Tomita LP paraphernalia?

Hi,
Does anyone have the Planets on LP? I remember opening the album for
the first time and finding the large spaceship poster inside. Man,
those were the days! Too bad CDs pretty much ended getting the little
extras that you'd find in albums sometimes.

Anyway, does anybody know if there were any posters or other stuff
in any of the other Tomita albums?

Just wondering,
Andrew

 

> Hi,
> Does anyone have the Planets on LP? I remember opening the album for
> the first time and finding the large spaceship poster inside.

I didn't even know that there was a poster in the Planets LP! I have a Japanese
pressing I bought new in the early eighties, and there's only a LP size leaflet
inside. The only thing I can read is the listing of Tomita's equipment, the rest
is all in Japanese. So maybe the poster was in the American version or my
pressing is not the original one. It was funny at the time that most Tomita
albums were only available over here as German pressings (with a different
cover), but there was no German (or European?) version of "The Planets",
probably because of the legal issues involved. By the way, I really like these
Japanese pressings because of their significantly lower noise floor. But they
seem to be quite hard to get nowadays. Some months ago, I posted a message to
the group saying that I'm looking for some of them - nobody reacted.

Some words about the "Sound Creature" translation project:
I really appreciate your initiative, but I'm a bit afraid you will be
disappointed with the result. I had a closer look at my Sound Creature LP
yesterday. From the drawings in the book I get the impression that the text is
just an explanation of the basic functions of an analogue synthesizer, and we
all know these, don't we? The last pages seem to be more interesting,
they probably deal with the spatialisation of sounds. The drawings show a device
similar to the "rotation table" Stockhausen used in the sixties, so this would
be no new information either. But maybe I'm wrong and there are some "hidden
treasures" in the text - so go ahead!

 

I have a US, Japanese and UK pressing of the Planets.
Only the Japanese one, as was pointed out had the booklet
inside. As we all know the UK pressing was withdrawn
following Imogene Holst's objection, so whether or not
this was in the original I don't know. I got my copy
by advertising in a local paper, the guy having bought
it didn't realise it was all synthesised!

Dave Bassett

-----Original Message-----
From: markus.berzborn at t... [mailto:markus.berzborn at t...]
Sent: 22 November 2001 09:24
To: isaotomita at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [isaotomita] Tomita LP paraphernalia?



> Hi,
> Does anyone have the Planets on LP? I remember opening the album for
> the first time and finding the large spaceship poster inside.

I didn't even know that there was a poster in the Planets LP! I have a
Japanese
pressing I bought new in the early eighties, and there's only a LP size
leaflet
inside. The only thing I can read is the listing of Tomita's equipment, the
rest
is all in Japanese. So maybe the poster was in the American version or my
pressing is not the original one. It was funny at the time that most Tomita
albums were only available over here as German pressings (with a different
cover), but there was no German (or European?) version of "The Planets",
probably because of the legal issues involved. By the way, I really like
these
Japanese pressings because of their significantly lower noise floor. But
they
seem to be quite hard to get nowadays. Some months ago, I posted a message
to
the group saying that I'm looking for some of them - nobody reacted.

Some words about the "Sound Creature" translation project:
I really appreciate your initiative, but I'm a bit afraid you will be
disappointed with the result. I had a closer look at my Sound Creature LP
yesterday. From the drawings in the book I get the impression that the text
is
just an explanation of the basic functions of an analogue synthesizer, and
we
all know these, don't we? The last pages seem to be more interesting,
they probably deal with the spatialisation of sounds. The drawings show a
device
similar to the "rotation table" Stockhausen used in the sixties, so this
would
be no new information either. But maybe I'm wrong and there are some "hidden

treasures" in the text - so go ahead!




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Andrew wrote:
>
> Hi,
> Does anyone have the Planets on LP? I remember opening the album for
> the first time and finding the large spaceship poster inside. Man,
> those were the days! Too bad CDs pretty much ended getting the little
> extras that you'd find in albums sometimes.
>
> Anyway, does anybody know if there were any posters or other stuff
> in any of the other Tomita albums?
>
> Just wondering,
> Andrew
>

It's not unheard of for the first pressing or special reissue of
something a record company wants to promote to have some sort of bonus
inside. I'm not sure if its more or less comon now, but to directly
answer your question -- No my Planets LP did not have the poster. I
can't dig it up at athe meoment but I sort of remember my half speed
mastered audiophile LP of "Snowflakes are Dancing" had a poster of the cover.

It really boils down to thinking the albums can benefit an extra edge in promotion.

But some insight I can share on Japanese releases is a lot of bands
collaborate with graphic designer friends (and some well known bands
actually contain professional graphic designers as bandmembers) so what
is extremely common in Japan is what is called something like special
initial packaging. So the first pressing of an album in Japan will often
have a run of 5000 or so, same price and catalog number but with premium
packaging usually with a gift of some sort (poster, extra booklet, bonus
single etc.) I guess the record company trades a smaller profit due to
high manufacture cost in exchange for the band's designers getting an
exceptional design in and the buzz to go out and buy it fast, then
hopefully the momentum carries on to friends telling friends to buy the
album and most people just get the regular edition.


But as for Tomita, I've never seen it happen in any of the japanese
releases I've seen-- but you never know. Often in subsequent pressings
booklets get simplified or the average person misses the limited run
packaging so one really has to see a lot of peoples copies to spot
differences, though a shorter booklet is obviously a different deal than
a free poster

nick

 

--- In isaotomita at y..., "N. Kent" <ndkent at o...> wrote:
> Andrew wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> > Does anyone have the Planets on LP? I remember opening
the album for
> > the first time and finding the large spaceship poster inside.
Man,
> > those were the days! Too bad CDs pretty much ended
getting the little
> > extras that you'd find in albums sometimes.
> >
> > Anyway, does anybody know if there were any posters or
other stuff
> > in any of the other Tomita albums?
> >
> > Just wondering,
> > Andrew
> >
>
> It's not unheard of for the first pressing or special reissue of
> something a record company wants to promote to have some
sort of bonus
> inside. I'm not sure if its more or less comon now, but to
directly
> answer your question -- No my Planets LP did not have the
poster. I
> can't dig it up at athe meoment but I sort of remember my half
speed
> mastered audiophile LP of "Snowflakes are Dancing" had a
poster of the cover.
>

The Japanese vinyl of Bermuda Triangle (the one with the
bizarre pop-art cut-and-paste sleeve) is pretty lush, as were all
the Japanese releases that I have. As well as the obligatory 4
page booklet, the dust cover is full-colour and even the inside of
the card sleeve itself is printed in blue and white. And the record
label is specially designed. The pics (apart from the insides of
course) are on the site. Nick, is this fairly typical for Japanese
releases in general?

When I presented the Sound Creature LP to I.T., he seemed
genuinely surprised that I would have a copy, as if it had received
a very limited release, and I got the impression that he had
partially forgotten about its existence! I'd concur with Markus
about the translation idea; it seems to be mainly describing the
function of an analogue synthesizer, which is in keeping with the
record itself. There was brief mention at the time about making
that record and other more obscure title still, available over the
net.

As I mentioned previously, translating S.C. has been tried
before, without success; if there was a rich benefactor on the list,
maybe we could get it professionally translated (something I
previously investigated, but immediately abandoned when I
received their rates!)

It also implied that the list would want all of the Japanese
releases translated eventually, which is a whole lot of work.

Ben

 

> The Japanese vinyl of Bermuda Triangle (the one with the
> bizarre pop-art cut-and-paste sleeve) is pretty lush, as were all
> the Japanese releases that I have. As well as the obligatory 4
> page booklet, the dust cover is full-colour and even the inside of
> the card sleeve itself is printed in blue and white. And the record
> label is specially designed. The pics (apart from the insides of
> course) are on the site. Nick, is this fairly typical for Japanese
> releases in general?

The art for that release was by Yokoo. While not his best by far, I'd
say he's Japan's most important and influential visual artist since the
late 60s. (was just reading a book where they were debating the second
most influential, he was a "given" as the most). His forte is posters in
a semi collage pop art style he pioneered.

But it ties in with my point. There are often graphic heavy
collaborations that go beyond standard packaging, they tend to never be
retained for reissues and sometimes not even the full run, just the
initial pressing. I'm sure its a case by case basis. Its tough to find
out this stuff because it is pretty intense collecting. Like I've been
seeing some Haruomi Hosono inital packaging (one is also by Yokoo) where
the CD is inside a cardboard box or slipcase. No one yet seems to know
if there is anything else interesting inside.

>
> When I presented the Sound Creature LP to I.T., he seemed
> genuinely surprised that I would have a copy, as if it had received
> a very limited release, and I got the impression that he had
> partially forgotten about its existence!

I got the impression too that those days were quite truthfully a long
time ago.

I would presume too that his synth work is less respected in Japan
unlike its probably mich higher stsus overseas (then again its kind of
the reverse, his orchestral scores are regarded highly as far as I can
tell, I guess his sound cloud type events are sort of the crossover...
but what I'm saying is perhaps just supposition based on various bits of
info I've come across or discussed)

I'd concur with Markus
> about the translation idea; it seems to be mainly describing the
> function of an analogue synthesizer, which is in keeping with the
> record itself.

As a fun not exactly related fact, Japanese people use the term VCO,
VCA, LFO, etc. but they all have sounds that is Japanese aren't
pronounced the same. Most people know the sound thats neither an L or
R... but "V" usually is sounded like a "B", and "C" is usually an SH. So
VCO is Bee-She-Oh

There was brief mention at the time about making
> that record and other more obscure title still, available over the
> net.

If you recall, he actualy had some remixes on Liquid Audio and other
even more obscure formats (what was it? Twin VQ?). Did anyone access
them? I doubt it. It was too early and the japanese credit card system
is generally not permitted to take orders from abroad. If you see a
Japanese company doing it, I'm almost certain they are partnered with
someone in the U.S. who is actually making the sale. (I once bought some
VJ software at a U.S. trade show and was amused to find my credit card
correctly but unexpectedly billed to a friend's american company.
Another friend was like the American representative/special guest
lecturer at the show, so I'm sure what happened is the Japanese software
company asked him if he knew someone who could process credit cards, and
they made a deal with our mutual friend)

But to get back to Tomita, I wanted a whole album worth of unreleased
matsutake that was also being offered, so I began to make plans, but few
people then had faster than modem connections and I'd also have to have
someone inside Japan pay. While I was in the middle of all those
logistics, the company doing it went out of business. Around 1998 as I recall.

But anyway, I'm sure that why Tomita though to it, but also certainly
couldn't commit since he no loner has that site of course and arguably
the concept is still experimental and often derailed by various
commercial parties and difficultness

>
> As I mentioned previously, translating S.C. has been tried
> before, without success;

yeah, ben sure knows, I gave it a shot but it was too long for one
friend and another person's synth playing girlfriend wasn't into tomita
so it wound up on the big favor for someone pile of stuff to try to get
done, haven't given up, but if someone else seems like they'll get it
done, I won't push myself.


> if there was a rich benefactor on the list,
> maybe we could get it professionally translated (something I
> previously investigated, but immediately abandoned when I
> received their rates!)

The way to go is to teach a japanese born student studying in your
country something useful in exchange.

nick

 

> can't dig it up at athe meoment but I sort of remember my half speed
> mastered audiophile LP of "Snowflakes are Dancing" had a poster of the cover.

Hi Nick,

I have a stupid question.

When you say "half speed mastered audiophile LP" do you mean that it plays correctly
at 16rpm instead of 33rpm? Or....

... in any case, it seems to me that a 45rpm record would be higher quality then a 33, not
a 16. Hmmm.

Thanks in advance,

Kevin

 

Hi David,

I would not be disappointed in this at all.

The whole point is that Tomita is trying to share with us his incredible
techniques! The LP shows the different stages of how he got to his
sounds, and the booklet explains what to do with your modular synth.

These days, we have old hardware modular synths and new ones
(dofer(sp?) comes to mind) that can be played with.

The idea is to finally bring this booklet to life for his english speaking
fans & friends!

Thanks,

Kevin

> Some words about the "Sound Creature" translation project:
> I really appreciate your initiative, but I'm a bit afraid you will be
> disappointed with the result. I had a closer look at my Sound Creature
LP
> yesterday. From the drawings in the book I get the impression that the
text is
> just an explanation of the basic functions of an analogue synthesizer,
and we
> all know these, don't we? The last pages seem to be more interesting,
they
> probably deal with the spatialisation of sounds. The drawings show a
device
> similar to the "rotation table" Stockhausen used in the sixties, so this
would
> be no new information either. But maybe I'm wrong and there are
some "hidden
>
> treasures" in the text - so go ahead!

 

> Hi Nick,
>
> I have a stupid question.
>
> When you say "half speed mastered audiophile LP" do you mean that it plays
> correctly
> at 16rpm instead of 33rpm? Or....

During half-speed mastering, the tape playback machine and the cutting machine
are both running at half speed (usually 16,67 rpm for the platter and 15 ips or
7,5 ips for the tape recorder). So when you play the finished product, you
get the correct speed and pitch again. The idea is that the stylus has more time
to cut the information into the grooves and that the high frequencies impose
less problems. All the sought after MFSL LPs were cut this way. Among
audiophiles, the superiority of this method is not uncontested, though.

> ... has anyone come accross a really good (easy to understand) book
> on programming and using modular synths?

Doepfer, who offer the very interesting A100 system, recommend on their website
the book "Electronic Music" by Allen Strange. I haven't tried it yet but I think
I will.