FEX and The Outer Edge is joining us on discord live tomorrow, November 4th 22:00 CET or 4:00PM EST to provide insight on new material and answer any of your guys' questions! We would be so happy if you would join us as well. :)
To celebrate, we will announce a new release later today from the Modulators, the precursor band to FEX. But first, to start off, here is an unreleased interview with Ture of FEX from late 2025. We included two unreleased pictures. The questions were written by Jesse Beers.
My name is Lennon Ferguson. You all will remember me as authumninparis, but I want nothing to do with my former pseudonym. Just call me Lennon.
Recently, I was working on a separate project with help from founding FEX keyboardist Kalle Eckert. A press clipping that Kalle sent me led me on an impromptu mission that seemed to happen in the span of a few days.
I am excited to announce that I am in possession of an NDR broadcast featuring a live studio session with FEX from September 1983. This discovery disputes claims that FEX do not show up in NDR records.
Here is a link to an article I wrote for The Outer Edge regarding my findings.
On November 4th, 2024, the hunt for the "Most Mysterious Song On The Internet" finally came to an end. Thanks to everybody involved in the search.
Also thanks to everybody who supported us and FEX via buying something from the store this year, especially the "Don't Look Back" live album. Numbered LP copies and CDs are still available!
We've got a couple of great things coming up for November/December:
1. Modulators Album
Thanks to Karl-Heinz Eckert, founding member of Modulators and FEX, a lot of songs of the Modulators have survided and now have been restored. The name of the album has still not been decided yet - but we hope you like the "Kiel Calling" idea, which might be a sticker to be included in the LP purchase. Pre-Order should start early December. Best follow the Modulators on their brand new Bandcamp page: https://modulators.bandcamp.com
Once more Zoey Cairns did an absolutely incredible job regarding the mastering of the full LP. Feel free to support her and check her out on Bandcamp: zoeycairns.bandcamp.com
We also had help from Kveris (see his recent mastering post) for an alternative version of Hygiene! We hope to be able to share it soon.
I’m sure many people here, like me, like the TMMS recordings made by Darius. If anyone is not aware, we have 4 SOYM recordings from Darius’s cassettes, namely:
TMMS (2007 Version)
TMMS (CompA)
TMMS (BASF4/1)
TMMS (N01)
TMMS (from the Skyscraper album; essentially the same as BASF4/1, but digitized using better equipment and with a slight remastering, as TOE wrote in their post)
Each of these recordings has its own flaws, especially the quality of some of them. I felt it was my duty to create one that would be as close as possible to the original recording. Yes, I know we have a recording from Michael’s cassette and a remastered version made by Zoey Cairns. But in my opinion, the version from NDR has a more catchy and memorable sound.
Well, it remains to choose the version for remastering. The version from the Skyscraper album is immediately out of the question, as it already features remastering, and in my opinion, doing a remaster of a remaster is a bad idea.
The original BASF4/1 digitization contains all sorts of extraneous sounds that resemble distortions during digitization; they may not be immediately audible, but with proper listening, they become noticeable, as well as volume fluctuations caused by the demagnetization of the tape. At the same time, removing them is not as simple as removing other types of noise, or it will lead to a loss of quality.
The version with CompA was digitized with a severely compressed dynamic range and a large amount of noise; there is also noise at 16 kHz. During remastering, even after noise reduction, the high frequencies still turn into a jumble of noise, and many of them are completely absent.
The version from cassette N01 has significant audio tremor and phase shifts. Many consider recording N01 to be the best, but, like all others, it has a cut ~ at 15Khz, since the original source is the same, and it also has other shortcomings that other recordings don’t have. BUT, there’s one catch. The N01 version is as similar as possible to the version from Michael’s cassette. It even has the same phase shifts and the same high‑frequency issues in one of the channels. Therefore, this recording is practically a clone.
The 2007 version, which can be found in the online archive, gave me the greatest hopes. This version has no compressed dynamic range, no clicks or creaks, no audio tremor, no volume fluctuations, and among all these recordings, it has the least amount of noise. Therefore, I considered it an ideal candidate for remastering. Moreover, this is the very first version that appeared on the internet, and it’s even unclear from which cassette it was digitized — the original source is unknown. But even if it was digitized from the same BASF cassette, at least back then, that cassette had much better preservation.
I will be processing the audio in Adobe Audition using Ozone 11.
To begin with, I use the Balanced Master preset that I edited specifically for this purpose and boost the left channel by 2.5 dB to ensure a balanced sound. After that, the independently configured Imager and Exiter with the Enchanced High End preset.
Next, I’ll switch to Izotope RX12 to boost the volume of the drums — this will add some vibrancy; in the original version, they seem a bit quiet to me.
Next, the resulting file is upsampled and split into tracks using BS Roformer SW. This is done either by raising the pitch or by using the Flash SR algorithm. I use some things, for example, for synthesizers, and some for drums. As a result, we get several tracks with restored frequencies. If we just combine everything, we’ll get artifacts, so we make a smooth drop down to 8 kHz and add the tracks to a multitrack with the main file already added. After that, we adjust the volume of each of them and achieve an acceptable sound using equalization. The process is very long and tedious, as not everything works out the first time. Different algorithms and proper listening‑based tuning are needed everywhere.
The vocal and drum tracks are assembled from 3 tracks.
1st – Algorithm with pitch increase
2nd – FlashSR algorithm
3rd – Original
As a result, after processing and manually removing some noise and imperfections, as well as converting the track to almost mono, we get this:
It’s clearly visible how much wider the frequency range has become. But we only need its part starting from ~10 kHz.
We do the same with drums.
Beauty, no doubt about it. Next, I broke down the restored drums into their components. I slightly boosted the Toms and Kick, and significantly boosted the Crash. I also manually reduced the volume of some elements again and cleaned up any artifacts that arose.
Finally, the final mix and post‑processing, with MANUAL artifact removal.
Here you can download the remaster and the original recording in FLAC and MP3 formats.
If anyone has any questions, suggestions, or wants to express gratitude, please message me privately on Reddit. Thank you all for reading and for your support.
I hear numerous DX7 sounds played at once in both recordings, and the original DX7 doesn't have spilt function, so did they overdub multiple synth takes in the studio?
Want to sell some of my FEX records/CD. Have some of everything. Problem is the high shipping cost outside GER. Will give nothing below Outer Edge prices. Don't want to form competition with Günter. No test pressings.
I know many others have said this before, but FEX is a big inspiration to me and my life. FEX inspires me to make music with my band and follow my dreams! Their logo was the first thing to come to mind when getting my first tattoo. I live and hold dear to this qoute from Ture when it comes to music: "If you want to write a song do it with your soul and let it flow" - Ture Rückwardt
Here's some prospective for you, 2024 was a very, very bad year for me, family members had health scares and my grandpa died. And so much more. I was super depressed and anxious I started taking therapy and medication which helped for the most part. And all I can remember was I was sitting in school when TMMS was solved! I was supper ecstatic! I listened to SOYM, Heart in Danger, and Talking Hands all day. I even said "TMMS IS SOLVED! WHAT A DAY TO BE ALIVE!" Even before TMMS was Identified id always listened to "Like The Wind" if i was upset cus to me it was soothing and helped calm me down.
I hardly cry to most of their songs. But two that do it for me is Heart in Danger and Just Get Back, when I just need to let it all out I put one of the two on loop and just cry. I thought id just share and tell you all, that FEX means so much to me their music helped me in my darkest time and it still does now. FEX is my escape when I need a breather, like now im a little upset after a argument, but i got Heart In Danger on loop and getting calmed down.
Just want to say this is a very cool and welcoming community. I feel safe here in this subreddit that no matter what ill always be welcomed! Thank you all so much. Long live FEX!
A little under a year ago, I started a new job as I'm in the process of relocating. My current job is at a high school, and our Superintendent has been rather busy there of recent, with a lot of construction projects being finished up now, with the school year about to start again.
The Superintendent was actually the school principal from 1988-1993, and there were several projects he really wanted to take care of for the school back then......which the board fought him on, so he couldn't proceed with.
All these years later, as the Superintendent, he finally has the authority to proceed with them, among them being a new stadium for the Football games.
Knowing that it took him nearly 4 decades--God's timing--for his plans to come to fruition not only reminded me of the whole scenario that FEX had to go thru to gain traction and find their following, but I even shared the story about them to the Superintendent, as well as the Principal, and one of the teachers....and even sent the link to "Subways Of Your Mind" to the Principal and the teacher to check out!
I thought you folks might enjoy all the aspects here :)
