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Conference napalm::commusic_v1

Title:	* * Computer Music, MIDI, and Related Topics * *
Notice:	Conference has been write-locked. Use new version.
Moderator:	DYPSS1::SCHAFER

Created:	Thu Feb 20 1986
Last Modified:	Mon Aug 29 1994
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	2852
Total number of notes:	33157

2231.0. "A USENET Noter On The Sad State of Electronic Music" by AQUA::ROST (Everyone loves those dead presidents) Wed Jan 10 1990 08:12

    The following is a note I came across on USENET, written by one Mike
    Metlay, a devoted Oberheim freak and generally rather intelligent guy.
    This note is mostly a flame on modern synthesis driving analog out of
    business (you out there Dan Eaton and Len Fehskens?), due to a USENET
    noter saying he had no need for *filters* in his synth (I guess he was
    asking for this) and I'm sure the USENET will be buzzing with replies
    today.  Anyway, I thought this had a lot of food for thought here.
    
    						Brian

    DISCLAIMER: The following is not a reasoned argument. The following is a
gut-level response to some fairly innocuous posts that were utterly
undeserving of such treatment, that will offend a lot of readers with its
narrowmindedness, vehemence, arrogance, bombast, and personal insult. The
points made below could indeed have been made in a more diplomatic fashion; it
was my choice simply not to do so. 
 
If you are in fact offended by what I have to say here, please go crawl into a 
hole and die. Thank you.
 
********
 
Okay, people, I've had about enough of this newsgroup. I'm stuck in the 
butthole end of East Tennessee, in an office on top of a poorly shielded 
nuclear beam dump with no hope of getting back to Pittsburgh (and Milady
Metlay) for at least a month, and rec.music.synth opens up discussion threads
on analog synthesis, the value of filters, and the concept of the workstation
as a usable object, most of which are subjects about which I've posted at
length in various forums (fori? fora? best to retreat gracefully, methinks)
and all of which are matters about which I feel strongly enough to lend my
voice to the discussion, and they have the GALL to wait to bring these matters
up until I'm stuck at the tag-end of a very iffy TELnet link which prevents me
from doing anything other than reading my newsfeeds remotely: no replies, no
followups, and a scan speed of approximately 90 seconds PER PAGE, ARGH! 
 
Well, it's going to take more than an average transmission speed of about 
3.14159 baud to stop ME, folx! Grrr! Rrowf! 
 
{ahem}
 
1. Nick, I don't know if you have copies of the articles I wrote on
workstation alternatives and choices for EMUSIC-L, but could you post them
here if you do, or ask someone on EMUSIC-L to dig them up? Thanx. (I'm 
particularly concerned with the one where I issue a blanket condemnation of 
workstations in particular and the synth industry in general, and the one in 
which I successively urinate (figuratively speaking, of course) on every synth 
currently on the market.)
 
2. Kiyoshi, congratulations on your purchase of an Xpander. You are now a REAL
synthesist, as opposed to a digitoid wanker. $1300 was a great price, Dan was
right about the lack of resets (but holding STORE and pressing CLEAR lets you
install a "vanilla" initialized patch in any memory location you've chosen,
and there's a RESET function for MIDI on the Master Page), I'll xerox my
manual for you if you don't mind waiting a month until I make it back to
Pittsburgh, and Oberheim has indeed been sold again, to whom I don't know for 
sure although Gibson has been mentioned on this newsgroup, and the company's 
future is uncertain. But don't let that worry you. The Xpander is a TANK.
Oh, yes, and if you'd like to join the Xpander Users' Group, send a SASE to 
MysTech/XUG, P.O.Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675. Membership is free.
 
3. I consider sequencers to be worthwhile for people who can't lug computers 
around easily. I consider the current attitude of the music biz regarding them 
to be utterly reprehensible. I won't elaborate unless Nick can't find my 
anti-industry diatribes to post (see #1 above).
 
4. John, as far as I'm concerned you've quoted me in a perfectly fine manner.
You CAN'T miss what you've never had. But as little as two years ago, I'd have 
laughed if anyone had told me that we were about to see a new wave of 
electronic musicians who neither had nor missed FILTERS...! 
 
The mind utterly boggles. 
 
Are we so set on the Next Big Thing, so determined to keep up with the cutting 
edge of synthesis technology, that we can cast aside the most important parts 
of our history and not even care? This is appalling! If a classical musician 
were to claim a comprehensive knowledge of "the important stuff" in music 
history, then start his own personal time line with Ravel or Debussy, he'd be 
spat on! If a man claims to be a physicist, he had damn well better understand 
the importance of Kepler, Galileo, and Newton in addition to Einstein and 
Heisenberg! And the field of electronic music is no different, I say, no 
different at all.
 
It's the nature of human knowledge to build on what has gone before. NO ONE 
can claim to have originated something entirely new without the benefit of 
some input from the world around him. It is also the nature of human 
fickleness to discard old fashions for new ones, and to disdain that which is 
not modern. In fact there are those who argue that electronic music was built 
on just such a desire, to step away from the "old way" of making music and to 
try something exciting and different and fresh. But go back and read what the 
fathers of our movement had to say about the place of electronics in music! 
Ussachevsky, Luening, Henry, Schaeffer, and many others all understood the 
vitality of acoustic instrumentation, and sought to augment it with the new 
sounds. I believe it was Ussachevsky that said: "Our vision was not to destroy 
the traditional orchestra, but to place a new section beside the woodwinds and 
the strings." He was referring to musique concrete, but the same could have 
been applied to synthesizers as well. One doesn't discard history in the name 
of newness!
 
To truly understand and exploit the power of the synthesizer requires a great
deal of knowledge and skill. The synthesist is simultaneously musician, 
engineer, scientist and technician, in the fashion of the Baroque musicians 
who could quickly repair or adjust their own instruments without recourse to 
someone who knew how. Is this vital? Not for a classicist, of course: the body 
of knowledge on proper and expressive technique no longer includes any real 
exploration of how to adjust the bridge on a violin or stretch-tune a piano.
The hands are placed, so: and the sound is in tune and melodious. Shifting the 
hands, so: the tuning slips, and the tone suffers. The hands and the heart 
control the instrument, and the technical details are left for others. Isn't 
that the ideal toward which synthesists should strive?
 
NO, GODDAMMIT!
 
We haven't GOT a centuries-old history behind us! We aren't working with 
designs that have been largely fixed since the Renaissance! We are MAKING
HISTORY! We are doing applied research in the science of synthesizer 
development. We are on the cutting edge, and we are writing the history books 
with every note we play and with every trend we support or disown. To ignore 
the work of those whose lifeblood was poured into the birth of instruments 
only a few short years before our own is worse than benighted ignorance; it's 
musical Lysenkoism of the worst kind. There is no tradition upon which we can 
fall, and no history upon which we can draw, other than that of the tape 
machine and the modular synthesizer. And to ignore one in favor of the other 
is to effectively throw away the influence of every instrument prior to the 
invention of digital memory storage. Except the Mellotron, of course.
 
Kids these days are oohing and ahhing over the wonderful new Ensoniq 
keyboards that utilize polyphonic aftertouch, and saying in awe, "How'd they 
anticipate something as new as THIS when they created MIDI?" The answer, of 
course, is that they didn't; one of the men who designed the MIDI spec was 
also a designer of a forgotten analog synthesizer called the Prophet-T8. It 
had release velocity and poly aftertouch, and until the Oberheim Xpander and 
the Ensoniq SQ80 came along, nothing else did. (Never heard of it? That's not 
surprising; they were rare and expensive, and were introduced in the same year 
as the DX7. Tough break. Used ones go for ridiculous amounts nowadays, as few 
folx who've used them will let them go.) So tell me: where would we be if the 
people at Ensoniq had never wanted to investigate why the design engineers at 
Sequential busted their butts to get an impossible keyboard action to work, 
years ago?
 
That's only one example of a reverence for history making itself felt in the 
creation of the new. There are others, but I won't belabor the point. The 
point is that these occasions are gorwing rarer with every model year, due to
trends in the music industry these days of providing the features, not that 
the player wants, but that the designer finds it easy to give. If they're 
glitzy and exciting, so much the better. Filtering dynamically in the digital 
domain is difficult. Doing so with resonance is much more difficult. So most 
people don't bother including them at all these days; after all, analog (ech) 
filters are costly and noisy, and who misses them at all, anyway? Not too many 
years ago, Korg introduced the Poly 800, whose voices all shared one common 
filter in real time, and it was shunned by all but the most financially 
strapped synthesists (polyphony for under a grand? Yow!). Nowadays Kawai puts 
out a synth with no filters at all (the K1) and people snap them up like 
hotcakes (sample playback for under a grand? Yow!). The inclusion of resonant 
filtering in the digital domain, as seen on the Emax II, SY77, and K4, is the 
flexing of the creative muscles of the designers. I would like to believe that 
they're doing it because they miss filtering on their synths, and they feel 
that we miss it too. But I know that what's more likely is that they just want 
to see what their DSP engines can successfully convolute (yeow, a new 
buzzword) without gagging. Enjoy filtering while it's there, people, I don't
think it'll last long. 
 
The modern "synthesizer" is an abomination. It's a tape recorder that plays 
back someone else's idea of a good sound, and soothes what little sense of 
loss in the synthesist's mind that might remain with platitudes like "editing 
of effects and enveloping" or "new waveforms available on RAM cards". Nobody 
programs any more, and nobody cares. The industry, in overstretching itself 
and grasping for more and more profits, has cut the legs out from under the 
slow and well-rooted process of growth that the 1960s and 1970s represented. 
There were good things accomplished in the 1980s, to be sure; the synthesizer 
became something anyone could afford, and took the science of synthesis out of 
the ivory towers of the biggest studios and universities, to where we all can 
enjoy it. But the consumerization of the synthesizer has run wild, and taken 
us all with it. They're no longer exciting machines that dare us to be 
creative with them; they're beautiful-sounding machines that lull us with 
hundreds of gorgeous presets and threaten us with impossible user interfaces 
and gaps in their architecture, like a lack of filters. The carrot and stick, 
combined to guide the musician in the direction preferred by the industry, 
i.e. toward the next synth to be put up for sale.
 
I wish I could put a Minimoog in the hands of every young synthesist who 
doesn't know why you'd want a filter anyway. Or better yet, an Xpander; 
fifteen filter modes to choose from! But why stop there? How about a nice 
Serge modular system, or a venerable ARP 2500, where you connect the modules 
and create the sound yourself, block by block, not beg for it from a computer 
screen and data slider? Analog synthesis is not making a comeback, people.
It was always there, just waiting for us to remember it. And those of us who 
never forgot haave a leg up on the rest of you, but that's okay, you can 
learn. With a razor blade and a loop of tape I can create an echo so long no 
DDL could ever match it, or a looped sample that would choke anything short of 
a Fairlight. With a modular Moog I can create brasses that would send shivers 
down the spine of the jaded kids who hear the pathetic bleatings of yet 
another sampled trumpet and yawn, "So who needs trumpets anyway? Get back to 
that killer piano!" And I resent like hell the fact that there are people out 
there who not only refuse to acknowledge my abilities or those of any other 
analog synthesist, but who are too ignorant to even encompass where they're 
lacking in understanding! I have nothing but contempt for that breed of 
so-called "creative artist." 
 
You say you want to build DSP boards from Hell, or write a program that'll do
things we've only dreamed of to a sound? Great! Go to it! But don't turn your
back on what went before you, whether from a sense of "modernness" or simply
because you're thinking the way the industry wants you to think. If you don't
understand the power of analog synthesis or of tape editing, then you can't
claim to be a knowledgeable electronic musician, because you've built your
house of knowledge on a foundation of slipping sand. Your prattlings about
programmable modulation routings (big deal, the Xpander's are five years older
than the Proteus's, and better in a number of ways) and clean sound (I'm
sorry, but I'll take the background noise of a well-built analog synth over
the crunch in an overtaxed effects chip any day) are wasted, because, simply
put, you don't have the foggiest idea of what you're talking about. 
 
Are you offended? Good. Are you going to flame me? Flame away. Are you going 
to think about what I've said, and admit whether or not it might have any 
reference to you? Well, that's your decision. If you listen, and learn, then 
maybe someday we can speak to one another as peers. But if you're going to 
ignore me and stomp back to your digital sample playback box in a huff and 
bang on your not-quite-perfect Bosendorfer (loudly enough to obscure the 
grungy bits, of course) until you forget about me, then that's your right as 
well. Just don't waste my time telling me how much you know.
 
*********
 
Whew, that felt good. Now to put on my asbestos suit and check my oxygen
tanks; I have a feeling it's going to get a mite warm in here pretty soon.
 
Tallyho from B.F. Nowhere, Tennessee,
 
 
 
 
-- 
metlay			      | 
                              | "Coito Ergo Sum. Y'know whattam sayin'?"
[email protected]	      |
[email protected] |						zrgynl

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
2231.1	HEAVY FLAME!	MILKWY::JANZEN	Tom FXO-01/28 228-5421 MSI ECL Test	`Wed Jan 10 1990 08:37`	5
	1. Vladmir ussachesvsky is dead as of last week. 2. The verb is "convolve" 3. I was just thinking I could use a filter sweep, and am glad the PAiA box is in the closet. Tom
2231.2	A Synth Without Filters is Like A Day Without Sunshine	DRUMS::FEHSKENS		`Wed Jan 10 1990 10:09`	12
	Thanks to Tom for saving me from having to grammatically nitpick. "Convolute" indeed! If anything, that would be a noun. Have things really gotten this bad? We were talking about filters and cost and digital corner cutting last week at LERDS-BIM. Right on top of things, we are... len (keeper of the analog flame, as it were - I still have my Juno, and my two Super Jupiters and Super JX will keep me in analog heaven forever. Sure am glad I snapped up a Matrix-1000 before Oberheim gets digitized).
2231.3	not sure I agree	DYO780::SCHAFER	Brad - boycott hell.	`Wed Jan 10 1990 10:53`	44
	Hmm. I'm not sure whether to agree with Mr. Metlay's diatribe or post a rebuttal. I think his points about today's latest, nifty neato-whizbang synth are entirely appropriate. There are a LOT of people who think that they're great just because they know how to quantize. And I do think that there is a real tendency for people to want others to do the hard work for them (eg, sample players, since sampling is a difficult process). However, that does not reflect on the technology ... and in no way indicates that synth-hackers are declining in number. Proportionally, maybe. Abolsutely? I doubt it. Anyway, I think part of his flame is misdirected. I love my Oberheim, and I love my MKS70 - two old analog beasties that still put out some mean voltage ... but you can't approach the sound quality or complexity of the Proteus with one of these. Better yet - take every analog module you can beg, borrow or steal, and give me a 4 note piano that even approximates the Kurzweil's. You can't. I need one. And I'm not keen on carting a Yamaha G3J with me whereever I go. The ability afforded us by machines like Proteus should NOT be derided simply because some stupid kid with a sequencer might have a rich old man who bought one for him - or just because David Bryan makes millions in spite or his ignorance. C'mon - let's apply the same mind set to a Les Paul, Start, or Marshall stack ... don't flame the instruments or technology because of the user community. Hey - I miss filters as much as the next guy. I've twiddled the OB filter on every custom patch I've ever written. But I also understand the processing involved in the digital domain, and I wouldn't want some noisy analog thing on my Proteus ... I guess what I'm saying is that on that machine, I can live without it. But you can't have my OB or MKS. And if I buy a sampler in the next year, you can bet it will be the EMAX II. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's plenty of room in the musical realm for lots of different types of synthesis. Sure, analog is a great learning experience, and it can make some wonderful sounds ... but I don't hear anyone griping too loudly about being able to punch a button on their Xpander (or MKS, or OB-Xa, or T8, or ____) and recalling in a few milliseconds a patch that it took 24 days to perfect. -b
2231.4	A Good Argument, But Flawed	AQUA::ROST	Everyone loves those dead presidents	`Wed Jan 10 1990 11:17`	18
	I think the subtext to Mr. Metlay's note is that there is a difference between keyboard players and electronic musicians. I think where Mr. Metlay gets out of line is that he is taking a somewhat snobbish view of synth owners. Most of the MIDI gear I see out in use for live performance is just there to emulate bulkier, more expensive instruments, i.e. pianos, organs, etc. and the elctronic textures they allow are just gravy. I'm sure there are plenty of Mirage or DX-7 owners playing in GB bands who think musique concrete is French for heavy metal. I remember an old friend of mine (who introduced me to tape looping, musique concrete and home-brew synths back in 1972) telling me he thought that bands like ELP and Yes would ruin electronic music by turning the synthesizer into a glorified organ. In effect, that has happened, at least at the mass market level. Brian
2231.5	Yes But	DRUMS::FEHSKENS		`Wed Jan 10 1990 11:32`	28
	I mostly agree with what you're saying Brad, but I think you've missed something implicit in the subject flame. And that is a strong trend towards imitative rather than creative synthesis. Your remark about needing a piano and not being able to get a good one on an analog synth supports that. The comparison (in another note) of the Kurzweil boxes vs. various other machines was defined almost entirely in terms of imitative synthesis abilities. The question of "synthetic" (!) sounds was almost irrelevant. The name of the instrument, "synthesizer", has almost become an anachronism. We don't synthesize anymore ("What you mean 'we', white man?"), well, hardly. We playback. To get around munchkinization or the Darth Vader effect, we multisample. Whatever happened to keyboard scaling of envelope parameters? Nobody knows anything about sound anymore. Want "synthetic" sounds? Sample them from some white elephant programmed by a gnarly old dude with gray hair and a wierd vocabulary. I don't think Metlay's berating the new technology as much as he is lamenting the demise of not so much an old technology as an old attitude about technology. The current generation of "synthesists" is really just a generation of "keyboard players" - it's just a box to them, and if the presets don't hack it, just go buy a different box. How many times have you heard a jingle or soundtrack or song and been able to identify a specific patch? We don't identify players by their unique sounds any more, we identify their instruments' presets! len.
2231.6	Little or No Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing	DRUMS::FEHSKENS		`Wed Jan 10 1990 11:44`	13
	re .4 (which got posted while I was writing .5) - yep, that's a different way of saying what I was saying. I think the issue then boils down to whether one thinks this is good or bad. I don't think snobbery has anything to do with it. It's more a matter of debasing the coin of the realm. I guess the bottom line for me is that one of my fundamental precepts is "it never hurts to understand what you're doing, and it often hurts not to". What I see is a generation of "musicians" who don't know what it is they're doing. len.
2231.7	but, yes	MILKWY::JANZEN	Tom FXO-01/28 228-5421 MSI ECL Test	`Wed Jan 10 1990 12:21`	19
	These studio hacks and lounge players never knew how to build a piano, or how to build a rhodes, or how to make a saxophone, or very much about how the violin they played was made, or anything of the sort, They didn't know the speed of sound in dry air at sea level 20C, or the function of the cochlea, or the thermodynamic equations for acoustic propagation. including how their own voice works, how the resonant cavities in their heads (particularly large ones in their cases) affect the formant of their vocal sound. Why should they know how their mks20 works? What do want, they should be DSP weenies before they play "feelings" in public on an FM KB? In fact, the tech weenies spend hours and hoursl making patches, trying different ways of hooking up the gear in multinational networks, while the rest of us are making MUSIC, remember music??? Tom
2231.8	Play the way you want	SMURF::NEWHOUSE		`Wed Jan 10 1990 13:19`	14
	I think that the spending hours making patches and hooking up gear may actually contribute to music. Getting what you want when you want it may be good for zipping out a jingle or following a given mode or so on. But I think that the hours experimenting actually gives that magical 'wow - that fits' feel as it stumbles out into the sound. The Beatle's S.Pepper and White Albums are two very good pop examples of what happens with experimentation and hooking things up and trying to find sounds. It is also nice to select the 'killer piano patch' and play. Seems to be a personal choice of how someone likes to doodle, and invest money. -Tim
2231.9	I love sound as much as music...	LOOKUP::ADSUPPORT		`Wed Jan 10 1990 13:43`	15
	I know very well about this. My musical equipment at the moment includes a Yamaha PSR-60 keyboard and my mom's (grandma's originally) piano. In another two months or so, I'm going to be able to afford a bass guitar and a small amp, used. I have a lot of fun with the cheapo stuff I play; I even made a percussion set out of coffee cans. But one thing no one (except the COMMUSICIANS and some of my music buddies) seems to understand is my love of sounds. This is quite different than my love of music. Like I said, I can bang on pots, and play a $150 keyboard, to make music. But the reason I want the most expensive synth, the newest bells and whistles, is just to make the incredible sounds you can only hear on them. The textures in audio enjoyment are so incredible these days, that I would buy one even if I couldn't play a single chord. Well, then again, I will when I get the money... --mikie--
2231.10	did I say anything? no? {yawn}	DYO780::SCHAFER	Brad - boycott hell.	`Wed Jan 10 1990 15:37`	36
	Okay, Len & Brian - points well taken. I guess I view myself as understanding at least the basics of synthesis. My first piece was an old Arp (I owned 3), I've played with modular and "packaged" Moogs (MiniMoog and PolyMoog), I've owned many and varied types of synths. I don't consider myself an ignorant musician, much less technically ignorant when it comes to synthesis (although I couldn't sit down and write a DSP algortihm from scratch like Tom might be able to ... but how many of these "super" techno-weenies could build a Matrix-6? the argument is irrelevant). The only serious "canned" patch I've ever used was the ESQ DIGPNO, and I'd use it again, given the opportunity. I don't see anything wrong with using "canned" patches - a canned patch is simply one that you didn't write. If it sounds good, who cares? I guess I take a bit of personal offense to his ravings. After all, I use sequencers. I own a Proteus with no filters, and I've even been known to use a canned patch. So what? Don't throw me out with the bathwater. I appreciate Metlay's deploring of the industry's tendency to build units oriented toward the ignorant (or outright stupid) ... but there are still the EMAX IIs, and the 6op FM beasties, Prophets and Oberheim OB series - and yues, even the old Oberheim, ARP, Moog, and Serge analog systems if you're willing to look for them. Am I superior because I know how to use and program most of these? I don't think so. In my experience, the people who really shine are the people who DO know how to use the technology they have. David Bryan will fade just like any other "king of the presets". Chick Corea and Wendy Carlos will be a musical forces long after their deaths. Quality lasts. -b
2231.11	gee, maybe I could ;-)	MILKWY::JANZEN	Tom FXO-01/28 228-5421 MSI ECL Test	`Wed Jan 10 1990 15:44`	6
	I cannot write a lot of DSP routines, although I have just written convolution and deconvolution routines for sampling oscilloscope waveforms in order to study the possibility of recovering corrupted waveforms with discrete deconvolution using an algorithm described in an NIST (NBS) paper by Nahman, and they worked on real data. Tom
2231.12	Send your check or money order to...	LOOKUP::ADSUPPORT		`Wed Jan 10 1990 15:48`	6
	Brad, what about the people who can understand and use the equipment they DON'T have?!?? :77 --mikie--
2231.13	in typical new age fashion ...	DYO780::SCHAFER	Brad - boycott hell.	`Wed Jan 10 1990 16:01`	3
	Hey, I don't solve problems, I just create them. &*} -b
2231.14	Specialization is for insects.	GUESS::YERAZUNIS	This is _intense_!	`Wed Jan 10 1990 17:23`	13
	My feelings exactly; how _precisely_ you hold a violin, or how you tweak a tracking generator; these are the things that distinguish acceptable from great. People who don't know how to adjust things shouldn't mess around with things that can be adjusted... and a synth with no adjustments is no better (except, perhaps, cheaper) than a conventional blow-in/hit/pinch/pluck instrument. Of course, you also need to have the chops to be recognized as "great", but anybody can get chops, right? :-) -Bill
2231.15	The Ultimate Democracy - We All Sound The Same	DRUMS::FEHSKENS		`Thu Jan 11 1990 09:23`	19
	re .-* - it's the synthesis of Bill's and Tom's arguments that makes my point. Even if you are step time sequencing techno dweeb weenie, understanding and mastering the technique of your instrument is the thing that separates the hacks from the virtuosos. And when the instrument is electronic, a big chunk of the expressiveness comes from being able to do more than simply invoke a preset and play an organ keyboard. (I wonder if any of our organist friends would care to comment about how the great organists distinguished themselves from one another ?) Tom's assertion that great pianists don't need to know how to build pianos or understand the vibration of strings is irrelevant - it's obviously possible to be a recognizably unique virtuoso on the piano without such knowledge. But how does one become a recognizably unique virtuoso on the synthesizer if you sound like everyone else, and haven't got the vaguest idea about how to define your own "sound"? len.
2231.16	Just play	NWACES::PHILLIPS		`Thu Jan 11 1990 10:05`	19
	I am a little confused here. What is point being made? or Why is it even made? What does being a synth programmer have to do with playing 'good' music? Is Bo Tomlyn a great musican because he know how to program patches? Is Herbie Hancock a lame musican if he uses presets? What do you respond to when you hear music? How hip the programming is? Or well the music is played/arranged/composed? Will you turn your radio off because someone is using a preset? If we all need to try so different, why is everyone trying to get that grand piano sound? I play an acoustic guitar and it sounds pretty mush like every other guitar, (just one preset) like my piano. Personally, I react to the sounds and how they are delivered/preformed, the fact that the performer may be tech wiz has nothing to do with it. Well that's the way I feel anyway. Errol
2231.17	Consolidation = Stagnation ?	AQUA::ROST	Everyone loves those dead presidents	`Thu Jan 11 1990 10:45`	38
	Re: .16 I think you're missing the whole point. The issue being raised was not that we have people using presets, but rather that instruments for use in further experimentation in electronic music are hard to come by. The reason that people like Varese wanted to use electronic instruments was not so they could get a piano sound from a 20 lb. box but that they could create totally new timbres, in order to express music not realizable on existing instruments. The author of .0 was stating that he felt people were missing the forest for the trees. I have to agree that when I got excited about electronic music listening to Frank Zappa, Edgar Varese, John Cage, Morton Subotnick, Walter/Wendy Carlos, etc. in the late sixties, I wasn't imagining that it would pave the way for Duran Duran and Run DMC! There's nothing wrong with using modern technology to emulate "real" sounds. A Hammond B3 was just an attempt to make a portable organ (moved your pipe organ around lately?), not the holy grail. The reason everyone wants a killer piano is that it's easier to record or gig with an electronic simulation than to use the real thing (I used to play in top 40 bands, so I understand the reasoning quite well). But to think that many of the "new age" artists out there are pushing the envelope of electronic music is kind of absurd. We're in a period of consolidation (stagnation?), where we've finally got nice, stable performing instruments that allow lots of timbres to be easily recalled and are polyphonic. Now I'd like to see someone go beyond that and make some music that moves me the way my first listen to "Poeme Electonique" did. Brian P.S. If you don't know what "Poeme Electronique" is, then that's part of the problem that .0 is referring to. Brian
2231.18	I'm a DD groupie...	LOOKUP::ADSUPPORT		`Thu Jan 11 1990 10:56`	9
	Hey, what's wrong with Duran Duran? Nick used those analog wonders back in the day, Roland Jupiters and Junos if I remember correctly. When I get a synth, that's the first type of sound I'm going to try to duplicate, is that half Rhodes, half breath flange patch they used for Rio. {sniff} I liked them... --mikie--
2231.19	Lowest Common Denominators	DRUMS::FEHSKENS		`Thu Jan 11 1990 11:10`	34
	re .16 - yes, you missed the whole point. You can take two great pianists, and sit them in front of the same instrument, and they will sound different. You can take two great violinists, have them play the same violin, and they will sound different. (No stupid jokes about playing the same instrument at the same time necessary). No, I don't turn off the radio when I hear a preset, although it does become tiresome when you hear the same patches over and over again, e.g., DX-7 electric piano, or D-50 Fantasy. When I hear a piano or a violin (a real one!), it's never exactly the same sound played exactly the same way. Yeah, your guitar sounds "pretty much" like any other guitar, but I'll bet there's something recognizably distinct about your sound. And that difference comes from your knowledge of the guitar as an instrument. I'm not grinding the same ax as Brian or the USENET guy, though I do agree with their concerns - here's an incredibly expressive technology going to waste because people want to use it mostly just to save them the hassle of hauling a real piano around (or buying one). And because the marketplace has defined the problem that way, designers are shifting to instruments optimized for imitative rather than creative synthesis. And, no, they haven't all gone that way, yet. But there's a pretty strong trend. My ax has to do with artists staking out a style of their own. You can argue with me as to whether or not that's relevant, but it seems to me that one clear consequence of the design trend cited (and lamented) in the base note is a loss of opportunities for individually unique expression. len.
2231.20	light dawns	DYO780::SCHAFER	Brad - boycott hell.	`Thu Jan 11 1990 12:38`	32
	RE: Mikie Bell Nick Rhodes, eh? Well, I suppose he had the hottest index finger in the business a few years ago ... &} (Sorry, couldn't resist.) RE: Len (.19) Now I understand. And I agree complete. The is darn little diversity nowadays. Perhaps rather than beating the "what's wrong with modern music" dead horse more, we should take this a step farther: What do you* do to define your style? In other words, what aspect of your playing/programming/performance distinguishes you from everyone else? In my case, I have several pet patches on each of my instruments that I use to define my SOUND. Some are my own from scratch (most on the Oberheim), some are variants of presets, some may be factory presets. I try to use a single, consistent drum kit on the HR16, only one or two bass patches, and lots of "filtered" sounds. I also like to layer lots of synths together to get "new" sounds. As for performance, I like to use pitch bend and aftertouch to emulate a guitar/sax style expression, and I like to play very fast. I suppose it would be hard to do that if I didn't understand my instruments, though. -b
2231.21	the microprocessor school of composition	MILKWY::JANZEN	Tom FXO-01/28 228-5421 MSI ECL Test	`Thu Jan 11 1990 14:42`	15
	My own style consists of sine-varying medians and ranges for pitch, dynamics, duration and thickness in any of various old scales on a piano patch through a simple reverb. In short, the computer improvises the music. That's my style. Interested parties who send a blank tape will get a unique rendition (master, no backups) of the program. I am warming up to trading my piano box for a colorful box. If I do , I can have randomized voicing and also I could use randomized effects. The effect of this music is that it has no melody is very pretty, and just drifts along forever, putting you either to sleep or into meditation. Occassionally it sounds more dynamic. so to speak. Tom
2231.22	Vive la difference	NWACES::PHILLIPS		`Thu Jan 11 1990 16:12`	23
	re:19 I agree no two musicans playing the same instrument would sound alike/identical, but that holds true for Electonric intrument also, style or lack of make the difference. IMHO, the sameness and stagnation occurs in the composition/arrangement more so that ability to create interesting textures. Most performers/ musicans tend to milk the latest trend rather than use completely fresh ideas for fear of failure (-$$$$). If the general listening public was really turned on to new innovative sounds, then that would probably, be the order of the day. re:21 Now that's another issue. Many musican spend years carving out a sound of their own ,there signature, so to speak. Are they boring or less artistic or creative for maintaining there unique sound/style e.g Miles, Bob James, Santana, Jimi Hendrix. Nuff said. Errol (boy I am off and running.....at the mouth that is) the
2231.23		SALSA::MOELLER	Never trust a Prankster.	`Fri Jan 12 1990 11:16`	22
	reply to .0 and others.. Me playing my preset Kpiano sounds LOTS different than my buddy playing his preset Kpiano. I'm not interested in the "since [you uncreative dweebs] musicians are all playing the same [sampled/digital synth] presets, that's why music these days all sounds the same" argument. The reason commercially-available music all sounds the same is the same reason that there's so many look-alike TV shows on - fiscal fear on the part of the companies putting out the creative PRODUCT. I bought samplers because I hear real instruments in my head, and no synth, digital OR analog, comes close to what I hear in my head. And I don't do a lot of raw sampling because I want to PLAY, not dink around with levels & loop points. Now, I can do pretty much what I want to with the EMAX, since it has a very user-friendly interface. And yes, I know how to sweep its ANALOG filter 5 different ways. The Kurzweil 1000PX, with its incredibly crappy 'manual' (yes, I have the new one on order) and dearth of front-panel buttons, I use pretty much in preset play mode. If that's not okay, go pound sand. karl
2231.24	Dreams Word	AQUA::ROST	Everyone loves those dead presidents	`Mon Jan 15 1990 08:18`	113
	In a related vein, here's some stuff from USENET about an electronic music rag called DREAMS WORD published in Oregon. -------------------------------------------------------------------- DREAMS WORD is the newsletter of Electronic Dreams, a small but determined organization based in Portland Oregon. Our focus is the music of such artists and groups as Tangerine Dream, Jean-Michel Jarre, Klaus Schulze, Vangelis, Steve Roach, Michael Garrison, etc. We have conducted and published interviews with the likes of both Steve Roach and Michael Garrison. Why the need for a 'zine such as this? Up until around 1987, E- Music had it's own identity and place in the world. DREAMS WORD is for those people who yearn for that time when E-Music had it's own section in major record stores. Now the dynamic, look-to- the-future approach of true E-Music is lost in the sea of confusion known as New Age. What is a listener to do when the music of artists such as Vangelis, T.D. and Klaus Schulze is arbitrarily mixed in the same sales bins as sax player Kenny G and harp guitarist John Doan? What the heck do these artists have to do with each other anyway? Absolutely nothing. When the artists whom we care about are marketed as part of this melange know as New Age, the true innovative spirit of E-Music erodes and fragments. Electronic Dreams and DREAMS WORD are for people who honestly care about the true spirit of E-Music and do not want to watch it die. DREAMS WORD provides information, contacts, resources and a forum for listeners and composers of E-Music. Ours is, to the best of our knowledge, the only organization of our kind in the USA. If you know of any other, we would love to hear about it. Electronic Dreams was founded and is still headed by Elana Mell Beach who is also the editor of DREAMS WORD. In Portland the group (E. Dreams) holds monthly public meetings and other events throughout the year. Every August members of E. Dreams gather to celebrate E-Music at "Dreams Weekend", an outdoor music fest featuring live local musicians. It's a two day event that takes place in a secret location (can't let it get too popular!) in the beautiful mountain forest just outside Portland. Each quarterly issue of DREAMS WORD averages fourteen to sixteen pages. Sample issues are two bucks each. A subscription is five dollars U.S. and seven dollars foriegn. The current issue, No. 6, carries the first of a two part interview with Michael Garrison. Issue No. 5 featured Steve Roach. For more information or to order the newsletter write Electronic Dreams, P.O. Box 42385, Portland, OR 97242, (503) 257-0312 (voice). For information or feedback only (no orders) contact Greg Planting (D.W. publisher) via CompuServe account 73067,2314 ([email protected] for Internet). Hope to hear from you..... Revised Editorial from D.W. Six... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - EDITORIAL by Elana Mell Beach Thoughts from Quixote's long-lost daughter... In my last editorial I wrote about how our music is in need of a better name than simply calling it "Electronic Music". There is a void of identity there... the name electronic is too bleepin' generic. Synthesizers are used in almost every kind of music there is, which creates a definite confusion. The world in general thus calls our music "New Age". I used several arguments to support the idea of giving our music a new name to guide it away from being pigeonholed in the New Age "category". One argument that I forgot to include is the example of some hypothetical synth musician... take your choice of who it could be. He (or she) works in his studio for who knows how many months creating good music, not thinking of more than the spirit of the music itself. The album is done, he puts it out there and guess what? They chuck it in the New Age bin. Suddenly this poor guy has articles written about him with titles like "The Debut of A Synth Mystic" or something like that, and he never had anything to do with the New Age movement to begin with! The poor guy had never channelled spirits or owned a crystal in his life! I argued that New Age should be reserved for artists whose lifestyles and music are truly "New Age" as far as intention is concerned. (I'm talking of its' true positive spiritual roots, not the media-inspired B.S.) I was surprised by how much support I got for the idea of dumping that name "Electronic Music" and finding a new one. Many told me how that editorial was "right on the money" as Jason Marcewicz put it. The new name I had proposed for electronic music was "Synthe", rhyming with "ninth". At the time I couldn't come up with anything better but felt optimistic that some kind of discussion would ensue... that perhaps D.W. readers to come up with something preferable. They did. Check out these suggestions: 1. "Synthesizer/Synthesis" plus "Electronic" equals Syntronic. (Credit Alex Rad here in Portland.) 2. "Eclectic" plus "Electronic" equals Eclectronic. (from Mike Birtchet) 3. "Esoteric" plus "Electronic" equals Esotronic. (Sorry, I can't remember which Dreamer came up with this one. It wasn't me, darn it!) My vote is for Esotronic. It's easy to remember, it's descriptive, only two letters of the alphabet away from the old name Electronic and linguistically it has the same rhythm. Esotronic "flows" better than the other suggestions, and that is IMPORTANT. It's vital that we unite to stem the incredible erosion our music is going through now in the U.S.. With the name Esotronic we'd have a focus for bringing forth a new sense of identity to the music we love. I fiercely believe that to rename the music is to bring to it a new strength. What is your opinion? Are you willing to call yourself a listener, collector or artist of the Esotronic realm? Your comments are appreciated. PLEASE WRITE!!!!! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2231.25	Whoa, Pardner...	DRUMS::FEHSKENS		`Mon Jan 15 1990 11:30`	18
	Karl, you have a very distinctive style of playing. I wasn't asserting you were a bad doobee because you used presets. The point I was trying to make is that if you do use presets on an instrument that doesn't provide a lot of timbrally expressive opportunities, you'd better have something else to distinguish your sound. Karl, you do have that. I, as a step time sequencing techno dweeb weenie lacking any keyboard technique or style to speak of, have to find other ways to differentiate my sound from every other step time sequencing techno dweeb weenie. One way is my arrangements (a way you also use). Another is an "artifical" style created by manipulating timing and velocity values while programming (a style in my mind rather than my muscles), and a third way is by manipulated the timbres I use. We discussed the issue of what makes a musical style elsewhere in this conference some time ago. len.
2231.26	Got some ideas that fit in with DEC gear?	BAVIKI::GOOD	Michael Good	`Fri Feb 23 1990 11:30`	20
	It seems to me that it's always been difficult to create new electronic sounds. Few people did before, and few people do now. One difference is that there are many more people nowadays using electronic instruments. Maybe another difference, and one of the keys in the original message, is that few people are interested in creating new ways to create new sounds that will let more people be able to be more expressive. If you have some really good ideas on how to do this that could be integrated with DEC workstations, I'd invite you to seriously consider making a RAD proposal on this topic, and get paid by DEC to do it for a year. The RAD (Research and Advanced Development) committee has several people on it who are very interested in multi- media, and specifically in adding audio and video to our systems. They may currently be focusing on the voice part of audio, but I think there's an opportunity here for someone to pursue some innovative work that could fit in with a couple of already-existing projects in Digital.