RE: (313) techno mentalism
In a sense, though, this does have a fair bit to do with techno. A part of the story of techno (and IDM, for that matter) has been the effort to get respect for the genre, which raises questions about whether it needs respect, whose respect really counts, whether disrespect from certain groups is more valuable, etc. As for records, I like them. They're tasty. =] The only extent to which I agree with this is that *some* techno musicians may be concerned about it while they compose. Most don't care at all though. Why on earth should a detached subculture look to established arts for guidance or approval? It's mad. I mean it's cool to see the London Sinfonietta do AFX, but on the aggregate I'd rather let them come to us. absolutely true, but this sort of bid for respectability goes across many forms of music. the beatles adding classical musicians started a trend that may have partially resulted in the creation of prog. after leaving the police, sting turned to jazz musicians and classical influences as a sign of his maturity. linda ronstadt and pat benatar went into singing oldies. rb singer natalie cole was catapulted into greater sales, recognition, and respect by recording the songs of her dead father. metallica teamed up with an orchestra. even in hip-hop, i think it was nas who played with an orchestra on a tv awards show. venetian snares and murcof have taken breakbeat and idm into another realm by incorporating strings. now in techno we have the example of jeff mills rescoring his work with orchestra. but it does work in the other direction. kronos quartet were obviously classically trained but along with various classical and avant-garde composers they chose to play purple haze. there is also apocalyptica covering metallica and other metal songs using 4 cellos. i think the london sinfonietta or alarm will sound doing AFX counts as well - those eggheaded establishments giving the underground music props by desiring to use it, as opposed to the underground straining to be taken seriously by attempting to incorporate old-world elements into their sound. i don't think we'll see any more than that however - for classical or jazz or academic/avant-garde musicians to adopt the structures of techno or rock is practically unthinkable. d.
(313) output records article/interview link
here's the entiretly of what the man actually said: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/38539/Exclusive_Output_Recordings_Calls_It_Quits d.
Re: (313) ghostly cast
Does anyone have episodes one through four of the Ghostly podcast? The new version of iTunes wiped out those episodes for some reason. -- matt kane's brain http://hydrogenproject.com aim - mkbatwerk [EMAIL PROTECTED] they're all still here: http://www.ghostly.com/ghostlycasts/
Re: (313) Namecalling is Bullsh!t
amen. the sniping that came out of that thread has been going on for over a week now. d.
RE: (313) Namecalling is Bullsh!t
i agree ken. i just joined a few weeks ago and this is practically all i've seen, but i'm not going to unsub yet because i haven't had a chance to learn and discuss what i came here for. i'd say, if people start sh!t like that and don't go away (and aren't removed from the list), then counter their posts with brand new topics about something interesting to you. hopefully this will drown out the bad with good and keep the good folks around. d. It's unfortunate that a few should occasionally spoil it for many. On the other hand, I would suggest a little perspective. Things are usually sedate, reasonable, and dare I say it, they can be on relatively rare occasions, a little boring round here. There is a happy medium - I'm not going to call it, but I'm sure there is one. You could even suggest that the solution, when this sort of things happens is *not* to unsubscribe, but rather to claim the list for one's own. Be the voice of reason or overwhelm those who sometimes go off at a negative tangent, with communications which have a positive tone. Ken -Original Message- From: Aidan O'Doherty [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 06 September 2006 09:43 To: Klaas-Jan Jongsma Cc: Jason Brunton; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; kent williams; list 313 Subject: Re: (313) Namecalling is Bullsh!t that's a terrible shame. we are losing some important people who are, in my opinion, vital to the quality of this list. if these people leave, then the list will further decline. thinks it's time that lurkers, like myself, should let their feelings be known. this list has, and still can, be a rewarding muscial source. don't know what's happened the last couple of weeks. it has to be just a blip. and they do seem to happen every couple of years . . . . . and usually involve richie hawtin or race. amazing that technology should cause such vitriol, but there you go. lets get things back on track! On 9/6/06, Klaas-Jan Jongsma [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yeah same here, i have had it with the constant name calling, insults and people who's only purpose is to stir up this list. To bad because i have always liked 313 because of its politeness compared to other mailinglists. KJ --- Eevo Lute Muzique http://www.eevolute.com On 6-sep-2006, at 9:49, Jason Brunton wrote: To be honest John, me too- I'm taking a break after 7 years- might come back in a few months to see if things have gotten any better but frankly I doubt it bye Jason On 6 Sep 2006, at 08:26, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree Kent, but it will be too late for me. I'm outahere. If anyone needs to contact me you can reach me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Don't send mails to [EMAIL PROTECTED] I haven't used that mailbox in ages due to spam. Take care everybody, John - Oorspronkelijk bericht - Van: kent williams [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Verzonden: woensdag, september 6, 2006 12:48 AM Aan: 'list 313' Onderwerp: (313) Namecalling is Bullsh!t ... and it should stop.
(313) ellen allien/apparat show
well it's not detroit tchno, but all techno originates from detroit right? then somehow made it over to berlin where people like ellen allien take it in similar but unique directions. so in the spirit of trying to post something actually about techno, here's a blog post i just put up about the show i saw last thursday: http://echoplex.blogspot.com/2006/09/two-hearts-beat-as-one.html if you check the archives, i've written about some other shows like audion that might be of interest to people here. d.
Re: (313) Gloomy Clubs
I read in UK Vogue that there are now clubs orientated to melancholia - one in Islington called Feeling Gloomy and another called Loss run by the Last Tuesday Society. That's pretty cool. I wonder if anyone had heard of them? They look a bit Sloanie to me, like where you'd meet minor Brit aristos Tom Hollander - a bit, yes, I read Byron and listen to Morrissey... yes we called them goth clubs back in the day... ; ) d.
Re: (313) The Laptop Debate - the imitation of sound
kent williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Honestly, what matters besides the actual compositions? maybe i'm taking this one line too much out of context, but that sounds like a frighteningly traditionalist rhetorical question. in one sense i do agree, hence my bringing up that there's something lacking in the actual compositions. it should be about the song. it's true, there are too many bad songs out there with no compositional ability or it's all basically cribbed from radio formula...badly. but there are plenty of forms of music, such as ambient and experimental, where the composition is very, even entirely, dependent on the sound. things that involve subtleties of tone and texture. if those aren't accurately captured and reproduced, the piece just sounds like a drone. even more traditional recorded music in which i believe that special something is partially contained in the way it was captured. does everybody care about this? probably not. does this always mean analog is better? no. i've heard some mp3s on myspace, that were recorded with a simple little mic straight into the computer, and that type of lo-fi fits the songs. it's not the same as if it were done to cassette, but it's the digital equivalent in a sense, noisy but clear. in other cases, i've heard realaudio samples of music and then been disappointed with the official release because the awful bitrate actually make the tracks sound raw in a good way. a good example of this was massive attack's 100th window. I'm enough of a studio rat to care about things are produced, but the actual method that someone uses is irrelevant, except as it facilitates the result. It's not like you can't make sh*t tracks with analog gear. yeah agreed, i said this in a different part of what was originally a longer post. so the bit below is out of context where i talked about how bad some 80s analog stuff was (both gear and music). I program computers for a living, and do the people who use my software to outline the anatomical features of the brain and measure their volume care whether I used a stack, a queue, or a linked list? i think what you're saying is they basically want the result they asked for, which you give them, and the means don't matter. in your example it sounds like you're saying the resulting software is the same no matter what, but what i'm saying is in the case of audio, it isn't. it may seem pretty much the same to most listeners though. this goes back into my other rant about people can't hear anymore because they're used to everything sounding not so good. maybe it's only musicians and an_l retentive audiophiles who care about this? It's easy to play a piano. You just sit down and bang away at the keys. Doesn't make you Glenn Gould innit? too right. On 9/3/06, chthonic streams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: it is much easier to get a track up and going and sounding like something close to what they expect to hear (based on the sound coming out of computers and mp3 players) with software like acid. and so tracks can be completed in a short amount of time without learning much about how to make them sound good (and let's not even get started on the actual composition of the pieces).
Re: (313) The Laptop Debate - the imitation of sound
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Self-appointed golden ears dismiss feeling and creativity, because anyone can appreciate those qualities in music (though not always at first blush, since some tastes are acquired), whereas it takes a genuine superior class of lonely douche to prioritize the production pipeline in their evaluation of a record. i think feeling and creativity are paramount, but if poorly captured sonically, sometimes those things do not come across. without the right mic or compressor we might not hear a certain emotive quality in the singer's voice. without the right balance, all the little things thrown into the background of the music can get lost. without the proper EQ or mastering, the kick drum might not be banging to the level that makes people go insane. it doesn't take golden ears to hear or miss those things. recorded music is not simply music that's been recorded; it's a medium in and of itself, and every step in the chain matters to an extent. but yes, great tracks are made without everything being perfect, and without the initial greatness all the rest is just frosting with no cake. d.
Re: (313) The Laptop Debate.
Not to stir the pot, stir please, what else are email discussion lists for? That being a lot of my favorite Detroit and Chicago tracks were made in a certain way that I think made them more exciting. Specifically, it's setting up a bunch of gear and recording it live to two track, with one or more people working the gear. Drexciya did it that way, as did all the early Chicago house heads. A lot of the classic UR tracks were recorded mostly live. that's inspiring and exciting. not even to multitrack huh? well i guess they didn't have the money to record twice as it were (recording and then mixing) and they came from a different head (DJ culture, mix it live). kinda reminds me about when old timers talk about benny goodman and his orchestra all standing around one microphone. and you can still make great recordings like that too. In order to work that way, those artists had to be as good at running a drum machine, synths, effects and a mixing board. They had to have a definite idea of the sound they wanted. They had to know how to play, and to embrace and roll with happy accidents. there are a lot of skills one has to have to make *good* laptop-based music as well. people on lists like this forget or never heard all the musical travesties made with the same gear. with the glow of hindsight, 80s gear and its results have been romanticized out of proportion. there were loads of analog synths, drum machines, tube amps, and recorders that were just awful. true, there was some excellent gear made, but mostly it was gear that was made famous by someone who took what they had and went with it. their creativity, and subsequent success, is what people *really* want - the gear is just an over-fetishized substitution. having said that i do share some of the same fetish but won't be blinded by it. I honestly think the same thing is possible with Laptops, but maybe we haven't seen the Ron Hardy or Derrick May of the laptop yet. But it's silly to argue that computers, in and of themselves, are the problem. agreed. a big problem when switching over to computer, just like from analog to digital, is that the rules change. the issue is similar to what gareth jones said in an interview about recording with daniel miller and depeche mode: new music goes through a formica stage. some the first analog synths were used to put out things like switched on bach where synths tried to mimic and replace each instrument in a classical orchestra. cute, but why bother? it's not an orchestra so don't try because it will fail misreably and sound cheesy (unless that's what you're going for). a convincing trompe l'oeil (or l'oreille in this case) is hard to do and only works in a controlled environment, which music is not often experienced in. moving from analog to digital we had the same issue, and now again from hardware/sequencer/recorder-based technology to the laptop environment. the tendency is to mimic what's gone before. there is a good deal of laptop music that does not try to be other than what it is, or explores those boundaries rather than trying to make the laptop be a replacement for something else. analog modelers are pretty amazing, but i'm sorry they're not the same. even the ones that are exactly the same except without the unpredicatability and the noise - well, hell, unpredictability and noise are HUGE factors in music. certain plugins go a long way toward warming and fattening up music - but if whatever it's affecting just isn't there in the first place, it's not going to be the same. in recorded sound, the most important element is the source, followed by the initial capturing of that source, and then by whatever you do to it afterward, and finally in the playback. there are some people who turn this on its ear, warping the most incredible things out of something very mundane. but they still started with the original characteristics, which in turn affected the building blocks of their sound. again, having said this, i enjoy some music made on laptops very much, some of it even doing a decent replicating job i sort of spoke against. whatever works. every tool you use has its own characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. do and use whatever makes sense to you. d.
Re: (313) wtf?
Three things shall bar thee from the list of three one and three, from the list of three one and three, three things shall bar thee. 1. Words considered obscene in America, because we're a bunch of wanking gits. 2. Multi-Part Mime, i.e. not 'Plain Text' messages. 3. Posting from an address other than the one with which you're subscribed. A fourth, and rarer situation is if your mail server bounces enough messages from 313, you'll get auto-unsubbed. none of those are the case. turns out there was some minor swearing but i just removed those words and it still hasn't come through. Your message got through. yes, this one. but not the other two, or the two resends of the first one. i've been hearing other such grumblings about initial posts not making it but replies are? and yet the default reply-to for the list is the individual not the group so this isn't possible automatically. i have to double-click on one of the mailto commands in the message header or copy/paste it or use the version in my address book. al of these have failed today and yet this one just trying to narrow down the possible reasons. d.
Re: (313) The Laptop Debate - sound
but maybe we haven't seen the Ron Hardy or Derrick May of the laptop yet. But it's silly to argue that computers, in and of themselves, are the problem. no, true. it's the lifeless,stiff, ear-scratching bright sound that is the problem.. it's like a plastic doll,with or without make-up it's still nothing more than a pathetic substitute.. unlucky imitation of a great thing.. widely accepted as the real thing requires way more skills. i think the limitations of certain aspects of digital technology available to most people (meaning, people who record in 16/44.1 and process the life out of everything using free plugins) is partially at fault. however it's also how people's ears are changing and that has to do with the interface between the computer and the ear. you can't hear what it really sounds like in there if you're using the headphone jack, some sub-par powered speakers, or even a converter box and amp that's not up to snuff. people also listen to music in their earbuds too loud, and the way most mp3s are encoded (the old mp3.com, itunes and myspace being the worst and most widespread offenders) remove many subtleties of warmth and depth. as more and more people get used to this sound, and want everything super-compressed, bright and in your face. sadly this includes some people making music, and they worsen the trend by recording things with no warmth or depth to begin with, or processing until it sounds like what they're used to. there are ways around this, but most don't bother to find them. d.
Re: (313) The Laptop Debate.
Not to stir the pot, stir please, what else are email discussion lists for? That being a lot of my favorite Detroit and Chicago tracks were made in a certain way that I think made them more exciting. Specifically, it's setting up a bunch of gear and recording it live to two track, with one or more people working the gear. Drexciya did it that way, as did all the early Chicago house heads. A lot of the classic UR tracks were recorded mostly live. that's inspiring and exciting. not even to multitrack huh? well i guess they didn't have the money to record twice as it were (recording and then mixing) and they came from a different head (DJ culture, mix it live). kinda reminds me about when old timers talk about benny goodman and his orchestra all standing around one microphone. you can still make great recordings like that too. In order to work that way, those artists had to be as good at running a drum machine, synths, effects and a mixing board. They had to have a definite idea of the sound they wanted. They had to know how to play, and to embrace and roll with happy accidents. there are a lot of skills one has to have to make *good* laptop-based music as well. people on lists like this forget or never heard all the musical travesties made with the same gear. with the glow of hindsight, 80s gear and its results have been romanticized out of proportion. there were loads of analog synths, drum machines, tube amps, and recorders that were just awful. true, there was some excellent gear made, but mostly it was gear that was made famous by someone who took what they had and went with it. their creativity, and subsequent success, is what people *really* want - the gear is just an over-fetishized substitution. having said that i do share some of the same fetish but won't be blinded by it. I honestly think the same thing is possible with Laptops, but maybe we haven't seen the Ron Hardy or Derrick May of the laptop yet. But it's silly to argue that computers, in and of themselves, are the problem. agreed. a big problem when switching over to computer, just like from analog to digital, is that the rules change. the issue is similar to what gareth jones said in an interview about recording with daniel miller and depeche mode: new music goes through a formica stage. some the first analog synths were used to put out things like switched on bach where synths tried to mimic and replace each instrument in a classical orchestra. cute, but why bother? it's not an orchestra so don't try because it will fail misreably and sound cheesy (unless that's what you're going for). a convincing trompe l'oeil (or l'oreille in this case) is hard to do and only works in a controlled environment, which music is not often experienced in. moving from analog to digital we had the same issue, and now again from hardware/sequencer/recorder-based technology to the laptop environment. the tendency is to mimic what's gone before. there is a good deal of laptop music that does not try to be other than what it is, or explores those boundaries rather than trying to make the laptop be a replacement for something else. analog modelers are pretty amazing, but i'm sorry they're not the same. even the ones that are exactly the same except without the unpredicatability and the noise - well, hell, unpredictability and noise are HUGE factors in music. certain plugins go a long way toward warming and fattening up music - but if whatever it's affecting just isn't there in the first place, it's not going to be the same. in recorded sound, the most important element is the source, followed by the initial capturing of that source, and then by whatever you do to it afterward, and finally in the playback. there are some people who turn this on its ear, warping the most incredible things out of something very mundane. but they still started with the original characteristics, which in turn affected the building blocks of their sound. again, having said this, i enjoy some music made on laptops very much, some of it even doing a decent replicating job i sort of spoke against. whatever works. every tool you use has its own characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. do and use whatever makes sense to you. d.
Re: (313) The Laptop Debate.
still trying to get this one through...did some edits so we'll see. Not to stir the pot, stir please, what else are email discussion lists for? That being a lot of my favorite Detroit and Chicago tracks were made in a certain way that I think made them more exciting. Specifically, it's setting up a bunch of gear and recording it live to two track, with one or more people working the gear. Drexciya did it that way, as did all the early Chicago house heads. A lot of the classic UR tracks were recorded mostly live. not even to multitrack huh? well i guess they didn't have the money to record twice as it were (recording and then mixing) and they came from a different place (DJ culture, mix it live). kinda reminds me of when old timers talk about benny goodman and his orchestra all standing around one microphone. you can still make great recordings like that too. In order to work that way, those artists had to be as good at running a drum machine, synths, effects and a mixing board. They had to have a definite idea of the sound they wanted. They had to know how to play, and to embrace and roll with happy accidents. there are a lot of skills one has to have to make good laptop-based music as well. people on lists like this forget or never heard all the musical travesties made with the same gear. with the glow of hindsight, 80s gear and its results have been romanticized out of proportion. there were loads of analog synths, drum machines, tube amps, and recorders that were just awful. true, there was some excellent gear made, but mostly it was gear that was made famous by someone who took what they had and went with it. their creativity, and subsequent success, is what people really want - the gear is just an over-fetishized substitution. having said that i do share some of the same attitude but won't be blinded by it. I honestly think the same thing is possible with Laptops, but maybe we haven't seen the Ron Hardy or Derrick May of the laptop yet. But it's silly to argue that computers, in and of themselves, are the problem. agreed. a big problem when switching over to computer, just like from analog to digital, is that the rules change. the issue is similar to what gareth jones said in an interview about recording with daniel miller and depeche mode: new music goes through a formica stage. some the first analog synths were used to put out things like switched on bach where synths tried to mimic and replace each instrument in a classical orchestra. cute, but why bother? it's not an orchestra so don't try because it will fail misreably and sound cheesy (unless that's what you're going for). a convincing trompe l'oeil (or l'oreille in this case) is hard to do and only works in a controlled environment, which music is not often experienced in. moving from analog to digital we had the same issue, and now again from hardware/sequencer/recorder-based technology to the laptop environment. the tendency is to mimic what's gone before. there is a good deal of laptop music that does not try to be other than what it is, or explores those boundaries rather than trying to make the laptop be a replacement for something else. analog modelers are pretty amazing, but i'm sorry they're not the same. even the ones that are exactly the same except without the unpredicatability and the noise - well, hell, unpredictability and noise are HUGE factors in music. certain plugins go a long way toward warming and fattening up music - but if whatever it's affecting just isn't there in the first place, it's not going to be the same. in recorded sound, the most important element is the source, followed by the initial capturing of that source, and then by whatever you do to it afterward, and finally in the playback. there are some people who turn this on its ear, warping the most incredible things out of something very mundane. but they still started with the original characteristics, which in turn affected the building blocks of their sound. again, having said this, i enjoy some music made on laptops very much, some of it even doing a decent replicating job i sort of spoke against. whatever works. every tool you use has its own characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. do and use whatever makes sense to you. d.
Re: (313) The Laptop Debate.
certain plugins go a long way toward warming and fattening up music - but if whatever it's affecting just isn't there in the first place, it's not going to be the same. in recorded sound, the most important element is the source, followed by the initial capturing of that source, and then by whatever you do to it afterward, and finally in the playback. there are some people who turn this on its ear, warping the most incredible things out of something very mundane. but they still started with the original characteristics, which in turn affected the building blocks of their sound. again, having said this, i enjoy some music made on laptops very much, some of it even doing a decent replicating job i sort of spoke against. whatever works. d. (seeing if one section of my long reply at a time gets through)
Re: (313) The Laptop Debate - the imitation of sound
I honestly think the same thing is possible with Laptops, but maybe we haven't seen the Ron Hardy or Derrick May of the laptop yet. But it's silly to argue that computers, in and of themselves, are the problem. agreed. a big problem when switching over to computer, just like from analog to digital, is that the rules change. the issue is similar to what gareth jones said in an interview about recording with daniel miller and depeche mode: new music goes through a formica stage. some the first analog synths were used to put out things like switched on bach where synths tried to mimic and replace each instrument in a classical orchestra. cute, but why bother? it's not an orchestra so don't try because it will fail misreably and sound cheesy (unless that's what you're going for). a convincing trompe l'oeil (or l'oreille in this case) is hard to do and only works in a controlled environment, which music is not often experienced in. moving from analog to digital we had the same issue, and now again from hardware/sequencer/recorder-based technology to the laptop environment. the tendency is to mimic what's gone before. there is a good deal of laptop music that does not try to be other than what it is, or explores those boundaries rather than trying to make the laptop be a replacement for something else. analog modelers are pretty amazing, but i'm sorry they're not the same. even the ones that are exactly the same except without the unpredicatability and the noise - well, hell, unpredictability and noise are HUGE factors in music. d.
(313) Laptop debate - gear f3tishizm
In order to work that way, those artists had to be as good at running a drum machine, synths, effects and a mixing board. They had to have a definite idea of the sound they wanted. They had to know how to play, and to embrace and roll with happy accidents. there are a lot of skills one has to have to make good laptop-based music as well. people on lists like this forget or never heard all the musical travesties made with the same gear. with the glow of hindsight, 80s gear and its results have been romanticized out of proportion. there were loads of analog synths, drum machines, tube amps, and recorders that were just awful. true, there was some excellent gear made, but mostly it was gear that was made famous by someone who took what they had and went with it. their creativity, and subsequent success, is what people really want - the gear is just an over-f3tishized substitution. having said that i do share some of the same attitude but won't be blinded by it. d. (still chopping up his long reply to find out what art is making the list reject it)
(313) Laptop Debate - imitation
I honestly think the same thing is possible with Laptops, but maybe we haven't seen the Ron Hardy or Derrick May of the laptop yet. But it's silly to argue that computers, in and of themselves, are the problem. agreed. a big problem when switching over to computer, just like from analog to digital, is that the rules change. the issue is similar to what gareth jones said in an interview about recording with daniel miller and depeche mode: new music goes through a formica stage. some of the first analog synths were used to put out things like switched on bach where synths tried to mimic and replace each instrument in a classical orchestra. cute, but why bother? it's not an orchestra so don't try because it will fail misreably and sound cheesy (unless that's what you're going for). a convincing trompe l'oeil (or l'oreille in this case) is hard to do, and only works in a controlled environment, which music is not often experienced in. moving from analog to digital we had the same issue, and now again from hardware/sequencer/recorder-based technology to the laptop environment. the tendency is to mimic what's gone before. there is a good deal of laptop music that does not try to be other than what it is, or explores those boundaries rather than trying to make the laptop be a replacement for something else. analog modelers are pretty amazing, but i'm sorry they're not the same. even the ones that are exactly the same except without the unpredicatability and the noise - well, unpredictability and noise are HUGE factors in music. d. (this was the last piece, let's see if it works)
(313) list issues
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i got the full message..about 7 or 8 times so far... and yet i didn't get it back, except in pieces just today. the only times those pieces worked were when a swear word was removed or misspelled. this is not my provider or host's issue and i don't have a filter that takes out those words. so i don't get why it wasn't coming back. also no one responded to even one part of mine, or said they had gotten it when i hadn't, so i didn't think it was being received by the list. what is with the swear word filter? is it on the list or what? and if so why? i don't think there's one on idm-l, also at hyperreal. can this be changed? d.
Re: (313) The Laptop Debate - the imitation of sound
so what you are saying basically is that laptop and computer music are still in relative infancy so the majority (or at least a large number) of the users/musicians still haven't progressed much beyond the discovery stage. philosophically speaking therefore, this music is not inherently crap, just unripe. or more appropriately, the people are. it is much easier to get a track up and going and sounding like something close to what they expect to hear (based on the sound coming out of computers and mp3 players) with software like acid. and so tracks can be completed in a short amount of time without learning much about how to make them sound good (and let's not even get started on the actual composition of the pieces). i don't think making music needs to be hard in order to produce good results (oh, how i suffer for my art!). however, i believe that in general, rather than easiness being a boon to creativity it has chiefly been a boon to productivity. d.
Re: (313) The Laptop Debate.
Not to stir the pot, stir please, what else are email discussion lists for? That being a lot of my favorite Detroit and Chicago tracks were made in a certain way that I think made them more exciting. Specifically, it's setting up a bunch of gear and recording it live to two track, with one or more people working the gear. Drexciya did it that way, as did all the early Chicago house heads. A lot of the classic UR tracks were recorded mostly live. that's inspiring and exciting. not even to multitrack huh? well i guess they didn't have the money to record twice as it were (recording and then mixing) and they came from a different head (DJ culture, mix it live). kinda reminds me about when old timers talk about benny goodman and his orchestra all standing around one microphone. and you can still make great recordings like that too. In order to work that way, those artists had to be as good at running a drum machine, synths, effects and a mixing board. They had to have a definite idea of the sound they wanted. They had to know how to play, and to embrace and roll with happy accidents. there are a lot of skills one has to have to make *good* laptop-based music as well. people on lists like this forget or never heard all the musical travesties made with the same gear. with the glow of hindsight, 80s gear and its results have been romanticized out of proportion. there were loads of analog synths, drum machines, tube amps, and recorders that just sucked ass. true, there was some excellent gear made, but mostly it was gear that was made famous by someone who took what they had and went with it. their creativity, and subsequent success, is what people *really* want - the gear is just an over-fetishized substitution. having said that i do share some of the same fetish but won't be blinded by it. I honestly think the same thing is possible with Laptops, but maybe we haven't seen the Ron Hardy or Derrick May of the laptop yet. But it's silly to argue that computers, in and of themselves, are the problem. agreed. a big problem when switching over to computer, just like from analog to digital, is that the rules change. the issue is similar to what gareth jones said in an interview about recording with daniel miller and depeche mode: new music goes through a formica stage. some the first analog synths were used to put out things like switched on bach where synths tried to mimic and replace each instrument in a classical orchestra. cute, but why bother? it's not an orchestra so don't try because it will fail misreably and sound cheesy (unless that's what you're going for). a convincing trompe l'oeil (or l'oreille in this case) is hard to do and only works in a controlled environment, which music is not often experienced in. moving from analog to digital we had the same issue, and now again from hardware/sequencer/recorder-based technology to the laptop environment. the tendency is to mimic what's gone before. there is a good deal of laptop music that does not try to be other than what it is, or explores those boundaries rather than trying to make the laptop be a replacement for something else. analog modelers are pretty amazing, but i'm sorry they're not the same. even the ones that are exactly the same except without the unpredicatability and the noise - well, hell, unpredictability and noise are HUGE factors in music. certain plugins go a long way toward warming and fattening up music - but if whatever it's affecting just isn't there in the first place, it's not going to be the same. in recorded sound, the most important element is the source, followed by the initial capturing of that source, and then by whatever you do to it afterward, and finally in the playback. there are some people who turn this on its ear, warping the most incredible things out of something very mundane. but they still started with the original characteristics, which in turn affected the building blocks of their sound. again, having said this, i enjoy some music made on laptops very much, some of it even doing a decent replicating job i sort of spoke against. whatever works. every tool you use has its own characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. do and use whatever makes sense to you. d.
(313) wtf?
i sent 2 replies to the laptop thread, one with identical subject line and one changed - and neither has shown up yet. what's going on with this listserver? idm-l is on hyperreal and doesn't have this issue. d. (wondering if this will get through)
(313) The Laptop Debate - 2nd try
Not to stir the pot, stir please, what else are email discussion lists for? That being a lot of my favorite Detroit and Chicago tracks were made in a certain way that I think made them more exciting. Specifically, it's setting up a bunch of gear and recording it live to two track, with one or more people working the gear. Drexciya did it that way, as did all the early Chicago house heads. A lot of the classic UR tracks were recorded mostly live. that's inspiring and exciting. not even to multitrack huh? well i guess they didn't have the money to record twice as it were (recording and then mixing) and they came from a different head (DJ culture, mix it live). kinda reminds me about when old timers talk about benny goodman and his orchestra all standing around one microphone. and you can still make great recordings like that too. In order to work that way, those artists had to be as good at running a drum machine, synths, effects and a mixing board. They had to have a definite idea of the sound they wanted. They had to know how to play, and to embrace and roll with happy accidents. there are a lot of skills one has to have to make *good* laptop-based music as well. people on lists like this forget or never heard all the musical travesties made with the same gear. with the glow of hindsight, 80s gear and its results have been romanticized out of proportion. there were loads of analog synths, drum machines, tube amps, and recorders that just sucked ass. true, there was some excellent gear made, but mostly it was gear that was made famous by someone who took what they had and went with it. their creativity, and subsequent success, is what people *really* want - the gear is just an over-fetishized substitution. having said that i do share some of the same fetish but won't be blinded by it. I honestly think the same thing is possible with Laptops, but maybe we haven't seen the Ron Hardy or Derrick May of the laptop yet. But it's silly to argue that computers, in and of themselves, are the problem. agreed. a big problem when switching over to computer, just like from analog to digital, is that the rules change. the issue is similar to what gareth jones said in an interview about recording with daniel miller and depeche mode: new music goes through a formica stage. some the first analog synths were used to put out things like switched on bach where synths tried to mimic and replace each instrument in a classical orchestra. cute, but why bother? it's not an orchestra so don't try because it will fail misreably and sound cheesy (unless that's what you're going for). a convincing trompe l'oeil (or l'oreille in this case) is hard to do and only works in a controlled environment, which music is not often experienced in. moving from analog to digital we had the same issue, and now again from hardware/sequencer/recorder-based technology to the laptop environment. the tendency is to mimic what's gone before. there is a good deal of laptop music that does not try to be other than what it is, or explores those boundaries rather than trying to make the laptop be a replacement for something else. analog modelers are pretty amazing, but i'm sorry they're not the same. even the ones that are exactly the same except without the unpredicatability and the noise - well, hell, unpredictability and noise are HUGE factors in music. certain plugins go a long way toward warming and fattening up music - but if whatever it's affecting just isn't there in the first place, it's not going to be the same. in recorded sound, the most important element is the source, followed by the initial capturing of that source, and then by whatever you do to it afterward, and finally in the playback. there are some people who turn this on its ear, warping the most incredible things out of something very mundane. but they still started with the original characteristics, which in turn affected the building blocks of their sound. again, having said this, i enjoy some music made on laptops very much, some of it even doing a decent replicating job i sort of spoke against. whatever works. every tool you use has its own characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. do and use whatever makes sense to you. d.
Re: (313) The Laptop Debate.
Not to stir the pot, stir please, what else are email discussion lists for? That being a lot of my favorite Detroit and Chicago tracks were made in a certain way that I think made them more exciting. Specifically, it's setting up a bunch of gear and recording it live to two track, with one or more people working the gear. Drexciya did it that way, as did all the early Chicago house heads. A lot of the classic UR tracks were recorded mostly live. that's inspiring and exciting. not even to multitrack huh? well i guess they didn't have the money to record twice as it were (recording and then mixing) and they came from a different head (DJ culture, mix it live). kinda reminds me about when old timers talk about benny goodman and his orchestra all standing around one microphone. and you can still make great recordings like that too. In order to work that way, those artists had to be as good at running a drum machine, synths, effects and a mixing board. They had to have a definite idea of the sound they wanted. They had to know how to play, and to embrace and roll with happy accidents. there are a lot of skills one has to have to make *good* laptop-based music as well. people on lists like this forget or never heard all the musical travesties made with the same gear. with the glow of hindsight, 80s gear and its results have been romanticized out of proportion. there were loads of analog synths, drum machines, tube amps, and recorders that just sucked ass. true, there was some excellent gear made, but mostly it was gear that was made famous by someone who took what they had and went with it. their creativity, and subsequent success, is what people *really* want - the gear is just an over-fetishized substitution. having said that i do share some of the same fetish but won't be blinded by it. I honestly think the same thing is possible with Laptops, but maybe we haven't seen the Ron Hardy or Derrick May of the laptop yet. But it's silly to argue that computers, in and of themselves, are the problem. agreed. a big problem when switching over to computer, just like from analog to digital, is that the rules change. the issue is similar to what gareth jones said in an interview about recording with daniel miller and depeche mode: new music goes through a formica stage. some the first analog synths were used to put out things like switched on bach where synths tried to mimic and replace each instrument in a classical orchestra. cute, but why bother? it's not an orchestra so don't try because it will fail misreably and sound cheesy (unless that's what you're going for). a convincing trompe l'oeil (or l'oreille in this case) is hard to do and only works in a controlled environment, which music is not often experienced in. moving from analog to digital we had the same issue, and now again from hardware/sequencer/recorder-based technology to the laptop environment. the tendency is to mimic what's gone before. there is a good deal of laptop music that does not try to be other than what it is, or explores those boundaries rather than trying to make the laptop be a replacement for something else. analog modelers are pretty amazing, but i'm sorry they're not the same. even the ones that are exactly the same except without the unpredicatability and the noise - well, hell, unpredictability and noise are HUGE factors in music. certain plugins go a long way toward warming and fattening up music - but if whatever it's affecting just isn't there in the first place, it's not going to be the same. in recorded sound, the most important element is the source, followed by the initial capturing of that source, and then by whatever you do to it afterward, and finally in the playback. there are some people who turn this on its ear, warping the most incredible things out of something very mundane. but they still started with the original characteristics, which in turn affected the building blocks of their sound. again, having said this, i enjoy some music made on laptops very much, some of it even doing a decent replicating job i sort of spoke against. whatever works. every tool you use has its own characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. do and use whatever makes sense to you. d.
Re: (313) problems posting, carl craig, melancholic techno, hawtin, mills, b***hfest, arsenal, dublin
On 8/25/06, Aidan O'Doherty [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i've discovered that i can only post to 313 using my gmail account by replying to someone else's mail. and even then i'm not sure if it's showing up on the list (doesn't seem to be working either). anyone know why this could be happening? i had the same kind of issue - posted my own cease fire about the bitchfest to the list and it never came through. perhaps this was because i changed the subject line? we'll see if this one makes it. d.
Re: (313) Hawtin Bashing
Or people talking about his genius for self-promotion, marketing and running a business? hah! sounds like to a lot of people, hawtin is the madonna of techno. d.
Re: (313) Melodic techno (was new planet e)
Can't speak for the others, but I'm talking about a general trend rather than any specific artists. If you compare current releases with those of say 10 years ago, they have in general become far smoother, cleaner and, in a way, colder. I rarely hear new material with the depth and warmth of B12, Stasis, GPR etc, or the raw grit of older UR and Planet E tracks. you could lodge this complaint against some of the ghostly/spectral stuff, but for the most part it sounds great to me. I think this comes down to the increasing use of software that allows a 'perfect' sound to be created, and also a stylistic trend (mirroring the development of other sounds such as minimal house and techno where this clean feel has been an integral part of the style). absolutely. i know someone who's happy to get his hands on software versions of classic analog synths ands says they sound exactly the same, except without the noise! well then they don't sound the same. noise is part of the sound. even if you then try to remove the noise through gates and filter, that's going to be different than a totally clean vitual synth. the problem is often VST instruments and plugins don't create noise, they don't have a lot of character. they do different things, but the overall sound is the same or very similar because it's all generated inside a box - and the end result usually sounds like it. i'm sure there are artists creating things on laptops with no raw material from outside it that is kicking stuff. maybe they've discovered some secret combination of plugins and frequency boosters, or maybe it gets masterd through an analog compressor. It's a very subjective thing, a lot of people seem to feel that striving for the so-called perfect production is an essential development, but personally I'm far more into a sound that gives more rawness, warmth and depth than one which is ultra crisp and clean. i agree, although again it depends on what you like or what the artist wants to express. i've been getting into very gritty analog synth bleeps and farts which is why i joined this list. d.
