PROBLEMATIZING HI-RES AND THE ALBUM

You might have read that Bullet’s EP would be released in two “versions”. The first is the usual CD-quality 16bit/44.1kHz format. Despite the bad rap it has gotten from some audiophiles, CD audio is still superior to both "lossy" mp3s and various "lossless" formats. However, while we were recording, I noticed that Shinji had recorded the tracks at a higher 24bit/88.2kHz resolution. This is widely practiced in studios because this resolution allows for a finer level of editing and signal processing. But most laypersons never hear recordings in this resolution because they are downsampled into a standard consumer CD-quality format for release. 

I saw this as an opportunity to address two issues that have been bothering me recently. First, there is a festering belief that CD-quality audio is not true “high-fidelity”. Uber-critical listeners have complained that CDs sound too bright and shrill, and lack the smoothness of the “analog” sound. In the early days of digital audio, many engineers had not adapted/updated their techniques, and the results merely exposed their unfamiliarity with the new technology. Later, the abuse of digital technologies resulted in recordings which ended up sounding either brittle, or overwhelmingly loud and devoid of dynamics. Attempts to create new standards for higher-fidelity digital recordings were unfortunately mired in competitive corporate politics, so competing optical/physical consumer high-resolution formats never gained traction. But personal computers changed all that. With the right codec, today’s computer can playback at practically any resolution. Throw in a nice audio interface, amplifiers, speakers, and voila! You can listen to a digital audio file with as high a resolution as your system allows. While a few enthusiasts are set up to play these kinds of files, the majority is unfortunately still in the dark.

The second issue I’d been toying with had to do with the perceived death of the “album”. Digital audio has brought about total random access, meaning you can hop, skip, and jump to any track in an album. Listening to the songs in the sequence of an album has been replaced by shuffle and/or random playback. Then there is the nefarious recording industry practice of putting only a couple of “hit” songs and loading the rest of an album with “throwaway” and “b-side” songs, which has dampened people’s desire to acquire an entire album. Also, producing an album of eight to twelve songs has become such a massive, expensive and time-consuming project that present-day indies lacking in the resources of big record companies have resorted to three to six song “extended play” EPs to save time, money, and effort. Still, there are people out there who mourn the seeming demise of both the album as a physical object, and as a concept.  So in the run up to mixing, I decided to resolve these issues of resolution and the album in one go. 

To address the first issue, we mixed 24bit/88.2kHz .aiff versions with no downsampling/conversion. We did not use any audio program compression, neither did we do any “mastering” or any other form of post-production processing. What you are getting is an exact copy of the file that we worked on in the studio. The hi-res version may not sound that much different from the 16bit/44.1kHz version in casual listening. But in critical listening one will notice that the voice is slightly smoother in the high frequencies (which is important because Bullet’s voice is very rich in that region), and individual guitar strings have more room to breathe (which is also important because his guitar playing is so dense). This will hopefully satisfy the burgeoning demand for high-resolution digital recordings, and people obsessed with authenticity. To address the second issue, I put all three songs continuously in a single 400 megabyte file. Experiencing this file resembles what would happen in a live three-song set or, in a sense, a complete “album”. I’m already anticipating some people branding this as autocratic. But one must understand that I come from a generation in which if you wanted to do something apart from the artist’s/producer’s intentions, you had to work on it. For example, if you wanted to rearrange things in those days, you had to stay up all night creating that perfect cassette mix-tape in which there was a programmatic flow to the selections, and the end of the last song did not run out of tape. But that came only after listening to the albums from which these selections came from in sequence so many times that you understood the artists'/producers' intent well enough to break them up. So while tech-savvy users could easily split this file apart with any audio editor, I suggest taking it for a few “spins” with the original sequence before you break it up. 

This EP is not the holy grail of digital audio, and I do not claim to be the saviour of the album. But the academic in me is always in search of issues, and ways to address them. I hope that my confrontation with these two issues bring them to the attention of musicians, engineers, and producers, and inspires them devise their own unique approaches to resolve them.    

RE-PRESENTING THE FILIPINO VOICE

I've heard/read people saying Bullet's voice is unique. That might be true in the current popular music scene, but not so in Philippine culture per se. I hear this kind of voice from taho/balut/tinapay vendors, palengkeras, and jeepney barkers calling out to prospective customers. I've heard it in ethnomusicological field recordings of traditional musicians from all corners of the Philippines. And I’ve even heard it from folksy popular “novelty music” such as that from Yoyoy Villame and Max Surban. 

Felipe de Leon Jr. once explained to me that unlike some Western musics which aim to impress and dominate the world, Philippine music is more intimate. He said “The way we sing is an expression of our desire to connect to people. So our aesthetics of voice is not the power voice of the west. Operatic singing in the West developed out of the monarchy. It was an entertainment of the king, for the king. So the kind of voice is a projection of monarchic power. … … Kaya heavy kasi dito e, the monarchic voice is projection of power, and struggle, Darwinian struggle, struggle for survival. So you have to project your power so you can be the winner. … On the other hand, the Filipinos use a voice to communicate, to become one. Kaya ang vocal placement natin is frontal, to give a more intimate quality, to attract people, to become one."

Bullet’s voice may be impressive, and may have power. But that’s not the point. His voice draws from many sonic instances in our culture, musical and otherwise. It projects just enough to carry through our natural environment. It communicates in a way which arouses our curiosity, draws us close, and makes us want to be part of his world.  But in addition to this, Bullet re-presents (as opposed to represents) the sound of the Filipino voice in his own way. He has figured out a way to turn the everyday voices in our communities into music. And he has packaged it in such a way that it sounds vaguely familiar, but fresh and contemporary. This to me is what makes Bullet unique. Once you have heard him though, you might never listen to your suking taho vendor the same way again.

GIFTS

It was Vin Dancel who suggested I invite Bullet Dumas to a short program I was putting together for UP Tacloban cross-enrolles in UP Diliman’s legendary Kalayaan dorm last December. I had never heard of Bullet, but the other performers I had lined up that night (Vin and Raimund Marasigan), as well as some colleagues (Krina Cayabyab and my sister Lennette Mirano) apparently had, and all raved about him. From the moment he took the stage, his guttural voice, aggressive guitar stumming, and propulsive but occasionally arrhythmic music blew me away. In a fertile plain of indie musicians trying to push the boundaries of contemporary song, he stood out like a stallion. I was transfixed, not knowing whether to explode in applause, or stay quiet as if to savour the spell he had put me under. The day after, I texted Bullet asking if he had a CD I could buy. I was shocked when he told me he didn’t have one. All he had were crude soundcloud demos and youtube live performances. I couldn’t fathom how the darling of the 2011 Elements National Songwriting Camp and a number of popular mainstream musicians still didn’t have a serious recording. I surmised this is the reason why had not gotten any airplay and/or had received only scant big media attention. So I spent the rest of the  Christmas break thinking of a way to fix this problem.

I initially thought of the DIY approach. This meant bringing my portable recording gear, getting a quiet classroom or office space somewhere in UP Diliman during the Christmas vacation, and recording for a couple of days, much like I had done with the Eraserheads over two decades ago. But 1) I didn’t think I had the energy to deal with all the technological issues of remote recording anymore, and 2) the buildings and offices are completely closed during the break. Then I considered just going in to a studio. Although I’ve never bankrolled a recording, I’ve always had this romantic idea that if I ever won the lotto, I’d spend part of my winnings on recording every single artist that captured my fancy. Unfortunately, I’ve never won a lotto jackpot, and my professors’ salary isn’t big on disposable income. But it was Christmas, and that meant a Christmas bonus. If I skimped, saved, and avoided unnecessary, extravagant expenses, I could afford to buy enough studio time to record Bullet singing and playing guitar with minimal overdubs. When my wife Helen heard my account of that magical night in Kalayaan about Bullet, she said she would half the cost with me. And when I told my sister Lennette about it, she pitched it too. So I called up Shinji Tanaka at Sound Creation and told him of my plan. Shinji told me a few months earlier that business had slowed down, he had become a bit burned out, and preferred accepting projects for the sake of “art”. It seemed perfect for what I had in mind. So the budget and the studio was set. 

I finally texted Bullet just after the new year, asking if we was interested in a late Christmas “gift”. My wife, sister, and I would pay for five hours of recording time and three hours of mixing, and I would produce it. This would be enough to make an three song EP. All I asked in return was that he publicly acknowledged the gift, that I could keep duplicates of the session and mixed files for archival/preservation purposes, and that I be allowed to give a few copies to my closest of friends and family. The recordings would belong to him, and he could do anything he wanted to with them. I feel he reacted in much the same way I did when I first saw him perform. He was excited but slightly stunned, trying to figure out how to express his gratitude. I met with him and his managers in late January, and firmed up the schedule. The recording day finally came on 24 February. I brought along my daughter Nicole, a popular music blogger who while she had experienced me at work in recording session with the UP Cherubim and Seraphim of which she is a member, had never seen me work with other acts. Bullet was already there with his manager Isi, who had brought a delicious lasagne she concocted.  We were still setting up when Buddy Zabala popped in, with a deadly package of cookies and cake made by his wife Earnest. I found out from Raimund that Buddy had been helping Bullet edit his songs for some time. This is why the recorded versions were tighter and more organized than the demos he sent me. A few minutes later, Raimund showed up, having biked all the way from Marikina. I always treasure his presence because it adds infectious energy to the proceedings. And Shinji’s quiet confidence and sensitivity kept us firmly grounded in the complex technological environment. We all had a wonderful time listening to the music, and puttered around making the recording better. I told Bullet that the rough mixes were good enough for airplay, and that he should pass this on to radio stations that had been hounding him for months. I let the rough mixes percolate in my head for a month, and made plans for the mixing session. The final mixing session on March 25 was a quieter affair, with just Bullet, Isi, Shinji and I in the studio. This was good because mixing takes intense concentration. I posted an update on Facebook wherein I declared a personal one-day moratorium on worrying about the state of the Philippine music industry, and academic governance in U.P., because I wanted to thoroughly enjoy this session. Everything went according to plan. In the end we all felt a sense of joy over the results, and an eagerness to release the recording. 

I make all sorts of suggestions as to what artists may do going forward. But my end-game coincides with the completion of the recordings. I can only hope that the recordings help strengthen the foundations of the individual artists’ career, and make a significant contribution to the music scene in general. It’s not up to me to declare whether Bullet will become the “next big thing” or not. But I pray that the “gift” my family and I gave him this year snowballs into a something which 1) will inspire other artists to push their own creativity past the limits imposed by repressive canons while managing to create works which resonate with people, and 2) will inspire audiences to seek out and look beyond that which is merely spoon-fed to them by established institutions. 

To me, every recording project benefits from selfless gifts. Knowledge, creativity, expertise, energy, food, and money must all come together to make a great recording. But the gift that mattered most, and which made us all come together, was Bullet’s music. We hope you all get a chance to partake in, and cherish his gift.

FORGETFULNESS

It's the day after we finished mixing Bullet Dumas' upcoming 3-song EP, and I realised I completely forgot to blog about it. But better late than never. So since it hasn't been released yet, I'll be posting some short essays in the next few weeks about what was going on in my head since I met Bullet in December of 2013.  

robin rivera