Hi ALL,

Mike Oldfield created Tubular Bells by multi track recording various instruments over a period of time here`s a guy that does it all in just one go ?




Brian007

"Tubular Bells" came out in 1973. Mike Oldfield recorded it when he was 19 years old and played the majority of the instruments on the album himself. As Brian said, he 'multi-tracked' it. It is interesting to read how he made his "demo". He was lent a two-track Bang & Olufsen Beocord ¼" tape recorder. and modified the recorder by blocking off the erase head of the tape machine. This allowed him to record onto one track, bounce the recording onto the second track, and record a new instrument onto the first track, thus overdubbing his playing one instrument at a time and effectively making multi-track recordings.

“Tubular Bells” was used as the soundtrack in the horror movie “The Exorcist”. Everyone wanted to have that new sound after seeing that movie.

Tubular Bells was also the first release on the Virgin Records label and its success played an important part in the company's subsequent growth. Later, Mike Oldfield and Richard Branson had a 'falling out', and Mike left the company.

Below is a clip of Mike Oldfield and Richard Branson looking back at those early days.



In 1992 Mike Oldfield released a variation of his original work, "Tubular Bells II". Below is a brilliant video of him playing this "live", with some fantastic guitar work. It runs for over 2 hours. I shall have to take my laptop over to my radio headphones so I can listen to it whilst wandering about and doing other things.



Hugh

Hi

Having multiple keyboards makes changing sounds simpler - especially if things need to overlap, or if the release phase/reverb on sounds is truncated by registration changes, which happens on too many current keyboards. I think my "record" in performance was 5 (for "Dance of the Little Fairies" based on the arrangement on the Sky 2 album). It's been quite a while since I've played it, so don't expect a recording any time soon! Things aren't easy as my surgery has been delayed (should have been today), and I need more investigations because of anomalies in blood test results. Very frustrating.

Every Blessing

Tony