BT
Simply Being Loved: A Peak ExperienceBy Randy Alberts
If there are just three post-hypnotic suggestions to take from reading this story about a painter who releases chart-topping electronica-pop and film soundtracks, here, in no particular order, are those topics: 'Guinness Book of World Records', 'BIAS Peak', and 'the role of spirituality in creating new music.' The latter is most important when talking with BT, a.k.a. Brian Transeau, as BIAS had the rare chance of doing recently just days after the release of his latest record, Emotional Technology.
An Artist's Way Of Making Sound
Forget that the disc, featuring Guru of Gang Starr and Jazzmatazz fame, Rose McGowan, and Richard Fortus, Tommy Stinson and Brain from Guns 'N' Roses, debuted at #1 on Billboard's Electronic Albums chart. Forget that Transeau worked on a track on the new Sting album and produced and remixed with *NSYNC, Korn, Tori Amos, Sasha, Paul van Dyk and many others. And never mind that Movement In Still Life, his previous solo work, went huge in 2000 and still sounds great, or that "Dreaming" from that album is still played a lot on the dance floors, or that he has movie credits including The Fast and The Furious, Go, and Driven and recently scored the critically acclaimed Monster, starring Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci.
BT gets just as stoked talking about spirituality, books like The Artist's Way and The Power of Now, and on auctioning off his album tracks-inspired artwork for charity as he does with chances like these to geek out about Peak.
"Whether it's an internal visual or internal dialog that is inspired by external events, there's always a visual component to what I do," says BT about his approach to art and music. His 15 film soundtrack assignments since Movement In Still Life first climbed the charts, plus his ever-evolving sound signature via software, have all affected the way he applies effects to music and art to tracks, and vice versa.
"For example, I painted a painting for every song on Emotional Technology before I started making the music. It's a totally different challenge compared to making an album, and it's a challenge I enjoy. Whether it's the internal visual reference of music or an external visual reference of film, I've always been writing to visuals. My tracks are often inspired by the notion of how sound connects with visual reality. Working on a film is all about connecting visual reality with an artificial sonic stimulus that inspires the audience. It's very manipulative, film music is, but actually in a very cool way."
From the reversed, album-opening samples on "The Meeting of a Hundred Yang" and it's NASA transmissions recognizable from his "Satellite" that closed out Movement In Still Life, to the acoustic guitar-driven "The Only Constant Is Change" at the end of Emotional Technology, BT uses BIAS Peak to further carve out his unique, stuttered and sub-octavated vocal signature. In a well-documented milieu of funky house, nu skool, and breaky housey beats, BT's sound is recognizably different. And then there the Guinness Book of World Records thing.
That's Never Been Done Before!
Even BT knew he had gone waaayy long on this particular edit session when he actually took the time to count the number of BIAS Peak edits he performed on the vocals for "Simply Being Loved (Somnambulist)" from Emotional Technology. That's 6,178 edits, to be exact.
"It's for the song 'Somnambulist' which we're now calling 'Simply Being Loved,' the first single from Emotional Technology. Man, I did a lot of processing of that vocal in Peak," says BT with a hint of confession in his voice. Even electronica DSP-music critics will cave-in to Emotional Technology when they dig how far BT has taken his unique style of vocal stutter edits and vocoded and sub-octave voicings. Using the latest versions of Peak and lots of other music software, he liked what he came up with on these tracks, too.
"I was using that incredible bundle with the amazing Vbox," he continues. "We got a phone call from the Guinness Book saying that they had heard about all the edits and that they'd love to see some screen shots of that track. Dude, I heard it's actually been accepted as the most edits ever in a recorded piece of music! I called my Mom and she's like, 'My God, my son's going to be in the world records book.' She usually more concerned with whether I have enough money for dinner and that I'm taking good care of my dogs."
Peak's Room With A View
Transeau doesn't hold back when it comes to his confidence in BIAS Peak. He's been a user since version 1.0 and says, "Everyone who knows me knows how much I love Peak." He runs his laundry list of VST plug-ins through Peak when he's coming up with new sounds and working on sound treatments and, on his laptop or at home on the full system, BT turns to Peak for a new, inspiring view every day.
"It's an environment that makes me feel really creative. It's an environment that makes me feel like doing sound design for film and music. My DAW software is where I do my multi-tracking and it can serve as a decent environment for doing 2-track and waveform editing. But I like exiting that program to go into Peak for my sound design. Peak makes me feel like I'm going into a different room in my house."
"For sure, each room in your house serves a different function and the windows are laid out differently in each space," he concludes. "The view is different from each environment. It feels different in each room and that makes you feel like doing different stuff in each room, you know what I mean? Working with Peak makes me feel like doing sound design, whereas working in a DAW makes me feel like writing a song. Still, although I primarily use Peak for sound treatment, I will often bring some beats into it and lay some bass and keyboard parts down in there in Peak. Or, I'll pull a loop AIFF file into Peak and then just go absolutely crazy doing wild sound treatments on the groove."