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The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

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Avinash Meetoo

So many saturation and “mangling” plugins…

27 March 2023 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

I have a lot of saturation plugins and I need to properly evaluate them:

  • Baby Audio Parallel Aggressor
  • Black Box Analog Design HG-2
  • Black Box Analog Design HG-2MS
  • Elysia Karacter
  • Elysia Phil’s Cascade
  • Fuse Audio Labs Flywheel
  • NEOLD BIG AL
  • Softube Saturation Knob
  • Solid State Logic SSL Native X-Saturator
  • SPL Vitalizer MK2-T
  • United Plugins Autoformer
  • Vertigo VSM-3
  • Waves Abbey Road Saturator
  • Waves BB Tubes
  • Waves J37 Tape
  • Waves Lil Tube

I have also a lot of plugins to completely transform the audio into something completely different:

  • Cableguys DriveShaper (ShaperBox 2)
  • Cherry Audio Voltage Modular Ignite 2 FX
  • DS Audio Tantra 2
  • iZotope Stutter Edit 2
  • iZotope Trash 2
  • iZotope Vinyl
  • Klevgrand DAW Cassette
  • Softube Dirty Tape
  • Unfiltered Audio BYOME
  • Unfiltered Audio Dent 2
  • Unfiltered Audio Fault (Pitch and Time)
  • Unfiltered Audio Indent 2
  • Unfiltered Audio Needlepoint
  • Unfiltered Audio SpecOps (Spectral Effects)
  • Waves Berzerk Distortion
  • Waves MetaFilter
  • Waves MultiMod Rack
  • Waves OneKnob Filter
  • Waves Retro Fi
  • Waves Scheps Parallel Particles
  • XLN Audio RC-20 Retro Color

I wonder how I am going to choose which ones to use on a regular basis…

Filed Under: Education, Mauritius, Music, Technology

Memento Mori by Depeche Mode

27 March 2023 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

Depeche Mode released its latest album, Memento Mori, on Friday 24 March. During the day, I started listening to the songs on my way to work and I was quite happy. Happier than with some of the previous albums to be honest. Interestingly, I felt that the second half of the album was stronger than the first half but, because I was commuting, I knew I needed to give the album a proper listen before deciding.

The next day, after lunch on Saturday 25 March 2023 at 14:00, Christina, Kyan and I properly listened to Momento Mori from the first song to the last. We got the album on TIDAL (FLAC 48KHz 24bit, MQA 96KHz) and listened on our dream Hi-Fi setup.

During the 50 minutes, I took some notes and rated the songs:

  • “My Cosmos Is Mine”: Industrial. Lots of reverb. Atmospheric. Good way to start a concept album. 7/10.
  • “Wagging Tongue”: Organic. Arpeggiated. Simple lyrics. Not too profound. 6/10.
  • “Ghosts Again”: Anthemic Depeche Mode song. Good singing. Nice bridge. 8/10.
  • “Don’t Say You Love Me”: A much slower It’s No Good. Orchestral. “I’ll be the punchline of course.” 7/10.
  • “My Favourite Stranger”. Another anthemic DM song. Recognizable baseline (Fade to grey?). Slow electro. Heavy distortion. 8/10.
  • “Soul with Me”: Generic DM ballad. Martin Gore singing. Good chorus. 7/10.
  • “Caroline’s Monkey”: Starts like Dream On. Chorus could be better. Sometimes… and chord. 7/10.
  • “Before We Drown”: Fantastic song, music and lyrics. Restrained voice. Beautiful electro. Fantastic strings. 9/10.
  • “People Are Good”: Kraftwerk / DM symbiosis. Crooner-kind of singing. Effective electro. 8/10.
  • “Always You”: Nice Grahan ballad. Very electronic and organic. Recognizable. Repetitive. 7/10.
  • “Never Let Me Go”: Dark Depeche Mode. Great music and lyrics. Orchestration good. Guitar distortion. 8/10.
  • “Speak to Me”: Tranquil outro. Easy way to end the album. Very predictable. 6/10.

Overall, I gave the album 7.5/10. In fact, I like the album very much as it is sounds much more electronic than previous albums (which were too rock-oriented for my own taste). One criticism is that some of the songs use way too much saturation and distortion but this looks like to be fashionable these days. I wonder what would happen if the next album (if made…) was produced by someone like Deadmau5? Will Depeche Mode then have a Violator 2 album? Who knows?

Here are my favourite five songs as reflected in the ratings I gave:

  • Ghosts Again
  • My Favourite Stranger
  • Before We Drown
  • People Are Good
  • Never Let Me Go

At some point, I will have to restrict this to the three songs I like most to add to my Top 50 Depeche Mode songs (which will then have 53 songs). Give me a few days to make up my mind.

Filed Under: Family, Mauritius, Music, News

Adieu Yves

25 March 2023 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

Hier, nous avons eu la triste nouvelle que Yves Bula-Lafont nous a quitté. Il été agé de 64 ans seulement. Yves était le papa de Stéphane, le mari de ma sœur, Cherina.

J’ai rencontré Yves pour la première fois en 2015 à Maurice. Il était venu, avec son épouse Ghislaine, et des membres de la famille et plein d’amis pour le mariage de Cherina et de Stéphane. Yves et moi sommes devenus amis très rapidement. Nous partagious quelques traits de caractère: toujours jovial, bon fêtard, aimaint le bon whisky et une bonne cigarette (à l’époque).

Quelques semaines après, Christina, Anya, Kyan et moi ainsi que mes parents, Jaynarain et Rooma, étions à Castanet-Tolosan en France pour la deuxième partie du mariage. Ce fut un grand moment de découverte et de plaisir pour nous, en grande partie grâce à l’accueil de Ghislaine et de Yves chez eux. Je n’oublirai jamais le mariage ainsi que l’ambiance festive des nombreux apéros que nous avons eu.

Nous pensons à vous, Ghislaine, Stéphane et Frédéric, et aussi à tous les autres membres de la famille et les amis de Toulouse.

Adieu Yves. Tu fut quelqu’un de bien.

Filed Under: Family, News, Photography

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