INTERVIEW: David Tyo talks revisiting a nearly 20-year-old catalog
*This interview originally appeared in our November 2024 issue.*
“since we were recently talking about releasing our entire discography, I listened to Rupture and decided that I couldn’t release it like that. I had to do it justice after all these years.”
Recently, local producer/musician David Tyo revisited the nearly 20-year-old multi-tracks from his former band, Bipolar. Bipolar was active in the early 2000s, having achieved regional success and opening for bands like Breaking Benjamin, Shinedown, Three Days Grace, Puddle of Mudd and others. Their 2005 sophomore release, Rupture, was distributed nationally and could be found in major chain record stores across the country. Being that 2005 was pre-streaming services, Rupture was only available in physical media format, and never on any streaming service.
Until now.
David thought that the album was due for a remix and a proper modern release, so he put in some work to make the 2005 album sound fresh and ready for the masses in the digital world. I recently sat down with David to find out what the process is to make that happen.
Andy Scullin: Hey, Dave it is great to see you, as always. Thank you for taking time to do this.
David Tyo: Well, thank you.
AS: I know that Bipolar was very well known back when I first moved over this way in the early 2000s. You opened for some pretty big bands, and moved units when it came to album sales. Recently, you decided to revisit Bipolar’s 2005 album Rupture because you felt it not only needed a remaster, but a full remix as well. Why was that?
DT: I am very proud of the original album. We played well. Everyone was tight from playing a ton of shows. The tracking was good, but my mix was lacking. I still have the files in my archive, and since we were recently talking about releasing our entire discography, I listened to Rupture and decided that I couldn’t release it like that. I had to do it justice after all these years.
AS: When you say “do it justice”, what exactly did you do?
DT: I did a true remix from the original multi-track recordings.
AS: Which would be a challenge, I assume. Working with such outdated technology.
DT: You could say that. Finding and installing software from 20 years ago was hard enough, but I was working in the original software to undo all the mix decisions, edits and everything that I did when I recorded the album just so that I could export the raw, clean-off-the-mic tracks and bring them into Pro Tools. That was time consuming.
AS: Sounds tedious.
DT: I don’t disagree, but it’s necessary.
AS: What does it entail, taking a 20 year old technology and updating it to where it needed to be?
DT: It’s really about getting the original wave information. The original audio. When I say “clean-off-the-mic”, that means that there is absolutely no effect, processing, or anything on any of the individual tracks. Each drum, bass guitar, guitar and vocals, all clean and unadulterated. Once all of that is brought into Pro Tools, then I can just approach it as a brand new session, as I would in 2024 instead of 2005.
AS: But essentially the older files and newer files are the same?
DT: When you get right down to it, each individual track is a digital file so therefore it is quite literally bit-for-bit, exactly the same as it used to be. That is what makes it so glorious, because it is the original unadulterated audio, now brought into a modern workflow.
AS: Now that it is all together, I know this project came about because you had tossed around the idea of releasing all of the Bipolar stuff to streaming. Is that something that you are still going to do?
DT: The wheels are already in motion. Our whole discography comes out November 1st. Our first release was 2004’s Disorder, which was a seven song EP. Then Rupture in 2005. Also, our professional demo, which was never intended for release, that we recorded in 2006. That ended up being our drummer Peter’s last work before he passed away. We never officially released it anywhere back in the day, but that will be released on November 1st as well. It is really cool, because technically it was never available, although we did put it on Myspace.
AS: Do you have plans to remix any of the other Bipolar stuff?
DT: Definitely not Disorder, because the drums were actually done in stereo. They are not multi-tracked. It would be an awful lot of incredibly tedious work to map out – especially Peter’s drum performance – each individual note, hit-for-hit, by hand. So, no, Disorder is not going to happen, for that reason primarily. The Foster Sessions sound great; that was produced by Jim Foster, from whom I learned a ton. That was one of the last things that we did as Bipolar, so there is no sense updating it.
AS: Dave, again thank you so much for your time. Before you go, where can people find you?
DT: I guess right on my website, which is www.davidtyo.com.
