Suzanne Ciani Remasters Her Early Years

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Music // news & notes Suzanne Ciani’s Breakthrough Albums Restored

By David Goggin

Electronic music pioneer Suzanne Ciani has begun the preservation of her early music Suzanne Ciani in a live 2016 performance with her Buchla synthesizer. catalog with engineer Bill Smith, head of Archiving at United Recording, Hollywood, Calif.

First up were the 24-track analog masters for Ciani’s debut album, Seven Waves (1982), and The Velocity of Love (1986), with transfer of the 24-track masters to high-resolution digital, followed by the half-inch stereo masters used for the original vinyl LPs as well as the CD releases.

A graduate of Wellesley College, Ciani earned her Masters Degree in Composition from UC Berkeley, studying with early explorers of electronic music such as Max Matthews, John Chowning and Don Buchla. After moving to New York City, she created sound design for advertising through discussed at length how to properly archive the analog assets for her first her Ciani/Musica production company—the voice and sounds for Bally’s two albums,” Smith explains. “We also discussed the possibility of remixing groundbreaking “Xenon” pinball machine; Coca-Cola’s pop-and-pour sound; both albums in the Dolby Atmos format, and I suggested she should also sonic logos for Fortune 500 companies—much of it experimental and new. include in any releases a 24-bit/96k hi-res remastering of the original

“When I recorded my first album, it was before home studios even existed,” stereo mixes, as well. We discussed how these would best be released either Ciani recalls. “I would rent out a studio for a weekend and record for that on DVD in DTS 24/96k format or on Blu-ray disc in DTS/MA 24/96, where weekend and then mix. I must have used a dozen different studios in New there is also sufficient room to include uncompressed PCM audio files and York: A&R, Sound Mixers, Automated, et cetera. You name it, I was there. perhaps some additional video or interview segments.”

“I would haul my Buchla and other gear there,” she continues. “I would After baking each of the multitrack and 2-track tapes, Smith employed be based there for a whole weekend, but keep in mind that the technology a vintage Studer A827 24-track analog recorder for transfer from Ampex was changing all the time. If you look at the Seven Waves album, every piece 456 tape, and for the half-inch masters, an Ampex ATR-102 machine for the of gear that I used was credited on the liner notes, and the project was Ampex 465 tapes transfer. Archiving was done to 24-bit/96 kHz .wav files 100 percent electronic. Over a two-year period, the album was recorded “These are albums that I own because I was a producer,” Ciani explains. with whatever was available in that medium. It started out with just a “There is a lot of complexity in these original analog recordings because few designers like Dave it was all electronic music. Even 24 tracks is limited, and one track might Smith and Don Buchla, be the domain of several different instruments because the sections of the Tom Oberheim, and a music would change. First of all, when you go back this far, you don’t know few others. By the time what you’re going to find. I have a vault that came with me from New York I was recording in 1980, 30 years ago. Everything is still in there. I knew I had to reclaim the future you started to see the of these raw materials. And so that’s what we’re doing now. There’s only internationalization of one set of multi-tracks. electronic instruments. “Now, having the digital transfers of the multi-tracks gives me the You had Yamaha, Roland, option of remixing, but in a different format, like Atmos,” she adds. “A Akai and a lot of new lot of my music has been spatial. For instance, I recently recorded a live players coming in.” quadraphonic LP that was the first quad LP in 30 years. I’m looking forward Archival engineer Bill Smith in United Archiving’s “Suzanne and I to working with these archived masters to explore possibilities.” ■ vault with Suzanne Ciani’s 24-trackmaster tapes.