Heavens Open
''Heaven's Open'' is the 14th record album performed by Mike Oldfield, released in 1991. It was his last album on Virgin, and also the only album he released under the name Michael Oldfield, instead of Mike Oldfield. The producer of the album, Tom Newman's name is also spelled out in a similar manner, as Thom Newman. The album is essentially a concept album, lyrics dealing with a forthcoming liberation from artist's recording contract. History By 1991 and the release of Heaven's Open, Oldfield was happy to leave Virgin Records. The final goodbye to Virgin appears at the very end of "Music from the Balcony", where a quiet laughter and Oldfield's voice saying "Fuck off!" can be heard. ''Heaven's Open'' is Oldfield's only album where he performs all the lead vocals himself, due to his having come to terms with the sound of his own voice. After leaving Virgin, Oldfield released the anticipated '' Tubular Bells II'' in 1992 with Warner Brothers. Connections to other Oldfield ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mike Oldfield
Michael Gordon Oldfield (born 15 May 1953) is an English retired musician, songwriter and producer best known for his debut studio album ''Tubular Bells'' (1973), which became an unexpected critical and commercial success. Though primarily a guitarist, Oldfield played a range of instruments, which included keyboards and percussion, as well as vocals. He had adopted a range of musical styles throughout his career, including progressive rock, World music, world, Folk music, folk, Classical music, classical, Electronic music, electronic, Ambient music, ambient and new age music. Oldfield took up the guitar at age ten and left school in his teens to embark on a music career. From 1967 to 1970, he and his sister Sally Oldfield were a folk duo, the Sallyangie, after which he performed with Kevin Ayers. In 1971, Oldfield started work on ''Tubular Bells'' which caught the attention of Richard Branson, who agreed to release it on his new label, Virgin Records. Its opening was used in the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Man In The Rain
"Man in the Rain" is a pop rock song written and performed by English multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield. It was included on the album ''Tubular Bells III'' and released as a single on 5 October 1998 by Warner Music. The vocals were performed by Irish folk singer Cara Dillon. History "Man in the Rain" is similar in style to Oldfield's 1983 hit, "Moonlight Shadow", from which "Man in the Rain" borrows sampled drums. An early version of "Man in the Rain" was also written shortly after "Moonlight Shadow". Another early demo version of "Man in the Rain" was recorded for Oldfield's ''Islands'' album, with vocals by Barry Palmer; this version later turned into the song " Heaven's Open". "Man in the Rain" was also the working title for the album '' Heaven's Open''. Although Cara Dillon performs on the album, she was not present at the ''Tubular Bells III'' première concert at Horse Guards Parade in London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Korg M1
The Korg M1 is a synthesizer and music workstation manufactured by Korg from 1988 to 1995. It is one of the bestselling synthesizers in history, selling an estimated 250,000 units. The M1 was widely used in popular music and stock music in the late 80s and early 90s. The piano and organ presets were used in 1990s house music, beginning with Madonna's 1990 single " Vogue". Development Korg's chief engineer, Junichi Ikeuchi, led the hardware engineering design of the M1. Whereas many previous synthesizers had shipped with sounds chosen for different markets, the Korg chairman, Tsutomu Kato, and his son Seiki decided that their synthesizers should use the same sounds internationally. Korg assembled an international team to develop the sounds for the M1. To create a deep blown bottle sound, the team played a pan flute over a large sake bottle. Features The M1 features a 61-note velocity- and aftertouch-sensitive keyboard, 16-note polyphony, a joystick for pitch-bend and mo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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E-mu Proteus
The E-mu Proteus was a range of digital sound modules and keyboards manufactured by E-mu Systems from 1989 to 2002. History E-mu Systems came to prominence in the early 1980s with its relatively affordable E-mu Emulator, Emulator Sampling (music), sampler, and subsequently pioneered sample-based synthesis technology with the Proteus range. Unlike earlier types of synthesisers, sample-based equipment does not derive its raw sounds from electronic oscillators or algorithmically generated waveforms, but from recorded sounds held in read-only memory (ROM) chips. These sounds may then be layered, Filter (signal processing), filtered, modulated by low frequency oscillation and shaped by ADSR envelopes. However, unlike a true sampler, such devices do not allow the user to record sounds but instead offer a range of factory sounds suitable for any given use. This type of sound production dominated electronic music production for several years in the late 20th century. The exclusive licens ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Akai S1000
The Akai S1000 is a 16-bit, 44.1 kHz professional stereo digital sampler, released by Akai in 1988. The S1000 was among the first professional-quality 16-bit stereo samplers.Russ, Martin (2004). ''Sound Synthesis and Sampling''. Elsevier. p. 221. Its abilities to splice, crossfade, trim, and loop sound in 16-bit CD quality made it popular among producers in the late 80s through to the mid 90s. The S1000 used 24-bit internal processing, had digital filters and an effects send and return, and came with 2MB of RAM (expandable to 8MB, and 32MB after the introduction of the EXM008 RAM boards for the S1100 in 1990). Version 2.0 of the S1000's operating system introduced primitive timestretching, allowing a sound's pitch and length to be altered independently of one another. Far from seamless, this distinctive sound became popular in its own right, featured on songs such as " Higher State of Consciousness" and " RipGroove". Variants Several variations of the S1000 were produce ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Akai S900
The Akai S900 is a 12-bit sampler, with a variable sample rate from 7.5 kHz through to 40 kHz. It was common in recording studios until it was superseded two years later by the S1000. An expanded version, the Akai S950, was released in 1988 alongside the higher end S1000. The S950 imported some of the S1000's improvements, including timestretching (allowing the user to change a sample's length and pitch independently of one another), and it increased the maximum sample rate to 48 kHz. Unlike the S1000 series, the S900 series allows a sample to loop alternating forwards and backwards. Notable users include The 45 King (who named his hit "The 900 Number" after the sampler), Juan Atkins, Beatmasters, Black Box, Ian Boddy, Enya, Fatboy Slim (who nearly exclusively uses a pair of S950s), Front 242, KLF, The Bomb Squad The Bomb Squad was an American hip hop production team known for their work with hip hop group Public Enemy. The Bomb Squad are noted for their dense, distin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roland MKS-80
The Roland MKS-80 Super Jupiter is a rack mount sound module version of the Roland Jupiter-6 and the Roland Jupiter-8 synthesizers. It is an 8-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer that was manufactured by Roland between 1984 and 1987. It is the only one of the MKS series of synthesizers to have analogue voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) instead of analogue digitally-controlled oscillators (DCOs). The voice architecture is almost identical to the Jupiter-6 synthesizer. The service manual states that "The module board of MKS-80 features the following in addition to that of JP-6, its brother module. 1) HPF. 2) Low boost circuit in the 2nd VCA. 3) DC supply current boost circuit (IC50)." In February 1985, Roland started producing a new revision of MKS-80, known as "Rev 5", with a new generation of both Roland VCO's, VCA's and filter. The Rev 5 filter was also used in JX-8P, JX-10 and MKS-70 synthesizers. Features The voice architecture of the MKS-80 is fully analog with 8 polyp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roland D-50
The Roland D-50 is a synthesizer produced by Roland and released in April of 1987. Its features include digital sample-based subtractive synthesis, on-board effects, a joystick for data manipulation, and an analog synthesis-styled layout design. The external Roland PG-1000 (1987) programmer could also be attached to the D-50 for more complex manipulation of its sounds. It was also produced in a rack-mount variant design, the D-550, with almost 450 user-adjustable parameters. The D-50 has been used by musicians including Prince, Sting, Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Rick Wakeman, Michael Jackson and Enya. The D-50 has also been used by Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream and the Pet Shop Boys in various years, since the synthesizer came out in 1987. History The D-50 was the first affordable synthesizer to combine sample playback with subtractive synthesis. The engineers at Roland determined that the most difficult component of an instrument's sound to simulate realistically is the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fairlight (company)
Fairlight is a digital audio company based in Sydney, Australia. In 1979, it released its Series I Fairlight CMI, one of the earliest digital audio workstations (DAWs) with a digital audio sampler. Their subsequent Series II and III CMIs featured a graphic sequencer known as Page R, during a time when most computerised music sequencers required coding skills. These computer-instruments were used by artists such as Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush and Jean-Michel Jarre. They became such a prominent part of 1980s pop music that Phil Collins included the text "there is no Fairlight on this record" in the liner notes of '' No Jacket Required''. History In 1975, Fairlight Instruments Pty Ltd was established by Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie. The company produced microprocessor-based music workstations with samplers, which were revolutionary for their time. New sounds could be created by drawing a 'sound wave' on the screen, which the computer would produce as sound. Theoretically, any ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Emagic
Emagic GmbH was a music software and hardware company based in Rellingen, Germany and a satellite office in Grass Valley, California. On July 1, 2002 Emagic was bought by Apple Computer. Emagic's Windows-based product offerings were discontinued on September 30, 2002. History The company was best known for its music sequencer, Logic. Logic stemmed from Creator, then Notator, made by C-Lab (the company's forerunner) for the Atari ST platform. In 1992, Emagic Soft- und Hardware GmbH was founded and Notator Logic was launched for Atari and Macintosh, followed by a version for Windows. The "Notator" was dropped from the name and the product was redesigned from the ground up, and the product became known under the name "Emagic Logic". Original copies of Emagic's Logic software retailed for , and with plugins ranging from $99 to $299. The other major software product that Emagic offered was SoundDiver, an editor/librarian for hardware synthesizers. It communicated via MIDI and o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Atari ST
Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's Atari 8-bit computers, 8-bit computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available in July. It was the first personal computer with a bitmapped color graphical user interface, using a version of Digital Research's GEM (desktop environment), GEM environment from February 1985. The Atari 1040ST, released in 1986 with Megabyte, 1 MB of memory, was the first home computer with a cost per kilobyte of RAM under US$1/KB. After Jack Tramiel purchased the assets of the Atari, Inc. consumer division in 1984 to create Atari Corporation, the 520ST was designed in five months by a small team led by Shiraz Shivji. Alongside the Mac (computer), Macintosh, Amiga, Apple IIGS and Acorn Archimedes, the ST is part of a mid-1980s generation of computers with 16 or 16/32-bit processors, 256 kilobyte, KB or more of RAM, and computer m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Discovery (Mike Oldfield Album)
''Discovery'' is the ninth studio album by English multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Mike Oldfield, released on 25 June 1984 on Virgin Records. It comprises a number of pop songs, most notably the single " To France", as well as the instrumental "The Lake". Background and recording After his 1983 tour, Oldfield relocated to Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland for tax purposes and started work on a new album. The album was recorded from January to June 1984. Sessions typically ran from 10:30 a.m. to around 7 p.m. each day. While living in Villars, Oldfield also composed the soundtrack to ''The Killing Fields'' (1984). Selections from the two were released as '' The 1984 Suite'', in 2016. The album contains a number of pop songs, which Oldfield had been encouraged by Virgin Records to write, following the success of " Moonlight Shadow" from his previous album, '' Crises''. The first track of the album, " To France", with Maggie Reilly on vocals, seamlessly continues into ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |