The Best Sound You’ll Ever See!

Sep 16th in Motion Graphics by Satya Meka

Satya is back with a new tutorial that will help you look as good as you sound. This technique has many options so sit back and learn how to create an attractive visual generated from your audio spectrum.

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Author: Satya Meka

I am an aspiring Motion Designer influenced by Generative Art. I am always willing to work with interesting people and you can follow me on twitter @gutsblow.

Preview 1

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File size 8.6MB

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File size 8.6MB

Preview 2

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File size 14MB

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File size 14.6MB

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .flv

File size 91.1MB

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User Comments

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  1. PG

    jink September 16th

    thats wicked!

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    EffectsGroup September 16th

    Amazing!!!!!

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    zal September 16th

    dude is is awesome … i was impressed by your other tuts but this stuns me !!!

    ( Reply )
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    Chatton September 16th

    can’t remember the name of the song enven though i know it!
    what is it??

    ( Reply )
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      Wilson September 16th

      Metric – Help I’m Alive ^_^

      Simple yet yields impressive results tutorial – thanks Satya! This has given me a few ideas for work :)

      ( Reply )
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    the virum September 16th

    coollllll

    ( Reply )
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    MovieMaker September 16th

    Satya, you are amazing! Make your own website!

    ( Reply )
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      Dan September 16th

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      Topher Welsh September 16th

      http://gutsblow.com/

      That’s Satya’s site…

      ( Reply )
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        Satya Meka September 16th

        Yep.

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    Rado September 16th

    amazing animation!!

    whats this song called?

    ( Reply )
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      Jeff October 8th

      Help I’m Alive – Metric

      When in doubt, google some of the lyrics. :)

      ( Reply )
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    12 YEAR OLD September 16th

    I AM 12 AND WHAT IS THIS SONG

    ( Reply )
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    Oscar Pires September 16th

    amazing tut and sound, thank (what the name of this sound?)

    ( Reply )
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      Topher Welsh September 16th

      Help I’m Alive by Metric….

      ( Reply )
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        Oscar Pires September 16th

        merçi beaucoup :)

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        viaria September 17th

        thanks for HELP

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    F3tch September 16th

    Really cool effect!
    But it would be great if you can explain the expression part a bit more. I assume that’s the “hardest” part for most of the people including me.

    ( Reply )
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      Satya Meka September 16th

      Hey F3tch,

      Refer to this tutorial where I explain similar expressions a bit more in detail
      http://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/motion-graphics/create-an-elegant-concentric-rings-animation/

      ( Reply )
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        perry September 22nd

        u think it would be possible to generate a city contour with this same effect.instead of those sharp points from the sound generated waveform.its more city like with bars to form the city.new york city lol

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    Siupej September 16th

    Awesome !!!
    i searched for something like this a long time ago.
    Sorry for my bad English

    ( Reply )
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      versusINK September 16th

      what bad English? haha. that was better English than most English speaking people would write. you just forgot to capitalize I :P

      and don’t comment on me not capitalizing the beginnings of my sentences. thank you, I know. this is the web, I don’t care.

      anyway… yeah. your English is good.

      ( Reply )
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      viaria September 17th

      your english even better than response

      ( Reply )
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    mike September 16th

    its by metric called ‘help i’m alive”

    ( Reply )
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    jim hines September 16th

    Haven’t worked through the tut yet but the effect is imaginative.

    Rock on man!

    ( Reply )
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    RealLifePudding September 16th

    Metric – Help I’m Alive

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtA7YIFapnY

    ( Reply )
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    Nathanael September 16th

    Great Satya! You’re always one of the best!

    Whats the song if I may ask!?

    ( Reply )
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      Topher Welsh September 16th

      Help I’m Alive by Metric.

      ( Reply )
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        AaronJamesPatterson September 16th

        From their new album “Fantasies”

  16. PG

    Rev65 September 16th

    This is a family-friendly site, so please choose your words more carefully.

    ( Reply )
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    DanteV September 16th

    Extraordinary! You’ve given me great ideas!

    ( Reply )
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    Stefoto September 16th

    Awesome tutorial one of the best I’ve ever seen. Keep doing this tutorials and please share the name of this song i like it.

    ( Reply )
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    Rev65 September 16th

    Satya strikes again! Nicely done!!!

    ( Reply )
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    Topher Welsh September 16th

    true, but I whole heartedly agree with your enthusiasm… holy crap. This is by far one of the sweetest previews I have seen on AEtuts… gonna shift some stuff around to watch the tutorial in a bit…

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    genericusername September 16th

    Yo Satya, I’m really happy for you and I’ma let you finish… But Andrew Kramer had one of the best audio spectrum tutorials of all-time! OF ALL-TIME!!!

    BTW if anyone doesn’t get that joke please step away from the keyboard and come outside, I’ve turned on the radio for you.

    But seriously awesome job!

    ( Reply )
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      Topher Welsh September 16th

      Quite possibly the worst photochop ever.

      http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v284/cosmic_pope/yosatya.jpg

      But I disagree with Kanye.

      ( Reply )
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        Satya Meka September 16th

        LMAO!!!!

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        Rafael Guerra September 16th

        LOL! EPIC!

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        Aevion September 16th

        amazing

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      AaronJamesPatterson September 16th

      This had me laughing so much. Who knew After Effects nerds could have such great senses of humor? Thanks for the laughs.

      ( Reply )
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      Markus Gustafsson September 16th

      HAHAHAHAHA! Best comment ever!

      And awesome tutorial Satya, I love the effect!

      ( Reply )
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      ckRED September 16th

      good one :)

      ( Reply )
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      Aevion September 16th

      well played sir, well played! lol

      ( Reply )
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    Billy September 16th

    Satya….I have no idea what I would do with that in my own project…..but DUDE…..very SWEET! You truly are a creative genius when it comes to AE! Great effect. I’m gonna work through the tutorial. Gotta be something I can do with it!

    This is three straight good to great tutorials for aetuts. I think we can officially call this a streak! :)

    ( Reply )
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      Topher Welsh September 16th

      We are back alive and kickin! If Billy is happy… well then us authors must be doing something right… even though I don’t contribute tuts. haha

      ( Reply )
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        Billy September 16th

        LOL! It’s nice to know that I am the critique by which all things are judged. Ha……..ha!

        It’s hard not to get a good tut out of Satya. Guy is a true AE visionary!

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      Adam Everett Miller September 16th

      I’m tellin’ ya… this is a user driven site… when it’s bad, it’s cause the community isn’t playing hard enough. However, when it’s good, its all because we’re exploring together. There is more good stuff ahead… Stay posted :)

      ( Reply )
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      Cheesebottoms September 18th

      Are you Bill Byrne?

      ( Reply )
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    DVD Replication September 16th

    Great tut. Clear explanation. Thank-you Satya

    ( Reply )
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    Vincent BOUDIER September 16th

    How to do what Form does without Form… but with shadows !
    So ingenious !

    Really great tut !

    ( Reply )
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    Abojung September 16th

    very very sweet.thank god aetuts is back from the recession. i hope this will be a nice example for the future tuts.
    ^-^”

    ( Reply )
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    Evangelos Methodd September 16th

    Cool but you can get a more impressive (and easier) result just by using Trapcode Form !!!

    ( Reply )
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      Satya Meka September 16th

      There are a few reasons why I chose not to use Form. With Form, I can’t get the ‘Delay’ in the spectrum which is essentially the core part of the tutorial. Secondly, with form I can’t get a sharp ‘Waveform’, it gives me particles displaced in Z-space. Thirdly, I want to explain what iterators can do and finally Form is a 3rd Party plugin. Most importantly, I can’t get shadows using Form. :) I should have mentioned this in the tutorial itself.

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        ckRED September 16th

        you just disqualified yourself, evangelos

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        Karma September 28th

        Great tutorial Satya!
        I’m experimenting now with this technique applied to the path option in the effect, that let’s you draw a mask, and it can be morphed in differents shapes.
        Btw, is there another plugin to generate audio waveform/spectrum instead of the ones bundled with AE?
        The give away for me is that “spectrum” renders the waveform with a linear distribution of the frequencies instead of a log one (seems more like we hear sound). The important thing is that always the result have a lot of weight in the left part (bass) of the spectrum, all the animation goes in there…

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        Jeff October 8th

        @Karma

        You could use Trapcode’s Sound Keys to generate spectrum/waveform data. It won’t give you a visual waveform to use in your comp (well actually it will, but it’s meant not to be shown, and I doubt it’s what you’re looking for), but it’ll give you some flexibility to make your own, perhaps.

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      jink September 17th

      if you use plugins the poorer demographic of this community has a big QQ

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      Cheesebottoms September 18th

      I think you’d be more impressive (and easier) if you’d just shut up.

      ( Reply )
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        Cheesebottoms September 18th

        This tutorial is awesome by the way.

  27. PG

    Satya Meka September 16th

    Thank you guys for your wonderful comments.

    ( Reply )
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    THe man September 16th

    Finally a KICK ASS stimulating tutorial I had actually stopped visiting for alittle while. But this is great man I’m really impressed. :)

    kinda made my day in fact lol.

    ( Reply )
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    Splette September 16th

    hey thanks! your best tut so far!!

    ( Reply )
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    tot pal September 16th

    waw , ra2i3oune jidane hada tutorial , chokrane laka ya Satya Meka ..

    great tut thnx

    ( Reply )
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    Håvard Fandrem September 16th

    Finally, a stunning tutorial!

    But, you guys really need to clean up the site. All those “Download XXXX”-links are annoying.

    ( Reply )
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    Austin September 16th

    nick mullins

    ( Reply )
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    Aevion September 16th

    This is great stuff. I like preview 1, more than 2, but both were incredible. Good song choice too.

    Although, I might tweak this a bit, to have it fade out (on the first preview) because it goes away so abruptly… but it kinda looks cool like that. regardless, great work man!

    ( Reply )
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    bISCUIT September 16th

    I don’t see the expression and my english is very bad so i don’t understand can you write,it plz!
    this tutorial is amazing!
    thank you very much from France!

    ( Reply )
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    Pixel.vasco September 16th

    Once again, one the best tutorials here.
    Mr Meka, you and your talent make this site more interesting.
    Keep it up
    Thanks!….

    ( Reply )
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    Nathan September 16th

    what does he do with the comps around 3;36? i cant hear what he says select all but first layer and bam they’re gone? does he delete them?

    ( Reply )
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    Storm September 17th

    Wicked!

    ( Reply )
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    Ralu September 17th

    absolutly awesome, thanx for it

    u rock dude!!

    ( Reply )
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    LD September 17th

    Way cool. Well done.

    ( Reply )
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    Sunny Clarke September 17th

    Nice!

    ( Reply )
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    Hodja September 17th

    Definately the best and most usefull Tutorial in a while, i was starting to think that the quality standard had fallen

    ( Reply )
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    Neil September 17th

    Brilliant tutorial but .aif is recommended in after effects rather than .mp3

    ( Reply )
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      Satya Meka September 19th

      That’s like in the past. AE now treats Mp3 and Aiff in a similar way. But, for superior control, it is recommended to use wav, especially for sound effects.

      ( Reply )
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    Kosmos September 17th

    Very cool! Thanks!

    ( Reply )
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    billybrown September 17th

    nice nice, when i render it out the audio is very distored/inaudiable, any ideas whats causing this? Ive tried different tracks so it must be a setting in after effects..?

    ( Reply )
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    JohnM. September 17th

    LOL

    Is there anyway to do this to a moving image? like a guy walking infront of a green screen??

    ( Reply )
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      JohnM. September 17th

      Click On the “LOL”

      ( Reply )
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    Joey September 17th

    This song is amazing, like this tutorial!

    ( Reply )
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    madison September 17th

    hey i love you tutorial and i am making a website for my webdesign class and i love using my at school after effects so can i post a link of this tutorial on my site saying that i did not make the tutorial but i like it and i just wanted to post a video and link of it. now i have posted the website just for the fun of it using iWeb on my mac on moble me and i will have a link on this post.

    ( Reply )
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    Chaithanya Y September 19th

    Excellent Tutorial.

    10/10.

    :D

    ( Reply )
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    Swany September 19th

    wow, great tutorial and you get bonus points for using Metric!

    ( Reply )
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    jink September 19th

    metric is for good people and old men, including younger children between the ages of 3-4.

    ( Reply )
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    Martin September 21st

    This kind of visual have always inspired me, because there is something about this rise and fall of ‘waves’ that makes me inquisitive… Can’t wait to watch your tutorial, cheers.

    ( Reply )
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    Elias Glasch September 22nd

    Way to use my favorite band! Metric is sweet and cool tutorial!

    ( Reply )
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    AlesTemple September 24th

    Muy muy bien !!!!
    Gracias por compartir !
    Saludos.

    ( Reply )
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    xsid September 28th

    i tried this one..
    looks great but render heavy,,
    mine 8 sec took 2.5 hours to render.
    still nice tut.

    ( Reply )
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    John September 28th

    I was just wondering, how can I link my Audio Spectrum to an audio file in another comp (for example the parent comp)?

    Thanks in advance

    ( Reply )
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    Chris Martin September 29th

    Great job!! I love this effect.

    ( Reply )
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    Lawrence October 7th

    Yo Satya, here’s mine http://vimeo.com/6945481
    The cameras way to slow on this one, like you said it’s a c*nt to render.

    ( Reply )
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    Hunter October 8th

    hey man finnaly got round to checking your stuff out. Dude You KILLING it!

    ( Reply )
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    marco October 11th

    woooa… very good but too much rendering time for just 5 duplicated comps :(
    Im working with a new 17′ macbookpro 4gb ram :(

    ( Reply )
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    Noelle October 14th

    Thank You for creating tutorials without expensive plugins! I love trapcode but when I start working with a client who doesn’t know how to use it I still want to be able to create awesome work.

    ( Reply )
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    mandy October 16th

    Is it possible to upload a project file? i cant quite seem to make it work! and seeing the project file would help me alot. whil following the video!

    If u could post it or email it. would be very great!

    saiihtam@live.com

    ( Reply )
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      Satya Meka October 16th

      You should sign-up for the Plus program to get the Project file.

      ( Reply )
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    gerutizz October 20th

    hi. i want to ask not about tutorial but one thing from it.
    i have done everything what you showed. but i cant hear any sound… everything works but no sound. i rendered it and still no sound. maybe my computer dont have ram for it? or what.?

    ( Reply )
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      Adam Everett Miller October 20th

      You have to go into your render settings and make sure audio is checked, it’s at the bottom… otherwise it won’t render audio… it’s scared me before too… I”ve been like, “what the heck?!” yeah. let me know if that wasn’t it.

      ( Reply )
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    gerutizz October 22nd

    ok. thanks ;]]

    ( Reply )
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    cesar October 22nd

    terrific!!!!!!!! amazing!!!!! anything else to say: I wat to study Motions graphics now!!

    ( Reply )
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    Sigfried November 15th

    Wow, this was great.

    ( Reply )
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