Sometimes when you’re at the top, the only thing to do is compete against yourself. Such is the case for BT, who announced on Twitter that he’s “positive I re-broke my @GWR world record for most audio edits in a song.” The song in question is an orchestral re-imagining of his 2003 breakout hit Somnambulist (Simply Being Loved). It is being created for his upcoming Kickstarter-funded project Electronic Opus.
In other news, positive I re-broke my @GWR world record for most audio edits in a song. Orchestra on Simply Being Loved alone are 10k+ edits
— BT (@BT) March 12, 2015
While not yet officially recognized, we suspect it’s a milestone that won’t go unnoticed. The feat is an even bigger deal when you consider the factors leading up to it. First is the simple fact that 10,000 audio edits is absolutely insane (his previous record was 6,178 edits). An “audio edit” is when an audio file is manually split, cut, joined, and otherwise mangled to create BT’s signature “stutter” glitch effect. Picture yourself saving, renaming, and dragging a file to the trash 10,000 times and you’re somewhere in the ballpark.
Second is the general history of the first Somnambulist Guinness record. Digital audio recording circa 2003 was still in its infancy in many ways. With platforms like Pro Tools still babies, one of the biggest games in town was BIAS’ Peak Pro software. In short, it’s a digital 1/2-inch tape machine. For its time it was immensely powerful, but it had one enormous downside: it was a stereo file editor. Not a DAW like you’d typically imagine. While it had the ability to open more than one audio file at once, its maximum count was 10 at a time. This meant that files had to be shuttled in, cut and edited, exported, and brought back into the main production environment. We can only imagine the Electronic Opus edits were a whole lot easier to achieve.
User Friendly.
Finally, there’s the little issue of Izotope’s Stutter Edit plugin. It was developed in conjunction with BT (who in his spare time is a pretty prolific computer programmer), and he hasn’t been shy about promoting that he uses it. While this isn’t confirmed, if BT is claiming to have re-broken his record, we can only assume he’s doing his edits Old School–despite having the tools to avoid it. Major props, Brian.
There are tons of reasons to be excited about BT’s Electronic Opus project. As EDM makes its way further and further into the realm of real instrumentation, the world gets a glimpse at the true musicianship in dance music they tend to ignore. Knowing BT is still pushing the boundaries of techniques he created is immensely satisfying. Congratulations on breaking your record again, BT! We’ll be watching for the official word from Guinness.
Check out all the information about BT’s Electronic Opus project by visiting the Kickstarter page here!
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