Quote Tui:

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Think of it this way. If it was really possible to buy a PC at Walmart, download a copy of your favourite DAW and a couple of free plug-ins, and end up with a big movie sound, everybody would be doing it. SSL, Lexicon, TC, Neuman and the rest of them would have gone bankrupt a long time ago.

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If your example related to Electronic Dance Music I'd say it's absolutely possible to compete with a Walmart PC and some free software provided you have the skills. Need some ok monitoring you're very familiar with of course.

Whether most people would want to do this is a different matter.

But electronic dance music isn't really 'music' in the true sense of the word, it is audio -> out, but not audio <- in - It's more of a sound construction exercise, a pastiche of sounds already recorded or sounds designed inside the machine. It's not proper music as performed by humans using proper instruments.

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Yeah!

Incoming!!

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'These are my principles and if you don't like them...well, I have others' (Groucho Marx) www.ownlittleworld.net/tunes.html

Quote The Southern Baptist:

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sounds designed inside the machine. It's not proper music as performed by humans using proper instruments.

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So if I program a lead sound on my Jp8080 and play the main rift off it and record it to disk in protools then it's a performance using a proper instrument.

But if I build the same patch in superwave and then play it in cubase using a midi controller and record and edit it's no longer music performed using a proper instrument?



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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Correct.

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Yeah!

errr despite my protestations about many other things i think i take some exception to the assertion that electronica produced in the box is not proper music...

i may not like much of it, but it is still a recording of the composition and performance of music....

Unlike you, i like a good lot of that sort of stuff. The differemce however is that music programmed in ITB is then 'performed' by the machine as opposed to being 'performed' by a person. Machines aren't musicians, to be a musician you have to be a human.

Quote The Southern Baptist:

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Correct.

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i call trolling!

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hourglass | random thoughts | doubledotdash!? collective

errr

you stated above in response to peter kaine, that a performance using a midi controller, and soft synth was not music...

despite it's being the same as a performance on a midi equipped hardware synth... which according to yuor earlier statement, IS music..


and composing done in the traditional manner.... is simply doing with pen and ink what you imply that doing with a computer makes it not music....

i'm not trying to be difficult.... i just think i don't quite see it the same way you do... composition is composition ,just like writing is writing, whether you use pencil and paper, or a word processor... it's simply using a different language.

is a modern novel any less a book because they used computers in it's creation? (jeffrey Archer "novels" notwithstanding )

where is would agree would be if you were to apply your argument to the use of loop based systems , such as assorted trakkers, or some applications of garage band , where the operator is not composing music, but assembling audio lego blocks....

then we'd be in agreement i think...

not that this is all that relevant perhaps to the original thrust of this thread... but do you see what i mean?

Edited by idris y draig (26/01/10 01:36 PM)

i'll add that the lego block assembly process is what i'm getting at, NOT simply the use of such software, much of which can still be used in a more creatively valid manner , for proper composition... rather than compositing.

Not to get too off topic here, but I happen to think that music in it's most broad definition is simply sound and silence organized in time. I don't think it matters how it came to be or who or what performs it.

But back to the discussion...

I happen to think that yes indeed one could take a capable PC from the store and download a bunch of freeware plug-ins and a comprehensive sequencer, combine those with an average interface and some average microphones, some respectable average monitors and come up with a wonderful recording. This is of course provided that the tracking location sounds good and the players sound good and the way the performances are captured is appropriate for the task. I think the main reason why most professionals don't take this approach is clear.

First of all, it's not as convenient or easy. There is enough to worry about with the process of tracking and mixing things well that nobody wants to deal with working through the limitations of certain average equipment when they don't have to. Also the added convenience of using top notch gear can be a time saver.

The second main reason professionals don't default to average gear is simply because they don't have to. We use what we like because we can. Often times it sounds great straightaway and that's fine by anyone so long as they have the budget to acquire the gear. That still doesn't make it a necessity. That makes it a choice out of convenience and personal preference.

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MIRRORMIX STUDIO
blog

Well yeah, you can compose music with pen and ink if you really want to, but unless it's a top of the range Mont Blanc pen and hand made vellum smoothed on a Cuban virgin's thigh it'll still sound sh1t.

Or something.

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Quote The Southern Baptist:

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But electronic dance music isn't really 'music' in the true sense of the word, it is audio -> out, but not audio <- in - It's more of a sound construction exercise, a pastiche of sounds already recorded or sounds designed inside the machine. It's not proper music as performed by humans using proper instruments.

---

Despite your deliberately provocative wording, you do have a point here.

The sounds are in the machine, and often taken from a recording which has been done on very professional equipment, mixed and eq'd by high quality boxes already.

You are well off with the "pastiche" thing though, that makes no sense. Good electronic music is not about the past, its about surpassing and moving past the stale limitations of acoustic instruments.

Quote idris y draig:

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errr

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Yeah alright.

Quote:

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not that this is all that relevant perhaps to the original thrust of this thread... but do you see what i mean?

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I do, but i feel passionately about this, and so would like the opportunity to answer.

Quote:

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you stated above in response to peter kaine, that a performance using a midi controller, and soft synth was not music...

despite it's being the same as a performance on a midi equipped hardware synth... which according to yuor earlier statement, IS music..

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What he said was this.

So if I program a lead sound on my Jp8080 and play the main rift off it and record it to disk in protools then it's a performance using a proper instrument.

But if I build the same patch in superwave and then play it in cubase using a midi controller and record and edit it's no longer music performed using a proper instrument?

Now what i take that to mean is that in the first instance he takes his synth, programmes a patch and plays in into his recorder.

But in the second example he goes to the machine, programmes a patch, uses the midi facilities to capture some on/off messages and as he states 'edits' it.

So to me in the first example a person sitting in his room would hear his performance whether it was recorded or not, because he's pleaying the synth. In the second example the finished performance can only be heard once the machine plays it back.

Quote:

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and composing done in the traditional manner.... is simply doing with pen and ink what you imply that doing with a computer makes it not music....

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Once again, the finished composition is performed by a person, a musician. With the ITB composition, the performance is by the machine, unless the score is given to a player who interprets it.

Quote:

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...composition is composition

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I'm not talking about the composition, i'm talking about the performance of music and the recording of those performances.

Any moment now we're going to get someone saying that DJs are musicians!

Seriously, I think this thread has gone off the assertions that Ethan was making, which was not about character bits and bobs used in the making and recording of music. He was talking about conversion, dither, distortion and so forth. Oddly, I got his first two examples of dither/no dither, even over the net, turned out I liked the dithered ones. Must go to his site and see if I can do it with his proper examples.

The example of using really good mixers is another matter entirely, though interesting. As are lovely as opposed to 'just OK' mic-pres. Or really great mics. DAmn fine gear will make a difference, just as damn fine performances, instruments and rooms do.

Personally, I know that 'OK' pres and 'OK' converters are just that ... 'OK'. I know I get a certain flatness/boringness when using some combos of merely 'OK' stuff ... So I guess I disagree with Ethan... but then maybe not... Must look at his movie again! They certainly make some valid and interesting points in that movie, probably only certain points I'd take issue with.

Now, where did I put my cables soaked in Himalayan dewdrops?

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PA stuff on FB

One of the biggest myths in modern music is the idea that someone sitting at a piano which has a piano roll going round in front of him while he waves his arms around and smiles is a pianist!

It may be music to some drunk holding up the bar singing "roll out the barrel" but it's not music to me!

Quote The Southern Baptist:

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One of the biggest myths in modern music is the idea that someone sitting at a piano which has a piano roll going round in front of him while he waves his arms around and smiles is a pianist!

It may be music to some drunk holding up the bar singing "roll out the barrel" but it's not music to me!

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Don't go to cockney pubs then if it pains you so greatly.

You know what, you're right, why should i bother?

The rate at which studios are closing, the quality of the music i might hear with a quick tune in to Radio1, the dwindling record sales and the virtual destruction of the music business by people who don't care, 'cos it doesn't really matter. The damage to our cultural wealth.

None of it matters, fling another dodgy autotuned model/dancer up the charts shaking their arse to a loop, and sink all the available cash into wide eyed sure things because it really doesn't matter does it?

If people are so into their art that they would travel from Sydney to some dust town eight hours away to record a piano part just because it sends shivers down your spine when you hear it, and people would queue up outside record shops to buy an artists new album because they knew it would sound fantastic and be ground breaking and perfectly recorded, and take it home and swim in the music.

The myth is that none of that matters, that cheap and cheerful will do.

Quote The Southern Baptist:

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None of it matters, fling another dodgy autotuned model/dancer up the charts shaking their arse to a loop, and sink all the available cash into wide eyed sure things because it really doesn't matter does it?

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To some extent - actually, no it doesn't, not as it used to, today. The cultural impact of music is far less than it used to be, for most of today's youth. While they do enjoy it, immensely, what seems to be the biggest thrill for them is not the music itself, but the communality of the experience - the recorded music seems to be just a kind of 'marker', the 'real' experience being the big gig at a festival, and the 'sharing' of the music via facebook and all the other social networking stuff.

It's the sense of being part of a community that has the big kick, and the recorded music is just part of that, not the big thing it was for us older fans (you know ... the reverent placing of the (expensive) vinyl work on the deck, the exact placement of the arse on a cushion in the sweet spot, the drawing of the curtains, and, often, the firing up of a fat one ... to then listen in total concentration to the recorded meisterwork)

That just doesn't seem to be 'the thing' these days, most of the recordings being heard through earbuds in noisy conditions. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't bother to use good gear to record it (it'll still sound better if you do) but paying a huge amount of attention to the purely hi-fi qualities of what we're about probably really 'doesn't matter' as much as it used to. It still matters to us, but it doesn't matter for them - not like it did for us.

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http://anotherfineday.bandcamp.com/ http://anotherfineday.co.uk http://apollomusic.co.uk

Quote tomafd:

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Quote The Southern Baptist:

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None of it matters, fling another dodgy autotuned model/dancer up the charts shaking their arse to a loop, and sink all the available cash into wide eyed sure things because it really doesn't matter does it?

---

To some extent - actually, no it doesn't, not as it used to, today. The cultural impact of music is far less than it used to be, for most of today's youth. While they do enjoy it, immensely, what seems to be the biggest thrill for them is not the music itself, but the communality of the experience - the recorded music seems to be just a kind of 'marker', the 'real' experience being the big gig at a festival, and the 'sharing' of the music via facebook and all the other social networking stuff.

It's the sense of being part of a community that has the big kick, and the recorded music is just part of that, not the big thing it was for us older fans (you know ... the reverent placing of the (expensive) vinyl work on the deck, the exact placement of the arse on a cushion in the sweet spot, the drawing of the curtains, and, often, the firing up of a fat one ... to then listen in total concentration to the recorded meisterwork)

That just doesn't seem to be 'the thing' these days, most of the recordings being heard through earbuds in noisy conditions. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't bother to use good gear to record it (it'll still sound better if you do) but paying a huge amount of attention to the purely hi-fi qualities of what we're about probably really 'doesn't matter' as much as it used to. It still matters to us, but it doesn't matter for them - not like it did for us.

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Music constantly evolves. If you are old you might not understand the point of polyrhythmic house or dubstep, it probably sounds like a load of noise. If you are even older maybe you don't even understand true geniuses like aphex twin.

So the big studios are falling, standards are falling.. for that kind of old fashioned music. The band format is rather stale right now so I would argue that not too much cultural value is being lost there.

If you look for evidence of decline and misery, you will find it. If you look for evidence of new talent and innovation, you will find that too. There's a whole world out there, and what you see of it says more about you than anything else.

Well as i've already stated, you are right, and i'd like to thank you for opening my eyes to my errors of judgement. It's one of the most refreshing things about this board, that old people like me can get a fresh look at things through more youthful eyes. Thanks again.

Quote EnlightenedHand:

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The second main reason professionals don't default to average gear is simply because they don't have to. We use what we like because we can. Often times it sounds great straightaway and that's fine by anyone so long as they have the budget to acquire the gear. That still doesn't make it a necessity. That makes it a choice out of convenience and personal preference.

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Again, all down to time and clients. Most of my clients will have a basic set up at home. They will expect me to turn something around rather quickly. Quality is a given. Why spend hours faffing with average gear and DSP when you can get that sound straight from the source? That is, after all, the most important part of the signal chain.

ken

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I'm All Ears.

Quote johnny h:

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...If you are even older maybe you don't even understand true geniuses like aphex twin.

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I wonder if you could help me out? In order to broaden my horizons i've just been to youtube and listened to 'windowlicker' and 'donkey rhubarb'

Is there some other tracks i should try that might give me a better insight into their genius?

Or is it the videos that are the genius, the whole package? Putting his face onto different bodies is a bit of a trademark style, yeah?

Quote johnny h:

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If you look for evidence of decline and misery, you will find it. If you look for evidence of new talent and innovation, you will find that too. There's a whole world out there, and what you see of it says more about you than anything else.

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I'm actually not one who thinks that today's comparative lack of attention to the hi-fi quality of music, rather than other aspects, is necessarily a bad thing, or 'evidence of decline and misery'. I was just musing on changes rather than deploring them- and I'm a big fan of dubstep. (It's 4 on the floor house that bores the crap out of me, and always has done!)

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http://anotherfineday.bandcamp.com/ http://anotherfineday.co.uk http://apollomusic.co.uk

An example to clear up what I was getting at before:

I've got a couple of friends who play and record locally to me. The's two sides to what they do with one being acustic folky sort of stuff and the other side more glitchy electronica.

Some tracks are based around pre-recorded loops where they manipulate and play about with them in real time maybe playing melodys and other bits over the top.

The other stuff is pick up your guitar and sing along sort of stuff. They do sets where they merge both angles of this and swing between them being fully acustic and fully electronic all the way through.

I don't personally feel that either approach is "not a musical performance". Different skills are required for sure but it's still a performance and it's still music.

I hold any performer who can create music in front of a crowd in the highest regard. Be it a sax player or someone creating a 2 hour set out of a bunch of loops in real time in ableton. Both different skills but surely it's how you respond and react to the crowd that is the beauty of the performance rather than any technical aspect?

Of course I'm not saying it should be done in the cheapest most generic way posible. It should be done because you believe in what your creating. The's horrible generic music in all genres where the performance doesn't matter and the passion is lacking.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote ken long:

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Quote EnlightenedHand:

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The second main reason professionals don't default to average gear is simply because they don't have to. We use what we like because we can. Often times it sounds great straightaway and that's fine by anyone so long as they have the budget to acquire the gear. That still doesn't make it a necessity. That makes it a choice out of convenience and personal preference.

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Again, all down to time and clients. Most of my clients will have a basic set up at home. They will expect me to turn something around rather quickly. Quality is a given. Why spend hours faffing with average gear and DSP when you can get that sound straight from the source? That is, after all, the most important part of the signal chain.

ken

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The paragraph that I wrote just above the one that you've quoted addresses this. I'm quite aware of the efficiency benefits of high quality gear. I agree that in a professional setting this is important. Which is exactly why I wrote what I did in the bit that you didn't quote.

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MIRRORMIX STUDIO
blog

Quote The Southern Baptist:

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Quote johnny h:

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...If you are even older maybe you don't even understand true geniuses like aphex twin.

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I wonder if you could help me out? In order to broaden my horizons i've just been to youtube and listened to 'windowlicker' and 'donkey rhubarb'

Is there some other tracks i should try that might give me a better insight into their genius?

---

The Selected Ambient Works collection might make more sense but even then i'm not sure if it's fully relevent. I wouldn't say he's a genius performer (and i've seen him a fair few times) but as an arranger and producer he's certainly pushed the envolope over the years. Along those lines if someone who stands out performance wise is Squarepusher. I've seen him and his midi'd up 6 string (running into a p.c. with kontakt) bouncing round stage scaring people a few times and been both astounded and entertained in equal measure.

Quote:

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Or is it the videos that are the genius, the whole package? Putting his face onto different bodies is a bit of a trademark style, yeah?

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Nah that's Chris Cunningham. An amazing video artist in his own right according to those who keep informing me of such things.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote The Southern Baptist:

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You know what, you're right, why should i bother?

The rate at which studios are closing, the quality of the music i might hear with a quick tune in to Radio1, the dwindling record sales and the virtual destruction of the music business by people who don't care, 'cos it doesn't really matter. The damage to our cultural wealth.

None of it matters, fling another dodgy autotuned model/dancer up the charts shaking their arse to a loop, and sink all the available cash into wide eyed sure things because it really doesn't matter does it?

If people are so into their art that they would travel from Sydney to some dust town eight hours away to record a piano part just because it sends shivers down your spine when you hear it, and people would queue up outside record shops to buy an artists new album because they knew it would sound fantastic and be ground breaking and perfectly recorded, and take it home and swim in the music.

The myth is that none of that matters, that cheap and cheerful will do.

---

The bottom line is that esoteric instruments deemed "high-end" do not make records sell. Great songwriting and performances do. A recording's purpose is to preserve a great performance. What you're arguing seems to me like you're saying that it's not possible to get a wonderful performance unless one uses the absolute "best" instruments one can find. I find that a completely absurd position. A great performer and musician is great with tools that work. They (the tools) don't have to fit anyones idea of euphoric. They just need to work within the capacity of the task at hand.

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MIRRORMIX STUDIO
blog

Quote Pete Kaine:

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but as an arranger and producer he's certainly pushed the envolope over the years..

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More like run over the damn thing in his tank.

.

More power to the man, his stuff's lovely

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http://anotherfineday.bandcamp.com/ http://anotherfineday.co.uk http://apollomusic.co.uk


Edited by tomafd (26/01/10 05:14 PM)

XTal i just listened to. That's the same kind of thing as the other two but with a softer edge and and more room. And Tha, there it sounds like he's taken the drum track and used it to trigger some filter swept bongo samples of something like that.

Quote EnlightenedHand:

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...The bottom line is that esoteric instruments deemed "high-end" do not make records sell. Great songwriting and performances do. A recording's purpose is to preserve a great performance. What you're arguing seems to me like you're saying that it's not possible to get a wonderful performance unless one uses the absolute "best" instruments one can find. I find that a completely absurd position. A great performer and musician is great with tools that work. They (the tools) don't have to fit anyones idea of euphoric. They just need to work within the capacity of the task at hand.

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You're right, i'm learning so much today.

Quote Pete Kaine:

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Quote The Southern Baptist:

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Quote johnny h:

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...If you are even older maybe you don't even understand true geniuses like aphex twin.

---

I wonder if you could help me out? In order to broaden my horizons i've just been to youtube and listened to 'windowlicker' and 'donkey rhubarb'

Is there some other tracks i should try that might give me a better insight into their genius?

---

The Selected Ambient Works collection might make more sense but even then i'm not sure if it's fully relevent. I wouldn't say he's a genius performer (and i've seen him a fair few times) but as an arranger and producer he's certainly pushed the envolope over the years. Along those lines if someone who stands out performance wise is Squarepusher. I've seen him and his midi'd up 6 string (running into a p.c. with kontakt) bouncing round stage scaring people a few times and been both astounded and entertained in equal measure.

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Aphex twin is an awful performer, just stands there and plays random bits of music. Its the songwriting and production which makes him stand out. He virtually invented a whole genre of music on his own, he has thousands of imitators, none of which get close to writing memorable melodies like he can.

You can play his tunes on guitar (search on youtube), and that doesn't work with most electronic music.

Quote:

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Quote:

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Or is it the videos that are the genius, the whole package? Putting his face onto different bodies is a bit of a trademark style, yeah?

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Nah that's Chris Cunningham. An amazing video artist in his own right according to those who keep informing me of such things.

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Who used to work for Kubrick as a teenager on the abandoned film "a.i" - you can see the robots he made for him in his amazing video for bjork - all is full of love.

Quote The Southern Baptist:

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But electronic dance music isn't really 'music' in the true sense of the word, it is audio -> out, but not audio <- in - It's more of a sound construction exercise, a pastiche of sounds already recorded or sounds designed inside the machine. It's not proper music as performed by humans using proper instruments.

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I don't agree with your angle here with regard what is music, but I get your point and I'll try to clarify it. I think what you're getting at is a wide variety of EDM doesn't involve acoustic recordings at all.

With an acoustic recording you're trying to bring out the qualities of the instrument and the nuances of the performance. You tend to want things to sound "natural" and relatively un-processed.

With EDM you tend to stick sounds through a ton of FX anyway. There is no natural and things can sound more interesting and subjectively better when you've mangled the hell out of them through whatever process. I'm talking about individual sounds here really.

Quality is still important when you're processing groups or the entire mix of course as here you generally want to enhance not further mangle.

Did I get this right or not?

I think you have yes, but tbh i'm a bit fed up now and wish i didn't get involved in the first place. I'm old, i'm tired, my arthritis is playing me up and i've just made a nice cup of cocoa and filled a hot water bottle. I just don't have the energy for this board anymore.

You can't just say things here and have a laugh, people jump all over you and try and make you cry and submit.

I think this: Music is something played by humans on instruments or parts of their body in real time. It's not something played by machines... That's all really.

Quote The Southern Baptist:

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I think this: Music is something played by humans on instruments or parts of their body in real time. It's not something played my machines... That's all really.

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This is an arbitrary boundary which you have created in your own mind. Machines don't make music on their own, and neither do guitars, drums or pianos.

You've obviously never felt the power of god surging through you body and watched your hands moving over your instrument as if powered by some strange external force.

Quote The Southern Baptist:

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You've obviously never felt the power of god surging through you body and watched your hands moving over your instrument as if powered by some strange external force.

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If you want to experience God in musical form, remove the batteries from a Roland TB303 for a little while, switch it back on and press play.

Similarly venomous arguments were had when music recordings became popular, because "the interaction between performer and audience" (was it TSB who mentioned that?) became lost. Music could be switched on and off like a lamp, the 'performance' aspect was lost because everyone heard the same thing...

And yet here we are, on a music recording forum, arguing about the merits or otherwise of using "machines" to create music.

At what point does an instrument become a machine? When it's got a pickup or a tonewheel in it? That would write the electric guitar, Rhodes and Hammond off. When it's got some ICs in it? That's a few great synths off the list too. Should music only be heard by people who are close enough to the acoustic instrument to be able to hear it? I make that no more than a few hundred (quiet!) people at a time for a solo violin.

OK, so recordings are fine, but only if they're of an actual performance. So does the use of splicing, editing and drop-ins render the Beatles albums non-musical?

Does it blolocks!

No, an instrument becomes a machine when it makes it's own time and plays itself to it's own clock. That's a mechanical performance.

And i'm not arguing about it, i'm just saying that it's not a human performance, so it's not real music.

The myth is that a machine can be a musician, it can;t, to be a musician you have to be a person.

There is no argumant.

Quote johnny h:

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If you want to experience God in musical form, remove the batteries from a Roland TB303 for a little while...

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If you want to experience God in musical form, remove the batteries from a Roland TB303. And that's it!

More godliness can be felt if you then apply a lump hammer vigorously to the horrid, thin, weedy, nasal, whining little bastard!!!

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