Strange Light Under My Bed

Berlin School is a kind of trance/ambient/experimental electronic music invented in Germany and played by such artists as Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, Klaus Schulze and others. With Strange Light Under My Bed, Yerzmyey — a veteran electronic music composer — has revisited the genre, using the retro-computers.

"I remember my surprise when I found out that those musicians, playing mostly in 70s, were often using rather simple electronic instruments (especially in comparison to modern monster-machines) and 80% of their incredible cosmic sound was... recording studio effects. The most obvious next thought was: if that's the case, then maybe I could re-create those conditions but with... retro-computers? :)

That's how this album was created. Here you find trance/ambient music composed on several retro platforms, recorded track by track, with a lot of studio-effects added, to create — along with those classic sound-chips — some mysterious cosmic atmosphere. The only instruments (and sequencers) were the retro-computers. All the material has been recorded from real ancient hardware track by track and put through sound-effects. Like, if Jean Michel Jarre or Tangerine Dream would be making music on ZX Spectrum, Atari or Amiga — the final outcome would be still the same as it is now.

P.S. If anybody is interested in original fragments of the tracks, without any FX added, I should have some of them, just for curiosity. Drop me a note: yerzmyey@interia.pl"

— Yerzmyey.

Instruments/sequencers:
- ZX Spectrum 128K,
- ZX Spectrum 48K,
- Amiga 500,
- Atari 520 ST,
- Atari Falcon 030.

Retro-software used:
- for Spectrum 128K: SoundTracker 1.1,
- for Spectrum 48K: Orfeus/SpecialFX,
- for Amiga 500: OctaMED 4.0,
- for Atari 520 ST: Music-Mon V2.5e,
- for Atari Falcon 030: ACE Tracker 0.997.

Sound-chips used in individual machines:
- ZX Spectrum 128K: General Instrument AY-3-8912
- ZX Spectrum 48K: Zilog Z80A + Ferranti ULA 6C001E (beeper)
- Amiga 500: Paula 8364
- Atari 520 ST: Yamaha YM2149F
- Atari Falcon 030: Motorola DSP 56001.

Recording studio sound-effects and modern software used:
- Zoom RFX 2000
- Zoom Studio 1201
- Behringer Xenyx 1002 FX
- Behringer FEX 800
- Cool Edit Pro 2.1
- Sony Sound Forge 8.0.

In general — recording-studio effects used:
- track-by-track recording
- filters
- phasers
- choruses
- flangers
- delays
- noise-gates
- echoes
- reverbs
- equalizers
- compressors
- limiters.