow interesting discussion. The FLACs I have do have the beep. Downloaded for the same reason - no previews on Bandcamp, and can't buy the CD on Bandcamp.
I hope the CD I eventually purchase doesn't have the beeps! As someone with mild tinnitus I'm surprised I can hear them, but my hearing loss is actually slightly lower in the frequency band (annoyingly).

Vinyl just arrived and it has the beeps. It's in four sides, and it fades out at the end of each side.

Spotify confirmed, the beep has been removed there, at least on my streams

Supposedly the dings have been stealth removed from all official online sources. Sucks for those who have the CD/LP, perhaps they'll be worth something when they get replaced with the 'fixed' versions

uh...lol, I'm listening on macbook pro speakers/spotify again and the beeps are still there in full force. I didn't hear them earlier because i was listening via my...*david lynch rolls in his living grave* iphone 6 speakers!

but it's still there. i promise i'm not crazy

amazing. i listened to the whole album last night, via my iphone 6 to my ear, and it was so lovely. i really liked it a lot, without that frequency, and i put it in my "new listen pile" playlist. now i'm back on the laptop, and it sucks again! lol

this is a rare music audio case of it being a good idea to play this thing on the shittiest sound system you have, with the worst/absent high frequencies

i'm not hearing the bleep on spotify anymore, but there is a lot of digital crackle? maybe that was there before though, but i was too busy listeting to the beep to notice?

we need to get like a 1000 people into a room with the same sound equipment and do a focus group on this. or like 100. even 20 ok

actually it sounds like a really bad vinyl rip now

but we need to get 20 people in a room and play it out 5 different sets of speakers, 5 different platforms (spotify, CD, LP), 25 tests in all, and figure out what the heck is going on because this is crazy

i need to figure out if there's a way to listen to this that doesn't like shit, other than through the speakers of my iphone6 SE while playing spotify

god, when i was a child, i remember when i only had 2 or 3 big problems. i could count them on my hand, and i would think about what i would do about them. and all the problems were so inconsequential. and now look at my life

really it sounds awful now to me. listening via decent headphones on a laptop via spotify and it sounds like garbage

the tone is gone on spotify afaict, but i think the crackle was always there, i assumed it was intentional. a lot of gas stuff has chaotic treble messin with your reverie

cool kids these days take their album and record it onto VHS tapes before throwing it up on bandcamp or pressing vinyl masters

lol none is this makes me want to actually listen to the album, esp since there's no preview option on Bandcamp

they should add a preview of only the beep

Again, I hear no beep on the CD but that might be me.

What a palaver this is.

Heard the tones clear as day last week on Spotify (SoundMagic e11 earbuds plugged into MacBook)
That evening I couldn't pick them out on the stereo (Marantz MCR610 into Q-Acoustics 2020s), same source
Today it's Sennheiser HD558s, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, USB from work laptop - definitely gone from Spotify, but clear in that YouTube clip upthread (which hasn't been updated since Dec 3)

i'm sure whenever anyone asks wolfgang voigt about it he just grimly stares at his mixer until the person goes away

The streaming version now also lacks the horrible track breaks

I sent an email to Kompakt’s Bandcamp, and this is the official word re: downloads:

1) Are the files 16 or 24 bit?

It will be 16 Bit

2) Are these the files with or without the high-frequency ping on every other kick?

files come without the high-frequency ping - the record unfortunately still contains the "problem".

3) Are the individual tracks faded out or blending seamlessly into each other?

You will receive the fade out version and the continuous file.

best regards kompakt

So that’s it: files have been depinged, but individual tracks are still fading, which I guess makes them good for shuffle. If you want a continuous experience, you always have the single mixed file, which, I guess, makes sense.

Forgot to ask if those few tracks off Rausch will/have also been depinged.

the "problem"

hahaa

do you think anyone has dared ask voigt out loud if he did that on purpose or not?

honestly, unless i were mastering or something (this is a fantasy world, ok), i don't think i would have the guts to ask