Ed Bauman (EditED4TV) presents 88mph ReFill for Propellerhead’s Reason

His videos have been shared all over the internet and we have all marvelled at how dead on accurate his instrument recreations are but now, for the first time, Ed Bauman is sharing his wonderful creations with us all. If you haven’t heard of his series of what he calls “ReCovers” under the moniker of EditEd4TV then you are part of a very small group. Ed has an incredible skill, developed over 30+ years of electronic music making, where he can not only isolate sounds within a mix in his head, but then recreate them using the tools provided with Propellerhead’s Reason software. He then analyses the song structure and puts together the necessary MIDI track and, with occasional help from his fellow bandmates who provide backing vocals or guitar licks, comes up with an instrumental cover version that is so good it even fools the YouTube music detection algorithm and attributes the video to the original artist! If you are one of those few people who haven’t encountered Ed’s work, then check this shit out…

So, naturally, Ed has been asked very frequently if he ever had any plans to release his work publicly. Until now, the answer has always been either no or not yet, especially due to the fact that sharing the MIDI tracks might actually constitute breach of copyright in the original work. But the sounds themselves are complete, ground up creations and not samples (yes, I know, it is hard to believe) so it’s quite alright to release those and that’s exactly what Ed has done. Here is the blurb from his site…

EditEd4TV 88mph ReFill

Ed “EditEd4TV” Bauman proudly presents 88MPH Vol.1
51 Combinators from 9 Hit Songs of the 1980’s!

Volume 1 includes patches from the following songs:
Prince “1999”
Depeche Mode “Just Can’t Get Enough”
Simple Minds “Don’t You Forget About Me”
Human League “Don’t You Want Me”
Cindy Lauper “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”
Blondie “Heart of Glass”
David Bowie “Let’s Dance”
Madonna “Like a Virgin”
Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams”

These are all Combinators with all 4 Combinator knobs and buttons mapped to various parameters. Usually Combinator knob 4 is mapped to volume for convenient live use. The remaining knobs and buttons control anything from filter frequency to reverb amount, reverb time, chorus speed, octave settings, and more. Pitch wheel and mod wheel are mapped as well. About 90% of the ReFill is custom Thor and Subtractor patches, with the remaining 10% made up of NN-XT patches which rely on the Orkester and Factory Soundbank for samples.

Each and every patch has enormous potential, from the default load-in setting to drastic changes when you alter the programmed parameters… try low octave power drones, and for patches with delay try playing staccato notes in tempo, move the pitch wheel and mod wheel, etc. When you load in a new patch, about 80% of the time all the knobs are at either 0%, 50%, or 100%. At first load-in you’ll find the patch to be exactly as I used it in my ReCover, so you can simply deviate from there.

Volume 2 (available late 2011) will include patches from the following songs:
Depeche Mode “People are People”
Real Life “Send Me an Angel”
Soft Cell “Tainted Love”
Spandau Ballet “True”
Buggles “Video Killed the Radio Star”
Missing Persons “Walking in LA”
Pet Shop Boys “West End Girls”

Volume 3 (available early 2012) will include patches from the following songs:
Gary Numan “Cars”
Modern English “Melt With You”
Naked Eyes “Always Something There”
Nena “99 Red Balloons”
Psychedelic Furs “Love My Way”
…and more.

That’s, quite literally, music to many people’s ears! At last, we can share Ed’s fantastic work and use it and abuse it to our own ends. Ed specifically does these because he plays in an 80’s covers band, so if you’re into the same, here is a tool you cannot be without. Pricing is as follows:

Multi-volume discounts available:
Volume 1: $35.00
Volume 1 + 2: $60.00 ($10.00 savings)
Volume 1 + 2 + 3: $80.00 ($25.00 savings)

Check out the trailer here…

And if you want a deep insight into how Ed does what he does, check out this very good interview that he gave to Ryan Harlin of Propellerhead as part of their Making Music Month event earlier this year…

http://www.baumanproductions.com/88mph

[No prizes for where Ed got the inspiration for the title of this ReFill from… 😉]