official Covenant Forum

Wow, that must be so frustrating when equipment gets lost on a journey! Both because it's bloody expensive stuff and for artistic reasons - guess most instruments have a unique sound/atmo/feel to them. And when you're supposed to perform a gig and your equuipment did not arrive....bah!

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Originally posted by Joakim

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Originally posted by Daniel Myer
exactly. it didnt make the flight from madrid to barcelona. its very difficult for airport staff, to take care of bands equipment.... hahaha

It's the curse of Madrid! Every single time I've flown in or out of Madrid they lose my things. I even tried to make sure nothing would happen by personally carrying the G2X to the "special luggage" check in. Amazing. Next time I'll insist on carrying the damn thing on board.

At least I got it back after some serious wrangling at the airport in Barcelona. But there is something wrong with the Spanish way of handling things. Even the poor guy at the airport in Buenos Aires said so: "Oh, from Madrid? Hm. I'll do my best..."

Never lost any gear on the road so far, or actually I have. First time in Newcastle I left my mixer outside the venue never to see it again. Best thing was how it took me a few days before I discovered it.

During the recording of the up and coming LP (also in Newcastle) I left behind half my PA and only realised as I drove passed Leeds. As I was in a hurry to catch the ferry from Dover there was no turning back. I had it delivered by courier just in the nick of time before the London gig with SLOGUN and Fire in the Head last month.

How about damage to gear during tours or gigs? Whilst doing the above mentioned Fire in the Head gig in London I had the pleasure of seeing my Yamaha cs-15 kicked over by an excessively jolly crowd who IMO were taking the artist/crowd interaction too seriously. Seeing as I'd just had it serviced I was not fucking pleased. Also the fact that the machine is a grand old lady who turns 30 next year. She needs to be handled gently. She'll never leave the house again!

As to damage... I think that Daniel's synth melted in Krakow when somebody put it to close to the radiator...

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Originally posted by Manuel (EiD)
[d] In unserer Rubrik "Equipment" möchten wir unseren Besuchern nach und nach mehr über die wichtigsten Covenant-Klangerzeuger erzählen. Unser erster Artikel behandelt den Sampler "Prophet 2000", der bisher auf jedem Covenant-Album zum Einsatz kam.
http://www.covenant.de


[e] In our category "Equipment" we plan to tell our vistors more about some of the major Covenant-synths by and by. Our first article is about the Sampler "Prophet 2000", wich have been used on every Covenant album so far.
http://www.covenant.de

Real nice initiative! Some additions that could be interesting:

The P2k (as we aficionados call it ) has only one filter - well, technically there are 8 of them - but they all respond to the same controls over the entire amount of voices. It'sa run-of-the-mill CEM low-pass filter that can self-oscillate (pretty nastiliy if you ask me...). It sounds a little like the Emulator II, which also has a CEM filter.

The reason we keep using it is not that it sounds so fantastic, but the fact that Clas made an incredible job building a very good sample library for it. We still have hundreds of disks of unique sounds that he created.

[ancient Covenant mythology-mode on:]

There is also a fun story behind our P2k (actually we have 4 of them, but only 1 works...). When Clas got it some 20+ years ago the EU didn't exist. He bought it in London and the customs fee was pretty steep, so we pretended that we'd had a show in Copenhagen. 4 of us went over to Denmark with some instruments to meet him at the ferry. I remember that we had a trumpet, a violin and a tiny guitar amplifier and when we returned to Sweden it all went fine. I still think about it sometimes. What if the customs officer that checked us had had any idea about music? What sort of band makes a show with a trumpet, a violin, a handbag-sized guitar amp and a state-of-the-art sampler worth 2500 euro?

Answer: "The Podbeings from the Planet Mars", as we called ourselves that particular week.

To my knowledge it was the first Prophet 2000 in Sweden. The first thing we sampled was a bass sound from my Roland JX8P. The most frequently used sound during the first couple of weeks was a Swiss cuckoo clock that sounded absolutely incredible when pitched down 2 octaves and arpeggiated. The most frequently used sound over the decades is a sample that Clas made of an Emulator II choir sample. So it's a sample of a sample of a sample and at least 1/3 of all choir sounds on our records are versions of that original sound. When we bought our Emulators we still decided that Clas' original, crappy sample sounded better.

One year later Depeche Mode toured with three P2k's. As far as I know it was the first and only time we beat them in anything. :lol:

Anyway, the P2k is an amazing piece of engineering. The original one survived hundreds of shows, it's been on 3 continents and it actually fell out of a minivan on the highway once, bouncing like a wounded antelope and it still worked or another 10 years. Nostalgia is not my cup of tea, but damn, they don't make instruments like that anymore. Try throwing your laptop out of the window from a moving car and see what happens...

Oh, and the "new" Dave Smith instrument is called "Evolver" (not "Enveloper" or "Envolver"), the one I used for the "Suicidedrone 7-3" demo. We also use his Pro-One analogue monosynth.

I simply loooooove those little fun stories!

Joakim, more insider's stories please!

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Originally posted by Niggels
I simply loooooove those little fun stories!

Joakim, more insider's stories please!

Just ask, my friend. There are plenty of those untold little stories. Perhaps we should have a "Joakim's bedtime stories" corner? Some are not suitable for kids though.

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Originally posted by Manuel (EiD)
Thank you Joakim for the funny and interesting story! :-] May I copy your text and also make it a linked sub-article of the P2k-article at Covenant.de?

And I corrected the name of the Evolver... Wonder how this could happen...

Of course. And btw, I really like the work you guys are doing. Please remember that we're always ready to answer any questions you may have.

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Originally posted by Joakim
There are plenty of those untold little stories. Perhaps we should have a "Joakim's bedtime stories" corner? Some are not suitable for kids though.

Oh, I'm sure we won't mind. We've all probably done worse things.

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Originally posted by Niggels
I simply loooooove those little fun stories!

Joakim, more insider's stories please!

Likewise- consider this asking ^2!

A suggestion for future parts of the "equipment" section:

Clavia Nord Modular
Moog Voyager
Roland drum machines
Vocoders

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Originally posted by michelem31

Oh, I'm sure we won't mind. We've all probably done worse things.

Unfortunately I highly doubt that. But I won't go too far into the shadier parts of the story, it would be pretty embarrassing.

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Originally posted by Joakim

Unfortunately I highly doubt that. But I won't go too far into the shadier parts of the story, it would be pretty embarrassing.

So no stories from your time in the military then?

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Originally posted by michelem31

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Originally posted by Joakim

Unfortunately I highly doubt that. But I won't go too far into the shadier parts of the story, it would be pretty embarrassing.

So no stories from your time in the military then?

Well, military stories tend to get extremely boring or exaggerated. It's a bit like fishing/hunting stories. Or in my case, depressing. So... no.

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Originally posted by Joakim
Well, military stories tend to get extremely boring or exaggerated. It's a bit like fishing/hunting stories. Or in my case, depressing. So... no.

Aww. That sucks that it wasn't good for you. Let's try another topic...

How about those country-specific stories? Like the ones you preface with "Only in *insert name of country origin here* this could ever happen..."? Those can be fun.

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Originally posted by Joakim
A suggestion for future parts of the "equipment" section:

Clavia Nord Modular
Moog Voyager
Roland drum machines
Vocoders

classic little devils...

Lately I've watched a demo of Ensoniq SQ1 on you tube. It sounded familiar, and I checked if Covenant used it. I was really surprised when I learned they didn't
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81YZ35leZ5c

Love Joakims stories too, just to restless to remember sometimes or to write it down. Clas’ choir samples has definitely been a fellow traveller and I still reach for them in my sleep. Where is the passion now in sound? SQ1? Actually we did use it once. A synth pop song called “open your heart” ... and last demo we did before “replicant” and new born we were. When I moved from Berlin I found old tapes with 100+ songs before DOAC. I hear talent but most of all I am grateful we were given time to develop. I never met anyone who liked our music before we made our first album. Fiery the angels fell. Deep thunder rolled. Reign in hell .