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Thread: Tangerine Dream 10-CD Box Set 1980-1983

  1. #51
    You know what? I really like Optical Race. I think it was my first actual TD album purchased (I had heard of them via Legend before that) and it was one of those albums that I loved out the gate, but then lost favor as I learned about the rest of their catalog, but in due time I came back around again. Even among the Private Music/Miramar years, it's got a unique sound that's like nothing on either side of it.

    And I didn't get to see that tour but I had a killer boot and ultimately got Rockface when it was available (only complain about the latter was the truncated version of Parabola compared to my boot). It was a great setlist.
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  2. #52
    Member dropforge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by battema View Post
    You know what? I really like Optical Race. I think it was my first actual TD album purchased (I had heard of them via Legend before that) and it was one of those albums that I loved out the gate, but then lost favor as I learned about the rest of their catalog, but in due time I came back around again. Even among the Private Music/Miramar years, it's got a unique sound that's like nothing on either side of it.
    Miracle Mile is hands down the best release from the Private years. I love that soundtrack. (And the out-of-the-blue 2CD remaster / reissue is way cool.)

    From OR, "Mothers of Rain" and "Sun Gate" (the idea Ralf brought to the table, which Ed added a brilliant guitar line to) are rad. "Cat Scan," "Atlas Eyes" and "Marakesh" are fine tracks, what you'd expect/want from them at the time. The album is weighed down by throwaways like the title track, "Twin Soul Tribe" and "The Midnight Trail" (solid start, but they didn't know how to finish it).

    Quote Originally Posted by battema View Post
    And I didn't get to see that tour but I had a killer boot and ultimately got Rockface when it was available (only complain about the latter was the truncated version of Parabola compared to my boot). It was a great setlist.
    Rockface is a really cool thing to have.

  3. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by dropforge View Post
    Miracle Mile is hands down the best release from the Private years. I love that soundtrack. (And the out-of-the-blue 2CD remaster / reissue is way cool.)

    From OR, "Mothers of Rain" and "Sun Gate" (the idea Ralf brought to the table, which Ed added a brilliant guitar line to) are rad. "Cat Scan," "Atlas Eyes" and "Marakesh" are fine tracks, what you'd expect/want from them at the time. The album is weighed down by throwaways like the title track, "Twin Soul Tribe" and "The Midnight Trail" (solid start, but they didn't know how to finish it).



    Rockface is a really cool thing to have.
    Oh yeah...Miracle Mile is terrific and a big ol' ditto for the 2CD edition

    There is a stupid little thing that always annoys me in Sun Gate, once I started hearing it I couldn't un-hear it and it killed an otherwise great tune for me

    Synths in the 80's didn't have a ton of polyphony like the modern digital synths do. I can't recall but the Roland U series and Korg M1 might only be 8 or 16 total voices (keep in mind, they were also multitimbral so 16 voices could get chewed up really fast when using multiple parts at once). For those of us who did full songs in MIDI without audio (this was a few years before DAW systems really became more widespread), we had to oftentimes allocate voices to each part in the synth (for example, a mono bass might only need 1 voice of polyphony but the piano might need 6). If you got too close to the limit, notes would cut off really abruptly.

    The piano in the verses on Sun Gate is a Roland U-20 (or another Roland synth using the same sample library set), and it doesn't have quite enough polyphony so you can hear the chords chopping off as it goes along. It's subtle but once I heard it, I totally get distracted and annoyed by it YA COULDN'T JUST ADD A FEW MORE VOICES, RALF?!?

    (super nerd quibble to be clear...and I actually think it's a great song. Did they ever do this one live? I don't THINK so which is kind of a shame...it would've been a great guitar moment for Edgar and a nice live anthem sort of tune).
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  4. #54
    Member dropforge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by battema View Post
    The piano in the verses on Sun Gate is a Roland U-20 (or another Roland synth using the same sample library set), and it doesn't have quite enough polyphony so you can hear the chords chopping off as it goes along. It's subtle but once I heard it, I totally get distracted and annoyed by it YA COULDN'T JUST ADD A FEW MORE VOICES, RALF?!?

  5. #55
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    Quote Originally Posted by battema View Post
    You know what? I really like Optical Race. I think it was my first actual TD album purchased (I had heard of them via Legend before that) and it was one of those albums that I loved out the gate, but then lost favor as I learned about the rest of their catalog, but in due time I came back around again. Even among the Private Music/Miramar years, it's got a unique sound that's like nothing on either side of it.

    And I didn't get to see that tour but I had a killer boot and ultimately got Rockface when it was available (only complain about the latter was the truncated version of Parabola compared to my boot). It was a great setlist.
    Count me in as a fan of Optical Race, and also bunch of other albums from around the same time. As long as you go in expecting a different type of music, there is a lot to appreciate in those years.

    The OR tour is the only time I saw TD live. I didn't know anything about their show beforehand, and the only thing I ever read about them playing live was in darkened cathedrals! Well first seeing Andy Summers open for them, just him, his guitar and him continuously stomping on his effects board. I think he was having equipment issues or at least I hope so. Was happy to see him leave the stage.

    Anyway I'm waiting for TD to come on stage, the lights to dim and TD to go into some dreamscapes. I hadn't heard the album yet so I was totally thrown off by what they were playing. After a song or two, I realized this was a totally different kind of show and what I was expecting wasn't going to happen. From there I really enjoyed the show.

    Yes, Rockface is an excellent album. I was very happy to pick that CD up. A side note, on the 30th anniversary of the show I went to with a buddy I now hadn't seen in about 20 years, I tracked him down online and asked him if he knew what he was doing 30 years ago. Running through NYC to get to Radio City in time for the show! It was real good to reminisce about the good old days with an old friend.

  6. #56
    Quote Originally Posted by battema View Post
    Oh yeah...Miracle Mile is terrific and a big ol' ditto for the 2CD edition

    There is a stupid little thing that always annoys me in Sun Gate, once I started hearing it I couldn't un-hear it and it killed an otherwise great tune for me

    Synths in the 80's didn't have a ton of polyphony like the modern digital synths do. I can't recall but the Roland U series and Korg M1 might only be 8 or 16 total voices (keep in mind, they were also multitimbral so 16 voices could get chewed up really fast when using multiple parts at once). For those of us who did full songs in MIDI without audio (this was a few years before DAW systems really became more widespread), we had to oftentimes allocate voices to each part in the synth (for example, a mono bass might only need 1 voice of polyphony but the piano might need 6). If you got too close to the limit, notes would cut off really abruptly.

    The piano in the verses on Sun Gate is a Roland U-20 (or another Roland synth using the same sample library set), and it doesn't have quite enough polyphony so you can hear the chords chopping off as it goes along. It's subtle but once I heard it, I totally get distracted and annoyed by it YA COULDN'T JUST ADD A FEW MORE VOICES, RALF?!?

    (super nerd quibble to be clear...and I actually think it's a great song. Did they ever do this one live? I don't THINK so which is kind of a shame...it would've been a great guitar moment for Edgar and a nice live anthem sort of tune).
    And then you had several concepts with multitimbral and polyfony. With the Yamaha TX81Z you had to select polyphony for each voice and with 8-voice polyphony, you got to the limits very fast. There were also synths where one could set a maximum, meaning if one channel didn't play, the amount of voices that could be used by the other channels was raised. With my Yamaha TX81Z I mostly use 2-voice polyphony for each channel, playing monophonic lines, to prevent sudden cut-offs.
    I start sounding nerdy.

  7. #57
    You sound more awesome than nerdy in my book

    It's funny now, in the age of digital synths with 128+ voices of polyphony, to think back to when we had to plan ahead as to how many notes we could play per part in our multitimbral synths. I remember being super impressed with one of my 90's Rolands because it was able to re-reserve voices on the fly when one part needed more than another
    If you're actually reading this then chances are you already have my last album but if NOT and you're curious:
    https://battema.bandcamp.com/

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  8. #58
    Quote Originally Posted by battema View Post
    You sound more awesome than nerdy in my book

    It's funny now, in the age of digital synths with 128+ voices of polyphony, to think back to when we had to plan ahead as to how many notes we could play per part in our multitimbral synths. I remember being super impressed with one of my 90's Rolands because it was able to re-reserve voices on the fly when one part needed more than another
    Well, with the Nord G2 Engine I still have to look how many voices are available, especially with a performance set-up.

  9. #59
    Member dropforge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by battema View Post
    You sound more awesome than nerdy in my book

    It's funny now, in the age of digital synths with 128+ voices of polyphony, to think back to when we had to plan ahead as to how many notes we could play per part in our multitimbral synths. I remember being super impressed with one of my 90's Rolands because it was able to re-reserve voices on the fly when one part needed more than another
    Remember when "24-note" polyphony was AWESOME???!!! (Heck, 16 notes, for that matter...)

  10. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by dropforge View Post
    Remember when "24-note" polyphony was AWESOME???!!! (Heck, 16 notes, for that matter...)
    I was verry happy with my Bit 99 with 6 voice polyphony. In split mode 3 for each half. So a little bit on the low side for righthanded chords and a bit much to play a bassline.

  11. #61
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave (in MA) View Post
    Yikes. Autobuy timed to coincide with the next autobuy Box Of Crim. I wonder if the Keep soundtrack is really the Keep soundtrack, or just a repackaging of the bogus limited release Keep pseudo-soundtrack from a while back.
    Has anyone determined what that new Box of Crim has that wasn't in the previous ITCOTCK box set?

  12. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by dropforge View Post
    Miracle Mile is hands down the best release from the Private years. I love that soundtrack. (And the out-of-the-blue 2CD remaster / reissue is way cool.)
    Miracle Mile is also a great movie. I actually found the original soundtrack release at the library, borrowed it, listened to it, liked it, then the movie popped up on Cinemax, I guess it must have been at the time, and I watched it. Good movie with Anthony Edwards discovering a nuclear war is imminent, and is desperately trying to find Mare Winningham, in a bid to get the two of them included in a group of people who are being ferried to the Antarctic (apparently, the only "safe zone" where the fall out reach, or whatever). Very good suspenseful picture. I saw it again...I wanna say just a few years ago, but maybe it was more like 10 years ago by now, but I thought it held up well.

    But I agree that the important thing about post-Franke Tangerine Dream is, it's not gonna sound like the old stuff. Hell, the last few albums with Herr Christopher on them don't even sound like Logos. But I ended up with all of the Tangerine Tree things, which of course cover all periods of the band, on my digital Walkman, and as I went through the stuff from the late 80's, 90's and so on, I kept thinking, "Ya know, if this wasn't Tangerine Dream, I might actually like this stuff a lot more", i.e. "Because it's Tangerine Dream, I wanted it sound like the earlier stuff, and because it didn't I dismissed it at the time, but now, it doesn't sound so bad".

  13. #63
    One thing I do kind of wish was in the Pilots box is a good quality recording from the 80/81 touring. Before he quit TD, I'm pretty sure I read that Jerome was prepping a "vault" release from the tour so somewhere in the archives must be a pretty decent set of tapes.
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  14. #64
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    Quote Originally Posted by battema View Post
    One thing I do kind of wish was in the Pilots box is a good quality recording from the 80/81 touring. Before he quit TD, I'm pretty sure I read that Jerome was prepping a "vault" release from the tour so somewhere in the archives must be a pretty decent set of tapes.
    It's seems with the 2 box set releases, TD is doing a Pink Floyd (and many others) and going thru their vaults. I would bet that 80/81 tour shows up eventually. They and other older bands aren't going to get new fans so they will give the old fans what they want.

    I have been on a major TD kick, and just picked up Zeit, have ordered and the 1977-1983 set, listened to a bunch of their albums recently. One of them was Sessions II which is quite good. Good times!

    With all these TD threads, it almost feels like Yes!

  15. #65
    I have a feeling this isn't so much about TD as it is Virgin unloading their vaults while there's still some (mysterious) semblance of a market. And it doesn't actually appear TD is the driver behind these boxes although some folks are being consulted (Froese's widow).

    But from the consumer end I'm not going to look this gift horse in the mouth...we've gotten killer, clean live shows from the Phaedra/Rubycon era, a real/official Oedipus Tyrannus and a metric crap-ton of outtakes for Phaedra, plus now we have more full concerts, THE REAL KEEP SCORE and more to come. It's all happy by me and I'm ready to chuck bucks at whatever Virgin/TD have planned
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  16. #66
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tangram View Post
    It's seems with the 2 box set releases, TD is doing a Pink Floyd (and many others) and going thru their vaults. I would bet that 80/81 tour shows up eventually. They and other older bands aren't going to get new fans so they will give the old fans what they want.

    I have been on a major TD kick, and just picked up Zeit, have ordered and the 1977-1983 set, listened to a bunch of their albums recently. One of them was Sessions II which is quite good. Good times!

    With all these TD threads, it almost feels like Yes!
    They do exist, because I have a great CD boot.

  17. #67
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    Quote Originally Posted by battema View Post
    But from the consumer end I'm not going to look this gift horse in the mouth...we've gotten killer, clean live shows from the Phaedra/Rubycon era, a real/official Oedipus Tyrannus and a metric crap-ton of outtakes for Phaedra, plus now we have more full concerts, THE REAL KEEP SCORE and more to come. It's all happy by me and I'm ready to chuck bucks at whatever Virgin/TD have planned
    I still can't believe we're getting a 1980s box!!!!

  18. #68
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tangram View Post
    With all these TD threads, it almost feels like Yes!



  19. #69
    ^^ which is actually quite appropriate, since TD was more or less left in the dark and Anderson simply sang over their material. As seems to be how he & his management team treated 95% of his "collaborators" along the way.
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  20. #70
    Member moecurlythanu's Avatar
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    Are their any boots out there of the Optical Race US Tour?

  21. #71
    There are a number of them, yep. But TD actually released a more-or-less unedited live show from the tour called Rockface as an official live "vault" release. Unlike most everything up to that point, Rockface hasn't got a bunch of digitial synth pads all over it...the show is a pristine document from the tour.

    The only edit I've picked up is one of the newer pieces that Wadephul co-wrote (called Parabola on the live album) is edited down from how it was played live. Probably so the set would fit on 2 discs.

    If you enjoyed the Optical Race tour, IMHO Rockface is flat-out essential listening.

    https://www.discogs.com/Tangerine-Dr...elease/1229157
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  22. #72
    Member dropforge's Avatar
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    I can't believe you can get ANY copies of Rockface. A $25 copy sitting there...!

  23. #73
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    Quote Originally Posted by moecurlythanu View Post
    Are their any boots out there of the Optical Race US Tour?
    Plenty. Check out this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanger...4_Optical_Race

    I saw this tour in Atlanta and it was transcendent! Edgar on guitar was incredible

    For me, TD really lost a lot when Chris Franke left. I heard the next several albums, but it was diminishing returns. I quit buying new albums years ago.

  24. #74
    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ctoelle View Post

    For me, TD really lost a lot when Chris Franke left. I heard the next several albums, but it was diminishing returns. I quit buying new albums years ago.
    Right now they're in a creative peak. The Sessions albums are great. It remains to be seen what happens with the Frick guy they added.

  25. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by battema View Post
    There are a number of them, yep. But TD actually released a more-or-less unedited live show from the tour called Rockface as an official live "vault" release. Unlike most everything up to that point, Rockface hasn't got a bunch of digitial synth pads all over it...the show is a pristine document from the tour.
    You mean besides what was actually played during the concerts, right? Because TD had long since been using digital synths and samplers by the time of Optical Race.

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