Europe Endless [Curate's Egg mix]

[DifficultListening]

A cover of the first track from the Kraftwerk album Trans Europe Express. Like the curate's egg, it's "good in parts":


If I can get to the point of making a whole pass through without mangling any of the live keyboard parts, I'll re-record this immediately. Hopefully that will come once I get completely off this #$(@ medication that made my typing go to hell as well*. Until then, it's a private Soundcloud track, so only people who frequent the forum will find it here.

* yes, really!!

[Sinqlogue]

WoW! This is amazing man! Perfect selection of sounds. Nice on!

[DifficultListening]

WoW! This is amazing man! Perfect selection of sounds. Nice on!

Thanks very much... I'm really happy with that sort-of-vocal-sort-of-orchestron sound. It sounds like a vocal patch down low, and like a really cheesy string synth up high, and for me that low-fi thing is really evocative of how I felt when I first listened to Autobahn and Radio-Activity in 1981. (I didn't find out about Trans-Europe Express until 1985... strange how easy it was back then to miss out on something like that when you lived on the other side of the world.)

[Decktonic]

I wouldn't mind getting my hands on these patches.

[DifficultListening]

I wouldn't mind getting my hands on these patches.

I have a game save transfer thingy sitting around somewhere, if/when I find it I'll upload a .zip file of the track.

[DS-10 Dominator]

Well done
DS-10 is good for classic sounds

[Cfgk24]

This is ace!

I love Kraftwerk and TEE.

[DifficultListening]

Thanks for the kind words.

@Cfgk24: I'm glad it feels like a decent cover to someone who loves the original version. I keep trying to channel Ralf Hütter's voice to overdub appropriate vocals before the fake vocoder "endless endless" sections, but my first task is to get the solo sections down properly. Doing melody lines that jump a few notes and then octave shifting in the rests is pushing against the limits of my coordination; the KP noodling/overdub sections towards the end are much more fun to perform.

[D A Payne]

Yes, that's really good.

[PuglyWont]

This is great. The intro/arpeggio pattern sounds perfect...

[Syscrusher]

Yes! Love it! Nice work man. Great sounds. Love it.

[DifficultListening]

Thanks again... It was sitting around for ages and I finally got the courage to put it up; it wasn't as good as I wanted to make it, but at that time I wasn't able to really get the keyboard part right. I'm glad that people think the sounds and programmed parts are good, and hopefully soon it will have a better keyboard performance. I hope I can make the KP solos in the new recording work as well as in this one.

[phemt88]

I don't know the original song, but I tell you though that this is very beautiful! In the beggining part there is a quite cello-like tone that I have never managed to recreate! Congratulations, it's very nice!
All the track is very atmospheric, and in the end there are some bass rhyhtm games that I liked to much. The only one thing I'm not convinced are some of the sounds of the drummachine, they are too similar to those of the presets. I suspect that it wanted to, due to the nature of the original song. Really nice job, congratulations!

[DifficultListening]

The only one thing I'm not convinced are some of the sounds of the drummachine, they are too similar to those of the presets. I suspect that it wanted to, due to the nature of the original song.

Spot on. I know exactly what you mean, but it really was about getting the original mood, which meant white noise hi-hats and a snare that sounded like a tin box lid falling shut. I will differ with you on one point; the kick drum actually took a bit of fiddling to get right - it doesn't have the big frequency sweep of the presets.

If you're interested, here's the original; for full attention listening, it's best to start at 0:50, as it's really just arpeggiator before that. When driving or riding a train, of course you should listen to the whole thing.


Listening to it now, it's clear that trying to do the solo from memory, I've mashed together a few bits of the track, but the finger fumbles are much worse than liberties taken with the solo. I've got a new camera, so that's a reason to take some video of this now with a better solo.

[phemt88]

I will differ with you on one point; the kick drum actually took a bit of fiddling to get right - it doesn't have the big frequency sweep of the presets.

In truth, we agree! that's why I said:

The only one thing I'm not convinced are some of the sounds of the drummachine, they are too similar to those of the presets. I suspect that it wanted to, due to the nature of the original song.

The kick is ok, I can feel the difference!

However, I listen to the original, and is very beautiful! After hearing it and reading your explanation, moreover, I appreciated even more your remix. Nice work!

[DifficultListening]

In truth, we agree! that's why I said:

The only one thing I'm not convinced are some of the sounds of the drummachine, they are too similar to those of the presets. I suspect that it wanted to, due to the nature of the original song.

The kick is ok, I can feel the difference!

Oops, I understand now, my apologies for any snarkiness that my response might have conveyed.