| -----Original Message----- | From: Williams, Howard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | Sent: 15 March 2002 16:01 | | hey 313 | | The D Wang interview jonny posted up got me thinking : there | has been an interesting trend away from the radical late 80's | forward thinking 'machine music' production/cultural ethic | whereby sampling was seen as a radical step forward and the | rise of digital was seen as an empowering force | (*arguably* culminating in DJ Shadows Endtroducing sampling | masterwork). | Nowadays, there is a whole host of backlash against such | methods with the 'only real instruments can make real music' | (or, analog is better becauase it's more authentic somehow) | type attitude creeping back into supposedly 'radical' forms...
Interesting topic! I think that sampling has never really been a very central technique in producing techno music - I've always detected a mentality of "you use your synths, computers etc to generate your own noises or, if you do use samples, you warp them and 'play' them in such a way as to make the source hard to detect", and am hard pressed to think of many techno tracks that are massively sample-based (Fix-Flash comes to mind though). Personally, I've never been a big fan of sample-heavy music (apart from people like Moodymann and co, where the samples are 'played', as JT commented), and would generally point to genres like "trip-hop", "big beat", "nu skool breaks" as being more sample-centric than techno. Sampling is as important to those genres as ever, imo, and is at the same level of importance in techno as it always was, I think. Techno producers just like having arcane machines in their studios on whose panels they can twiddle knobs and produce piercing, Drexciyan sorts of sounds... or at least that's the way I've always seen it! If there's a new trend in terms of instrumentation, though, I'd say that its main theme is the fact that you can nowadays get these nice analog sounds into your productions without spending $$$ on ARP Odysseys and Fairlights, using software synthesis. Another new trend specifically related to sampling is in the form of newer genres like "plunderphilia", where sampling is taken to its logical extreme. The "real instruments to make real music" argument is one I really don't agree with, but I'm more used to this coming from people for whom analogue synths, let alone samples, aren't real instruments - an attitude whereby samplers aren't seen as "real instruments", but analogue synths *are*, is inherently wrong from my point of view. As a staunch electronic music fanatic, I can't personally draw the line when it comes to what's a real instrument and what isn't, and I don't really approve of anyone who'd try to make such a distinction... Brendan Legal Disclaimer This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message that arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version. This message is provided for informational purposes only. our website at: http://www.widelearning.com Wide Learning is a trading name of Wide Multimedia Ltd Registered office: 33-41 Dallington Street, London EC1V 0BB Company number: 3339664 VAT number: 690 8399 83 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
