The _REAL_ Techno "Dream Studio"
Jon Wätte
>Apple Adjustable keyboard
The BIG WIN with this is that the numeric keyboard comes separately;
you can run a longer ADB cable to it and have remote control right
beside your master controller. Assumiung you run CuBase or some other
sequencer that uses the numeric keyboard...
>(1) NEC MultiSync 6FGp Monitor
Make that 2. I have two 17" monitors for sequencing, and would NOT
switch to a 21" monitor (in fact, I did a trade the other way)
>(1) Alaska Software DIGITrax (or DECK II 2.1)
Why, when you (shold) have all the digital tracks you need in
Studio Vision 2.0 or Cubase Audio 2.0?
Also, you forgot the sound hardware:
(4) Pro Tools 20-bit digital sound cards == 16 channels
(1) SCSI Accellerator card
You should add two more of those 2 gig drives as well!
>Effects/Signal Processing
I saw NOTHING that could vocode there. Add that BOSS box,
or a WaveStation A/D.
>Drum Machines
Bah. A sampler or two will do fine. You COULD use some of
the modules for sample sources though.
And add a Yamaha R-5.
>(1) Ensoniq ASR-10 (or ASR-10) _OR_ Kurzweil K2000RS
These are QUITE different beasts. A K2000RS is a MUST even
if you have an ASR-10!
>(1) Korg Wavestation SR
AD. Definately an AD.
>(1) Korg M1R/ex (or M1)
WHY BOTHER?
>(1) Roland JD-990 Super JD w/Vintage Synthesizers Card
Isn't this the one with the "Medusa" patch? Definately a must.
>(1) Roland D-550 (or D-50) w/PG-1000 Programmer
Why bother?
>(1) Roland SH-101
Make that two.
>(2) Roland TB-303 (AT LEAST one with _FULL_ MIDI control of all knobs)
And some decent patch cables to make it control the 2600 and moogs.
Maybe you need converters as well?
>(1) Waldorf Wave (or Waldorf MicroWave)
Do the MicroWave; the Wave locks up every 10 minutes or so
(and the preset bank is only hald full...)
>Recording
>(1) Alesis ADAT (or Tascam DA-88)
Is that all? My friend, real production requires real tracks.
You have 16 tracks on the har disks, so add a 24 track ANALOG
tape deck for the right band compression. Forget the home-studio
8-track digitals.
Better add some serious backup for the hard disks though; like
an Exabyte.
>Wow! For $70,000 _YOU_ can have the ultimate Techno Studio!
I'll probably get some rebate... however, you forgot the climate
controlled room, the insulated mike room, rent and power costs.
Now, where did I put that lottery ticket I didn't check?
--
-- Jon W{tte, h...@nada.kth.se, Mac Hacker Deluxe --
Not speaking for the Liberian Government.
Michael Fischer
br...@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca (Brian Ross) wrote:
> Michael Fischer (fisc...@student.msu.edu) wrote:
>
> : This is what I call a _REAL_ Techno Dream Studio...(I have tried not to be
> : redundant with equipment)
> :
> : _PLEASE_ follow up to these posts if I've forgot anything!
>
> Talent? :-)
Talent?
Remember...this is Techno... ;)
Barry C. Sanders
>: This is what I call a _REAL_ Techno Dream Studio...(I have tried not to be
>: redundant with equipment)
>:
>: _PLEASE_ follow up to these posts if I've forgot anything!
Brian Ross replied, cleverly:
>Talent? :-)
Ahh, talent. That subtle and undefinable quality that supposedly
separates 'real' artists from all the rest. While it is true that
an artist doesn't *need* all of that equipment to make *some* good
music, I think many would agree that any talent one possesses can
be amplified by the use of appropriately powerful tools. In this
case, more than a roomful of them!
Barry Sanders
Michael Fischer
could not resist to post the following...
This is what I call a _REAL_ Techno Dream Studio...(I have tried not to be
redundant with equipment)
_PLEASE_ follow up to these posts if I've forgot anything!
Automation
=-=-=-=-=-
(1) Macintosh Quadra 840av 32MB RAM/1.8 Gig Hard Disk (NOT a PowerMac, as
some MIDI stuff is not yet compatible) w/NEC MultiSync 6FGp monitor and
Apple Adjustable keyboard
(1) NEC MultiSync 6FGp Monitor
(4) MOTU MIDI Time Piece II (or 2 Opcode Studio/5)
(1) MOTU Performer 5.0 (or Digital Performer, Opcode Vision, or Opcode
StudioVision)
(1) MOTU UNISYN (or Opcode Galaxy Plus Editors)
(1) Alaska Software DIGITrax (or DECK II 2.1)
Sound Reinforcement
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
(1) Mackie 32*8 8-Bus Console w/Console Stand and meter bridge
(2) Mackie CR-1604's for submixers
(6) 16U SKB Shock Mount Rack
(4) Pro-Co 1/4" Patch Bays
(2) High-End Hafler Power Amps
(2) Tannoy System 8 NFM monitors
(2) Tannoy System 15 DMT monitors (or 2 Meyer HD-1 monitors)
(2) Shure SM-58 Beta Microphones
(1) Sony MDR-7506 Flat Response Headphones
(1) Sony MDR-CD1000 HiFi Headphones (or Some High-End Grados or Sennheiser
ones!)
Effects/Signal Processing
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
(2) Aphex Exciter Type C^2 with Big Bottom
(1) BBE 462 (or 862 for those who demand +4 operation)
(2) Alesis Quadraverb II
(2) Lexicon LXP-15
(2) Ensoniq DP/4
(2) Korg MS-20 (YES! use them for signal processing!)
Drum Machines
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Roland R8MkII (Screw the Boss DR-660...the R8MkII is _MUCH_ nicer!)
Roland TR-606
Roland TR-626
Roland TR-707
Roland TR-808 (MIDI'd)
Roland TR-909
Synthesizers
=-=-=-=-=-=-
(1) ARP 2600
(1) Ensoniq ASR-10 (or ASR-10) _OR_ Kurzweil K2000RS
(1) Korg O1/WFD (or O1R/W)
(1) Korg Wavestation SR
(1) Korg M1R/ex (or M1)
(1) Moog MemoryMoog+ (with _FULL_ MIDI control)
(1) Moog MiniMoog (MIDI'd)
(1) Oberheim Matrix-12
(1) Roland JD-990 Super JD w/Vintage Synthesizers Card
(1) Roland D-550 (or D-50) w/PG-1000 Programmer
(1) Roland MKS-80 Super Jupiter w/MPG-80 Programmer
(1) Roland Juno-106
(1) Roland Alpha Juno-2 (or MKS-50) w/PG-300 Programmer
(1) Roland JX-10 (or MKS-70) Super JX w/PG-800 Programmer
(1) Roland SH-101
(1) Roland MC-202
(2) Roland TB-303 (AT LEAST one with _FULL_ MIDI control of all knobs)
(1) SCI Prophet 10 (with _FULL_ MIDI control)
(1) Waldorf Wave (or Waldorf MicroWave)
(1) Yamaha TX816
Recording
=-=-=-=-=
(2) Panasonic SV3900 (or SV3700, or Sony PCM-2700 [or whatever the high end
Sony model is!])
(1) Alesis ADAT (or Tascam DA-88)
Miscellaneous
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
(8) Ultimate Triple Tier Stands
and a _TON_ of Pro-Co Patch cords and MIDI cables, etc.... (about $1,500
worth)
Estimated Cost
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
$70,800.00
Wow! For $70,000 _YOU_ can have the ultimate Techno Studio!
Any comments?
Sincerely,
Michael Fischer
fisc...@student.msu.edu
AntMan
: _PLEASE_ follow up to these posts if I've forgot anything!
: Synthesizers
: =-=-=-=-=-=-
: (1) ARP 2600
: (1) Ensoniq ASR-10 (or ASR-10) _OR_ Kurzweil K2000RS
: (1) Korg O1/WFD (or O1R/W)
: (1) Korg Wavestation SR
: (1) Korg M1R/ex (or M1)
: (1) Moog MemoryMoog+ (with _FULL_ MIDI control)
: (1) Moog MiniMoog (MIDI'd)
: (1) Oberheim Matrix-12
: (1) Roland JD-990 Super JD w/Vintage Synthesizers Card
: (1) Roland D-550 (or D-50) w/PG-1000 Programmer
: (1) Roland MKS-80 Super Jupiter w/MPG-80 Programmer
: (1) Roland Juno-106
: (1) Roland Alpha Juno-2 (or MKS-50) w/PG-300 Programmer
: (1) Roland JX-10 (or MKS-70) Super JX w/PG-800 Programmer
: (1) Roland SH-101
: (1) Roland MC-202
: (2) Roland TB-303 (AT LEAST one with _FULL_ MIDI control of all knobs)
: (1) SCI Prophet 10 (with _FULL_ MIDI control)
: (1) Waldorf Wave (or Waldorf MicroWave)
: (1) Yamaha TX816
: Any comments?
I thought you MIGHT forget the PPG... but you have it with the MicroWave
(very impressed, BTW)
You got all the Roland drum boxes and cool keyboard synths. Yes!!! They
are THE best sounding analog synths (IMHO), but you also got the Moog and
Prophet thang happenin'. Good job...
BUT - YOU MISSED ONE REALLY COOL THING:
THE ROLAND 100M SYSTEM.
complete with:
16 oscilators, 8 filters, 8 ADSRs, 4 mixer/amps, 2 analog sequncer
modules (with MIDI to CV patches...), 2 ring-mods, 4 LFOs, (insert
several other odd-modules that I forgot here), and a digital
computer-controllable virtual patch-cord scheme that is MIDI
controllable so's you can program and store the sounds and alter them
easily over MIDI in real-time.
- OR -
just get another Matrix 12. you never know when you might NEED it.
:)
you and I ought to start a band. My god... I think you read my mind on
this one. Were we seperated at birth??
i'm being TOTALLY SERIOUS (the band thing).
note: to the guy who thought this was ridiculous:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
No, you don't need all this to make cool music. Moby, Aphex Twin,
Orbital, etc. didn't. but hey... it couldn't hoit! And I thought this
was about fantasies anyway. Aren't dreams sacred anymore?
cheers (write me, Michael)
\|/
OOO[ antman -= anthony =- ant...@phantom.com
/|\
ps - hmmm... where is the JD-800? I knew there was something cool missing.
Jon Wätte
>Talent?
>Remember...this is Techno... ;)
"No no,
no-no no no,
no-no no no,
no-no there's no lyrics..."
:-)
Cheers,
/ h+
--
-- Jon W{tte, h...@nada.kth.se, Mac Hacker Deluxe --
I offer a pot of gold for Gates' head on a pole.
Naah - bashing Microsoft is "out." Love, Peace and Understanding!
Jon Wätte
>Sigh...this is kind of what bugs me. I know we're on a dream studio kick
>here, and I know that much of it is intended in fun, but many of the "what
>box should I get to make music like this" posts result from a belief in
>exactly what you're talking about.
It works both ways. If I had had the studio I have today when I
was in High School and did music on a Tascam 3-track and a
Yamaha CX5M computer, I would probably not have gone into Computer
Science; I just didn't have the tools to realize my vision.
Now I do, but I have a 9-5 (or 9-22 rather :-) which takes all my
time, so my musical side has sunken into a dark corner and only
comes out one Sunday a month.
Can a carpenter build table with only a swiss army knife?
Probably, but the right tools makes it MUCH easier and makes
a MUCH better result. However, throw an orangutang at the same
tools and no table will be forthcoming. Not to mention that if
all the carpenter had available to him while he grew up was a
swiss army knife, chances are he wouldn't be a carpenter at
all.
Calum Benson
with one in the music shop today at lunchtime, and it's got some very nice
sounds for the price, but I didn't get a chance to ask about it's other
capabilities. How multi-timbral is it? Polyphony? You know the sort of
thing ... I noticed it was GM compatible, but that's about all.
Slainte,
Calum.
+---------------------------------------+----------------------------+
|Calum Benson | email: cal...@logcam.co.uk |
|Logica Cambridge (User Interface Div.) | Tel: (0223) 66343 x4825 |
|Betjeman House +------------------+----------------------------|
|104 Hills Road | " I just wouldn't know a single word to say |
|Cambridge CB2 1LQ | If I flattened all my vowels and I threw |
|UK | the R away." (The Proclaimers) |
+--------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
Andrew S Gianni
>Talent?
>Remember...this is Techno... ;)
Talent!!!!
--
Andrew Gianni ----------------------------------- agi...@acsu.buffalo.edu
-------------- State University of New York at Buffalo -------------------
------- And why do they tell me how are you doing today when -------------
------ they really mean paper or plastic - Breakfast with Amy ------------
Can You Say Puyallup?
> I think many would agree that any talent one possesses can
> be amplified by the use of appropriately powerful tools. In this
> case, more than a roomful of them!
Sigh...this is kind of what bugs me. I know we're on a dream studio kick
here, and I know that much of it is intended in fun, but many of the "what
box should I get to make music like this" posts result from a belief in
exactly what you're talking about.
Double sigh. Since people will misunderstand, let me cover my butt. I am
not suggesting that every artist needs to have reams of innate talent in
order to be worthy of switching on a synth. Nor am I trying to raise music
to some exclusive level, accessible only by those who can play like Horowitz.
What I want to say is something like this: the statement above seems to imply
that the more/better the boxes, the better the music; I argue: not true, and
as long as people still believe it, we're going to have more Vintage Keys
and i-series workstations than ever before -- to the extent that architecture
as a synthesis term will drop off the face of the earth.
Just *personally*, my dream studio (okay, not techno, but...) would only
feature seven or eight sound-making modules: it would be a psychological
motivation to get inside them and *dig* to make what *I* want, and not what
someone else has made for me.
Again, this is all opinion; discussion welcome, but I'm not interested in
flames.
LAiRD
--
|_T|\| \\ ljne...@unix.amherst.edu
L|| | // laird j. nelson / 3:4 quartet
Nick Rothwell
it was...).
Nick Rothwell Wir fahren fahren fahren
CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance auf der Infobahn
ni...@cassiel.com
Nick Rothwell
and run up huge phone bills on the technical support queues for all the
software vendors because none of it works properly. This is a "dream"
studio?
I'll stick with mine: two Wavestations, two Lexicons, one PowerBook running MAX.
Michael Miller
>From: br...@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca (Brian Ross)
>Subject: Re: The _REAL_ Techno "Dream Studio"
>Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 14:57:21 GMT
>Jon Wätte (d88...@hemul.nada.kth.se) wrote:
>: In <2ofiea$p...@amhux3.amherst.edu> ljne...@unix.amherst.edu (Can You Say
>Puyallup?) writes:
>: >Sigh...this is kind of what bugs me. I know we're on a dream studio kick
>: >here, and I know that much of it is intended in fun, but many of the "what
>: >box should I get to make music like this" posts result from a belief in
>: >exactly what you're talking about.
>:
>It reminds me of "camera snobs" who need to have the most expensive
>Leica or Hasselblads. Their photographs are just as poorly exposed
>and cropped as those using cheapo Minolta's. Equipment does not the
>musician or photographer make.
>Of course, as far as hobbies go, whatever makes people happy.
>It is worth realizing that many pro's don't use a lot of gear, however.
Pro's don't use much gear? What about old Wix Wiggens when he toured with
Paul MaCartney? He had a tonne of gear. What about David Bryan (The
Keyboardist from Bon Jovi) They all have tonnes of gear and I would say that
they are pros!
I aggree that gear doesnot MAKE the musician, but it certainly goes along
way to helping them. Tonnes of gear allows one to get an idea and implement
it fairly easily, whereas with a small amount of gear you have to scratch
around and create the sound you are looking for and very often by that time
you have lost some of your ideas!
I also agree that just because one has all these fantastic factory presets
at one's finger tips it does not mean that you must use them. I strongly
believe that what makes a musicain is how well he uses the sound that he
chosses in the end (be it a preset or "home made" one)
Who was it who posted
"No No,
No-no, no...
no lyrics.."
I just want to inform him/her that it takes much talent to produce so many
hit songs with basically the same structure/rhythm but different tune/
lyrics. Give credit where credit is due, ie: to all those techno bands.
If that person believes that it is easy to churn out GOOD techno tracks, he/
she is more than welcome to come to my home setup and write me a couple of
techno tracks!!
Cheers
Mike
--------
Michael Miller
EMail: Mil...@comm.unp.ac.za
Keyboard (noun), a device used to enter errors into a computer
Eric
>This gear list is starting to look like Team Metlay (five Xpanders, I think
>it was...).
--Eric
Can You Say Puyallup?
> I aggree that gear doesnot MAKE the musician, but it certainly goes along
> way to helping them. Tonnes of gear allows one to get an idea and implement
> it fairly easily, whereas with a small amount of gear you have to scratch
> around and create the sound you are looking for and very often by that time
> you have lost some of your ideas!
Hmm. I'd argue just the opposite. I have most of my creative ideas come
to life with my Q80 hardware sequencer (pretty good as hardware seq's go, but
no Vision), whereas if I have to fire up the trusty SE, make sure all the
MIDI stream is going where it's supposed to, figure out why the K3 isn't
accepting on channel 9, hit the TR707 to make it wake up, set the K4 into
local off mode, and switch cables to patch into my stereo system, I've often
forgotten what the hell I was doing in the first place.
Small point, and I'm probably nitpicking. :)
johann
: Michael Miller (Mil...@comm.unp.ac.za) wrote:
: > I aggree that gear doesnot MAKE the musician, but it certainly goes along
: > way to helping them. Tonnes of gear allows one to get an idea and implement
: > it fairly easily, whereas with a small amount of gear you have to scratch
: > around and create the sound you are looking for and very often by that time
: > you have lost some of your ideas!
: Hmm. I'd argue just the opposite. I have most of my creative ideas come
: to life with my Q80 hardware sequencer (pretty good as hardware seq's go, but
: no Vision), whereas if I have to fire up the trusty SE, make sure all the
: MIDI stream is going where it's supposed to, figure out why the K3 isn't
: accepting on channel 9, hit the TR707 to make it wake up, set the K4 into
: local off mode, and switch cables to patch into my stereo system, I've often
: forgotten what the hell I was doing in the first place.
: LAiRD
I agree with "LAiRD." Some of my most creative stuff came from my old setup:
Wurlitzer elec piano, Arp Omni 2, TB303, TR505, ElectroHarmonix MemoryMan
analog delay, and Boss CE-1 chorus pedal, overdubs and perverse CV routing.
Now I just use a k2000 and cakewalk for windows. all midi. And my creativity
seems to be rolled off at about 1k with a brickwall low-pass.
Jason
Victor Marrero
: Keyboardist from Bon Jovi) They all have tonnes of gear and I would say that
: they are pros!
How many people actually know how to program their synths? Also, they might
have liked the ease of having ONE sound per board instead of having to
look for different programs, sequences, etc. Where as in TECHNO MUSIC,
much more a STUDIO...why would you need so much gear?
Personally good studio equipment is necessary to get a reference sound.
If your on a budget this is my opinion:
Roland Juno 106
Korg DW8000
Korg Wavestation A/D
K2000
(just sample the 303...the sound is getting played out anyhows..)
But lets not forget...that alot of ACID TECHNO/TRANCE stuff are
done on A 303 and thats IT!
--
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
D.A.C. Crowell
Eh...don't worry about it. We've got artillery between the Team Metlay
members that I daresay the k00l bEats kr0wd won't have...and if they did,
they wouldn't have half a clue as to how to use it correctly. The five
Oberheim Xpanders are only the tip of the iceberg, gang...:)
After all, it's not just gear...or talent...some of it just
comes down to some real, honest-to-goodness e-music VOODOO, things that
don't make sense, and maybe even a little skill somewhere in the equation...
D.A.C. Crowell
Audio Design and Programming
KnowledgeMedia/The Aerodyne Works
Champaign, IL, USA.
(da...@tigerden.com)
am...@charlie.usd.edu
>In <2ofiea$p...@amhux3.amherst.edu> ljne...@unix.amherst.edu (Can You Say Puyallup?) writes:
>
>>Sigh...this is kind of what bugs me. I know we're on a dream studio kick
>>here, and I know that much of it is intended in fun, but many of the "what
>>box should I get to make music like this" posts result from a belief in
>>exactly what you're talking about.
>
>It works both ways. If I had had the studio I have today when I
>was in High School and did music on a Tascam 3-track and a
>Yamaha CX5M computer, I would probably not have gone into Computer
>Science; I just didn't have the tools to realize my vision.
>
>Now I do, but I have a 9-5 (or 9-22 rather :-) which takes all my
>time, so my musical side has sunken into a dark corner and only
>comes out one Sunday a month.
>
>Can a carpenter build table with only a swiss army knife?
>Probably, but the right tools makes it MUCH easier and makes
>a MUCH better result. However, throw an orangutang at the same
>tools and no table will be forthcoming. Not to mention that if
>all the carpenter had available to him while he grew up was a
>swiss army knife, chances are he wouldn't be a carpenter at
>all.
wow! heavy, man!
Jon Wätte
>Who was it who posted
> "No No,
> No-no, no...
> no lyrics.."
>I just want to inform him/her that it takes much talent to produce so many
>hit songs with basically the same structure/rhythm but different tune/
>lyrics. Give credit where credit is due, ie: to all those techno bands.
It was me, and it was a pun; I play the same style of music (and
listen to it) and find it enjoyable. It's just that the LYRICS part
is... not the main trait of eurohouse.
>If that person believes that it is easy to churn out GOOD techno tracks, he/
>she is more than welcome to come to my home setup and write me a couple of
>techno tracks!!
It takes over a week of tweaking and changing, IF you have good
reviewers and a good idea to start with.
Cheers,
/ h+
--
-- Jon W{tte, h...@nada.kth.se, Mac Hacker Deluxe --
Obsolete (n) - dependable, affordable, readily available
Support trailing-edge technology!
-- Bruce H. McIntosh
THOMAS ROTHROCK
|> As a response to Colleen V. Quinn's original Techno Dream Studio post, I
|> could not resist to post the following...
|>
|> This is what I call a _REAL_ Techno Dream Studio...(I have tried not to be
|> redundant with equipment)
|>
|> _PLEASE_ follow up to these posts if I've forgot anything!
|>
You give automation, sound reinforcement, drum machines, effects, synths,
recording, and misc., but I don't see any samplers mentioned. I think you'd
want at least one AKAI or Kurzeweil(sp?), or even an Ensoniq, if it's for
techno music.
-Tom
->Before there were nukes there were dragons!
THOMAS ROTHROCK
|> Probably, but the right tools makes it MUCH easier and makes
|> a MUCH better result. However, throw an orangutang at the same
|> tools and no table will be forthcoming. Not to mention that if
|> all the carpenter had available to him while he grew up was a
|> swiss army knife, chances are he wouldn't be a carpenter at
|> all.
Right now I'm using a cheap Casio keyboard, a Roland MKS-7, a Roland MT-32, a
Yamaha RX-5, and a Yamaha TX16W. I'm sending it through a $40 Radio Shack mixer
to a BSR consumer tape deck/cd player. This may not sound like I could do much,
but I have songs on the radio stations. I'm not saying I have great talent, but
I wonder how much better my music would sound if I got a good synth and good
recording equipment. I find that I'm in constant search of more sounds. The
sampler helps, but only so much. I use it mostly for vocal clips and drums. Oh,
and I'm sequencing it all with an IBM XT running some cheap sequencer that came
with my MIDI card (PC Music Maker).
I borrowed a Yamaha SY77 from a friend, and fell in love with it. I liked its
internal sequencer better than the XT, and the sounds, compared to what I have,
were incredible. I also liked the pitch bender and two mod wheels (my keyboard
has none). If anyone knows where I can obtain one for around $1000, preferably
with the docs, PLEASE let me know.
-Tom
->Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and tase well with
ketchup.
Nick Rothwell
>>it was...).
>That makes the suggestion to add "talent" all the more urgent! ;-)
Bog off. :-)
Nick Rothwell
>it fairly easily, whereas with a small amount of gear you have to scratch
>around and create the sound you are looking for and very often by that time
>you have lost some of your ideas!
While I see a lot of support of this philosophy, I strongly disagree with
it (and know of many artists who do also). I used to use about eight synths
and many effects in a large rig, and found that it burnt my time and energy
with all the networking hassles, and (more pertinently) the fact that it
was impossible to work "intimately" with so many different kinds of
machines. These days my rig is two Wavestation racks, with an add-on
comprising a Waldorf MicroWave and a sampler. That's about the right
number, since I know all the machines pretty well, can address them easily,
and can work quickly with them.
Besides, Bon Jovi use keyboards as penis extenders; I thought this was
common knowledge...
Nick Rothwell
>MIDI stream is going where it's supposed to, figure out why the K3 isn't
>accepting on channel 9, hit the TR707 to make it wake up, set the K4 into
>local off mode, and switch cables to patch into my stereo system, I've often
>forgotten what the hell I was doing in the first place.
>
Absolutely not; this is the central point IMHO.
Eric
>Sample point: Larry Fast made _Synergy_ on a single Mini-Moog.
What's really amazing is that he used *no* overdubs! ;-)
Did Larry once say something like "when I don't want to pack my big
poly machine, an OZ and a small synth makes a perfect substitute"?
Ya' know I always figured the small synth was a Gnome! :)
>Brian Ross \ The strong guy, the fat guy, the genius:
--Eric
AntMan
[things cut here]
: Hmm. I'd argue just the opposite. I have most of my creative ideas come
: to life with my Q80 hardware sequencer (pretty good as hardware seq's go, but
: no Vision), whereas if I have to fire up the trusty SE, make sure all the
: MIDI stream is going where it's supposed to, figure out why the K3 isn't
: accepting on channel 9, hit the TR707 to make it wake up, set the K4 into
: local off mode, and switch cables to patch into my stereo system, I've often
: forgotten what the hell I was doing in the first place.
: Small point, and I'm probably nitpicking. :)
: LAiRD
: --
: |_T|\| \\ ljne...@unix.amherst.edu
: L|| | // laird j. nelson / 3:4 quartet
That's interesting... actually, some of MY best (or at least most
experimental) pieces were done on the ESQ-1s internal sequencer. Hmmm.
Maybe there's something to this Ensoniq-Sequencer deal.
Then again, maybe we're (or at least I'M) strange.
Yup. That's it. :)
\|/
OOO[ ant...@phantom.com
/|\
PS - btw, does the K4 forget certain settings when you turn it off? That
sucks, but my K4r has to be manually put into MULTI mode when I
turn it back on again as well. It's a shame I've programmed so many
cool sounds on it... or I'd ditch it in a flash!
AntMan
[a snip here, a snip there...]
: I'll stick with mine: two Wavestations, two Lexicons, one PowerBook running MAX.
: Nick Rothwell Wir fahren fahren fahren
: CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance auf der Infobahn
: ni...@cassiel.com
Uhhh. yeah. are you on Warp, +8, or ffrr? I forget...
And HOW often do YOU go out dancing?
Feverishly curious.
\|/
OOO[ antman
/|\
AntMan
: This gear list is starting to look like Team Metlay (five Xpanders, I think
: it was...).
cool. :)
: Nick Rothwell Wir fahren fahren fahren
: CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance auf der Infobahn
: ni...@cassiel.com
\|/
OOO[ antman
/|\
Alex Currier
writes:
>Can a carpenter build table with only a swiss army knife?
>Probably, but the right tools makes it MUCH easier and makes
>a MUCH better result.
But the tools do not a craftman make. All this stuff about the "Dream
Techno Studio" is obviously aimed at people who like to dream that they
were a techno band. Those of us who already own some gear would laugh at
the idea that one would go out and buy all this stuff just because it
was printed on the back of the latest Depeche Mode CD or because it was
"Vintage Techno Gear". Those who think an 808 and a TB3 are going to make
them the perfect techno song (and the salesmen who prey on them) are
living in that dream studio. I've got a couple of good pieces (and one or
two of them were purchased because of what some favorite artist of mine
did with them) but I certainly don't expect Clan of Xymox to pop out of
my M1Rex and write a song for me. My dream studio has very little to do
with what some other band uses. I buy the gear that I like and I try to
do something interesting and unique with it. Also, there are some pieces
out there you might not see on the "fabulous gear list" which have great
sounds in them (like the TG-55) and of course, when your talking about
"techno / dance / industrial" it all really boils down to how good you
are with a sampler which (unless you expect to rip off someone else's
stuff) is nothing more than an empty box to be filled with whatever
talent (or lack thereof) you have.
Oh, and one last thing... I hope while they're dreaming about the studio
of the stars there they dream up a few technicians to hook it all up and
show them how to use it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alex Currier | This sentence contains
myc...@mail.utexas.edu | exactly threee erors.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alex Currier
roth...@cetus1f.cs.utk.edu writes:
> Right now I'm using a cheap Casio keyboard, a Roland MKS-7, a Roland
MT-32, a
>Yamaha RX-5, and a Yamaha TX16W. I'm sending it through a $40 Radio
Shack mixer
>to a BSR consumer tape deck/cd player. This may not sound like I could
do much,
>but I have songs on the radio stations.
Oh, and while I'm on a rant fest, this reminds me of something. I think I
have a lot of nice stuff (K2000, several rack modules, MIDI controlled
mixer,
whatnot) and I like what I do. The other day, however, I saw a band play
and they had a Yamaha V-50, Juno 1, two ART F/X boxes and an Alesis SR-16
and they blew my stuff away. Just goes to show you that you don't have to
have all the best stuff to make good music. Limitations are often the best
source of inspiration. In the time I might spend going through the
hundreds
of sounds I have available to find one I want to use they've probably
written an entire song.
Jon Wätte
>In article <2ogagj$1...@news.kth.se> Jon W!tte, d88...@hemul.nada.kth.se
>writes:
>>Can a carpenter build table with only a swiss army knife?
>>Probably, but the right tools makes it MUCH easier and makes
>>a MUCH better result.
>But the tools do not a craftman make. All this stuff about the "Dream
I said as much further down.
>Techno Studio" is obviously aimed at people who like to dream that they
>were a techno band. Those of us who already own some gear would laugh at
>the idea that one would go out and buy all this stuff just because it
>was printed on the back of the latest Depeche Mode CD or because it was
That's your interpretation. I interpreted it as "let's collect a
list of all stuf you've wanted to have or put to good use sometime"
>Oh, and one last thing... I hope while they're dreaming about the studio
>of the stars there they dream up a few technicians to hook it all up and
>show them how to use it.
It's usually the technicians who dream :-)
--
-- Jon W{tte, h...@nada.kth.se, Mac Hacker Deluxe --
"It is not the interfaces responsibility to give access to the application,
it is the applications responsibility to implement the interface."
-- Apple Direct (?)
Tony R. Beltran
that immediacy...When I mention to people that I prefer working
with my MV-30 instead of the PC/Windows/Cakewalk/etc/etc... I
get blank looks at best.
Tony
Nick Rothwell
Pardon?
>And HOW often do YOU go out dancing?
Last night, actually. Y'know, it can be a sobering experience to go dancing
with professional dancers...
AntMan
: Oh, and one last thing... I hope while they're dreaming about the studio
: of the stars there they dream up a few technicians to hook it all up and
: show them how to use it.
: -------------------------------------------------------------------------
: Alex Currier | This sentence contains
: myc...@mail.utexas.edu | exactly threee erors.
: -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah... and roadies to move it in. ;) But yes, I agree with you.
\|/
OOO[ ant...@phantom.com
/|\
No enthusiasm
A good point, but what about Rick Wakeman? He had something like 8 or 9 'boards
and numerous other synths around him sometime in the last couple of years. Yes
Union tour, I believe. I don't think they're just penis extenders for him and
it certainly seems he's intimate with them.
Do you think Wakeman is over-doing it?
--
Stephen
+++++++++++++++++++++++++ ... Beware, my friends, as you pass by
+ Stephen E. Hale + as you are now so once was I
+ SEH...@ACAD.DRAKE.EDU + as I am now so you will be
+++++++++++++++++++++++++ prepare, my friends, to follow me ...
Chris David Scudds
>In article <940415212...@post.demon.co.uk>, ni...@cassiel.com (Nick Rothwell) writes:
>>>Tonnes of gear allows one to get an idea and implement
>>>it fairly easily, whereas with a small amount of gear you have to scratch
>>>around and create the sound you are looking for and very often by that time
>>>you have lost some of your ideas!
>>
>> While I see a lot of support of this philosophy, I strongly disagree with
>> it (and know of many artists who do also). I used to use about eight synths
>
Yeah, in the days of mono-timbrality and horrible long capes he had to have
hundreds of keyboards to make all his widdly widdly anthems. Dunno why he
has to do so now. All he needs is a Sound Canvas and a PC. Might not quite
look so good on stage though.
In the words of Vic Reeves - "Oh Mr. Keyboard Wizard,
Go twiddley diddley dee,
On some chords,
Cover your face with your cape,
So all the people of the world,
Can't see you smiling at them..."
( cue: widdly widdly high-notes-per-minute
low-interest-factor keyboard solo )
Chris
--
* Chris Scudds c...@cs.strath.ac.uk *
* Software Engineer *
* IKBS Group "I'd rather Jack, *
* Glasgow G1 1XQ than Famous Grouse." *
Nick Rothwell
No, but he's doing something different: playing keyboards, rather than
doing sound composition and live control. That's a lot simpler: each
keyboard plays one sound at once.
Jon Elliott
fisc...@student.msu.edu (Michael Fischer) wrote:
> As a response to Colleen V. Quinn's original Techno Dream Studio post, I
> could not resist to post the following...
>
> This is what I call a _REAL_ Techno Dream Studio...(I have tried not to be
> redundant with equipment)
Redundant? There's plenty of redundancy, here! ;-)
[Snip...]
> Automation
> =-=-=-=-=-
[Snip...]
Macintosh Quadra 660/AV with 8Mb RAM
MOTU MIDI Timepiece (I believe that that's the MIDI interface...I've been
in
Atari land for far too long).
Cubase Mac (any version will do the trick)
Some sort of MIDI to DINSync converter
> Sound Reinforcement
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[Snip...]
ARX stereo amplifier.
Hafler pre-amp.
High-end speakers. Any kind. Studio monitors for preference.
> Effects/Signal Processing
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[Snip...]
Yamaha SPX1000 x 2
> (2) Korg MS-20 (YES! use them for signal processing!)
How?
> Drum Machines
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=
[...Snip...]
> Roland TR-606
> Roland TR-626
> Roland TR-707
Why these last two? The 707 sounds like a bucket of shite, as does the
626. The 606 seems redundant due to the presence of the 808, too.
> Roland TR-808 (MIDI'd)
> Roland TR-909
> Synthesizers
> =-=-=-=-=-=-
[Snip...]
> (2) Roland TB-303 (AT LEAST one with _FULL_ MIDI control of all knobs)
Why? The only good thing about the 303 is the on-board sequencer, as many
folks have been quick to assert. All you need is one of these little
b**tards, anyway. Hence, my requirement of sync in.
Kurzweil K2000R with sampling option, SCSI, 32Mb RAM, CD-ROM drive, 400Mb
hard drive.
Roland MKS-7 (Cubase provides the patch editing) - this circumvents the
requirement of Juno-106x2 and SH-101.
Roland JX-8P
Roland JX-10
Yamaha SY-99
Oberheim Xpander
Korg WaveStation A/D
> Recording
> =-=-=-=-=
[Snip...]
> (1) Alesis ADAT (or Tascam DA-88)
OK, but any generic high-quality 32 channel mixer will do the job of
mixing...
> Miscellaneous
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=
> (8) Ultimate Triple Tier Stands
Well, I've slimmed it down to a double tier stand and a single-tier
stand...
> and a _TON_ of Pro-Co Patch cords and MIDI cables, etc.... (about $1,500
> worth)
I believe that I've killed that requirement, too.
> Estimated Cost
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> $70,800.00
>
> Wow! For $70,000 _YOU_ can have the ultimate Techno Studio!
AUS$49300 at street price in my neck of the woods for my studio. You can
probably convert it to about US$30000.
> Any comments?
Heaps of redundant gear. Not bad, though. I know a couple of guys (well,
four of them) who have shares in a common studio that walks all over your
so-called "dream studio". We're talking multitudinous K2ks, an S1100, 4
303s, lots of Junos, 808, 909 and heaps more that I can't remember.
Really, I've mentioned about 10% of the synths alone that they have.
In fun...
--
Jon.
-----
Jonathan Elliott
jell...@postoffice.SandyBay.utas.edu.au
Jon's complete FAQ answer: "No."
-----
Jon Elliott
You Say Puyallup?) wrote:
> Sigh...this is kind of what bugs me. I know we're on a dream studio kick
> here, and I know that much of it is intended in fun, but many of the "what
> box should I get to make music like this" posts result from a belief in
> exactly what you're talking about.
Hmmmm...You're not going to get certain *kinds* of sound without having
certain *kinds* of gear. To be flexible, one needs a sampler, a few analog
subractive synths, an FM synth or two and a few specialist boxes (e.g. Korg
WaveStation, Roland TR-909, Waldorf MicroWave, Korg BX-3, Kurzwiel K2000,
whatever). To play techno, you need more analog and less in the way of
specialist boxes. To play
newage/ambient/whatever-you-may-care-to-call-the-genre, your specialist
boxes are going to be more "specialised". For most people, however, I
strongly believe that I have outlined the sort of generic rig that a synth
player might want.
> Double sigh. Since people will misunderstand, let me cover my butt. I am
> not suggesting that every artist needs to have reams of innate talent in
> order to be worthy of switching on a synth. Nor am I trying to raise music
> to some exclusive level, accessible only by those who can play like Horowitz.
> What I want to say is something like this: the statement above seems to imply
> that the more/better the boxes, the better the music; I argue: not true, and
> as long as people still believe it, we're going to have more Vintage Keys
> and i-series workstations than ever before -- to the extent that architecture
> as a synthesis term will drop off the face of the earth.
Basically, you're very right. Non-musicians often assume that the
technology is available to enable *them* to produce acceptable music. Why
do you think that every third-rate DJ is releasing tracks to vinyl?
Because the technology is there. This music tends to be pretty bad. I
could do better in my bedroom with a piece of tissue paper and a comb. To
a degree, it's fine to have non-musicians writing their own music but we
are starting to reach a point where the incompetent is seen as the
incomparable and the untalented as the unfettered. There are a *lot* of
Korg i-series workstations and 01/Ws out there now, dude! Go to your
downtown music store. If it's interested in making money, it will hire a
salesperson who says things like "With General MIDI and auto-arrangers and
style libraries, you can become a regular Beethoven in your own loung in a
matter of minutes!". This is the starting point in the rot that has set in
to our market. Sigh.
> Just *personally*, my dream studio (okay, not techno, but...) would only
> feature seven or eight sound-making modules: it would be a psychological
> motivation to get inside them and *dig* to make what *I* want, and not what
> someone else has made for me.
I've got to agree. My dream studio is pretty much what I've got at the
moment. I'd probably add to it a K2000 and a WaveStation but apart from
that I'm pretty happy. Notice that I have only 7 devices connected to MIDI
in any way (the ARP Axxe is used purely as a device to be sampled. Might
also provide resonant filtering for the stuff coming out of the EPS from
time to time...
--
Jon.
-----
Jonathan Elliott
jell...@postoffice.SandyBay.utas.edu.au
ALQ - Trance for the masses
EPS/EPS 16+/JX-3P/MKS-7/TG33/VC-330/TB-303/DX100/Axxe
-----
Speaker4TheDead
>In article <2ofiea$p...@amhux3.amherst.edu>, ljne...@unix.amherst.edu (Can
>You Say Puyallup?) wrote:
>
>> Sigh...this is kind of what bugs me. I know we're on a dream studio kick
>> here, and I know that much of it is intended in fun, but many of the "what
>> box should I get to make music like this" posts result from a belief in
>> exactly what you're talking about.
>
>Hmmmm...You're not going to get certain *kinds* of sound without having
>certain *kinds* of gear. To be flexible, one needs a sampler, a few analog
>subractive synths, an FM synth or two and a few specialist boxes (e.g. Korg
>WaveStation, Roland TR-909, Waldorf MicroWave, Korg BX-3, Kurzwiel K2000,
>whatever). To play techno, you need more analog and less in the way of
>specialist boxes. To play
>newage/ambient/whatever-you-may-care-to-call-the-genre, your specialist
>boxes are going to be more "specialised". For most people, however, I
>strongly believe that I have outlined the sort of generic rig that a synth
>player might want.
The whole *DREAM STUDIO* kick is a bit tired. Its as if some
of us believe that there is an exponential relation between technology
and musical ability. I find that the greater the number of devices
and synth engines available, the less time I get to create what is at
heart, fine sounding music. Music that would sound beautiful, even if
all I had to perform on MTV UnPlugged.
>
>> Double sigh. Since people will misunderstand, let me cover my butt. I am
>> not suggesting that every artist needs to have reams of innate talent in
>> order to be worthy of switching on a synth. Nor am I trying to raise music
>> to some exclusive level, accessible only by those who can play like Horowitz.
>> What I want to say is something like this: the statement above seems to imply
>> that the more/better the boxes, the better the music; I argue: not true, and
>> as long as people still believe it, we're going to have more Vintage Keys
>> and i-series workstations than ever before -- to the extent that architecture
>> as a synthesis term will drop off the face of the earth.
>
>Basically, you're very right. Non-musicians often assume that the
>technology is available to enable *them* to produce acceptable music. Why
>do you think that every third-rate DJ is releasing tracks to vinyl?
>Because the technology is there. This music tends to be pretty bad. I
>could do better in my bedroom with a piece of tissue paper and a comb. To
>a degree, it's fine to have non-musicians writing their own music but we
>are starting to reach a point where the incompetent is seen as the
>incomparable and the untalented as the unfettered. There are a *lot* of
>Korg i-series workstations and 01/Ws out there now, dude! Go to your
>downtown music store. If it's interested in making money, it will hire a
>salesperson who says things like "With General MIDI and auto-arrangers and
>style libraries, you can become a regular Beethoven in your own loung in a
>matter of minutes!". This is the starting point in the rot that has set in
>to our market. Sigh.
Techno is not music. Usually that is, there are a few pieces
that actually feature a musically appealing series of chords. Techno
is a series of kicks and snares overlaid with sound patches that fit
somewhere in the sonic range of would-be-music. But then again, it
serves a different purpose. Techno is dance music, you don't just
listen to it to enjoy (until you've listened to so much that you
actually begin to like it).
>> Just *personally*, my dream studio (okay, not techno, but...) would only
>> feature seven or eight sound-making modules: it would be a psychological
>> motivation to get inside them and *dig* to make what *I* want, and not what
>> someone else has made for me.
This is an attitude I don't quite understand. Are you a
musician or an engineer? Whatever happened to interest in
composition? Whatever happened to being concerned more with the mood
or tone of the chord/note sequence you are trying to get across
through music? The particular sound (within the ranges of sound
types) is a superficial issue. A true musician will be able to make
music that sounds good (or at least musically recognizable) on a
variety of different instruments.
>I've got to agree. My dream studio is pretty much what I've got at the
>moment. I'd probably add to it a K2000 and a WaveStation but apart from
>that I'm pretty happy. Notice that I have only 7 devices connected to MIDI
>in any way (the ARP Axxe is used purely as a device to be sampled. Might
>also provide resonant filtering for the stuff coming out of the EPS from
>time to time...
7 Devices? You're not a musician, you're a MIDImonster. The
Dream Studio for a *MUSICIAN* (read, not a technogeek dressed up in
sound) doesn't need more than ONE GOOD wavestation with LOADS of sound
data, one really GOOD drum machine (drum modules stink), one GOOD
Sequencer, a mixer, and a DAT. Oops and a guitar with a synth module.
THATS ALL!
Nick Rothwell
Previously, on rec.music.makers.synth:
>Perhaps _you_ have some
>difficulty in using more than one synthesizer, but there are those of
>us who are very comfortable with this mode of working. It's all mainly
>dependent on how you developed as a musician and synthesist, not on
>whether one operating paradigm is "correct" or not.
Hmm, OK, but there's nothing wrong with having a small number of boxes either,
DACC. At one stage I was using 7 or 8 synths and another half dozen MIDI
devices; now my rig is a couple of Wavestation racks, a couple of Lexicons, the
MicroWave and the sampler.
Partly this is because I want to do live work (often on small stages), and a
small, simple rig is essential for this. But the main reason is transparency.
The problem with MIDI (which you aren't using much, I notice) is that it's
complicated, messy and error-prone as rigs get large. A large MIDI rig is not
transparent, certainly not with the crappy MIDI software and control systems on
the market right now. The only way to keep things reliable and cleanly
functional is to keep things small. Or, to use some other discipline, such as a
studio which (from what you've told me) resembles the bridge of the USSN
Seaview. (Without the weekly fireworks, I hope.)
--
Nick Rothwell | "For me, it's all about mistakes too,
CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance | the human factor, which we always program
ni...@cassiel.com | into it." -- Super DJ Dmitry, Deee-Lite
Damien James Miller
: In article <jelliott-2...@twilight1h120.its.utas.edu.au> jell...@postoffice.SandyBay.utas.edu.au (Jon Elliott) writes:
: >In article <2ofiea$p...@amhux3.amherst.edu>, ljne...@unix.amherst.edu (Can
: >You Say Puyallup?) wrote:
[snip]
: The whole *DREAM STUDIO* kick is a bit tired. Its as if some
: of us believe that there is an exponential relation between technology
: and musical ability. I find that the greater the number of devices
: and synth engines available, the less time I get to create what is at
: heart, fine sounding music. Music that would sound beautiful, even if
: all I had to perform on MTV UnPlugged.
maybe that this is true for you, but i find the increased flexability
inspirational. Hearing a certain sound will give me new ideas, etc...
: >Basically, you're very right. Non-musicians often assume that the
: >technology is available to enable *them* to produce acceptable music. Why
: >do you think that every third-rate DJ is releasing tracks to vinyl?
: >Because the technology is there. This music tends to be pretty bad. I
: >could do better in my bedroom with a piece of tissue paper and a comb. To
: >a degree, it's fine to have non-musicians writing their own music but we
: >are starting to reach a point where the incompetent is seen as the
: >incomparable and the untalented as the unfettered. There are a *lot* of
: >Korg i-series workstations and 01/Ws out there now, dude! Go to your
: >downtown music store. If it's interested in making money, it will hire a
: >salesperson who says things like "With General MIDI and auto-arrangers and
: >style libraries, you can become a regular Beethoven in your own loung in a
: >matter of minutes!". This is the starting point in the rot that has set in
: >to our market. Sigh.
: Techno is not music. Usually that is, there are a few pieces
: that actually feature a musically appealing series of chords. Techno
: is a series of kicks and snares overlaid with sound patches that fit
: somewhere in the sonic range of would-be-music. But then again, it
: serves a different purpose. Techno is dance music, you don't just
: listen to it to enjoy (until you've listened to so much that you
: actually begin to like it).
This is what annoyed me about this post. Yeah fine - you don't like
techno, but how can you go and judge it as 'would-be-music'? Obviously you
have only heard the worst (in many cases the most commercial) techno music.
: >> Just *personally*, my dream studio (okay, not techno, but...) would only
: >> feature seven or eight sound-making modules: it would be a psychological
: >> motivation to get inside them and *dig* to make what *I* want, and not what
: >> someone else has made for me.
: This is an attitude I don't quite understand. Are you a
: musician or an engineer? Whatever happened to interest in
: composition? Whatever happened to being concerned more with the mood
: or tone of the chord/note sequence you are trying to get across
: through music? The particular sound (within the ranges of sound
: types) is a superficial issue. A true musician will be able to make
: music that sounds good (or at least musically recognizable) on a
: variety of different instruments.
This is the attitude that *I* don't understand. Do you program your
synths? This is what electronic music is about for me - the exploration of
new sounds and textures, not just recreating the old with the new. your
lack of appreciation in this area is probably why you don't understand
techno music...
: >I've got to agree. My dream studio is pretty much what I've got at the
: >moment. I'd probably add to it a K2000 and a WaveStation but apart from
: >that I'm pretty happy. Notice that I have only 7 devices connected to MIDI
: >in any way (the ARP Axxe is used purely as a device to be sampled. Might
: >also provide resonant filtering for the stuff coming out of the EPS from
: >time to time...
: 7 Devices? You're not a musician, you're a MIDImonster. The
: Dream Studio for a *MUSICIAN* (read, not a technogeek dressed up in
: sound) doesn't need more than ONE GOOD wavestation with LOADS of sound
: data, one really GOOD drum machine (drum modules stink), one GOOD
: Sequencer, a mixer, and a DAT. Oops and a guitar with a synth module.
and you have just severly limited yourself to a particular 'sound'. The
reason that we have lots of gear is so that we can exploit board's
strengths. for instance I wouldn't use a 303 for string sounds or the
JD-800 for a fat analog bass... each piece of gear we buy is bought for a
reason: that it can offer something slightly different to the rest of our
equipment...
Regards,
Damien
john hamilton kimble
No shit! I was forced to listen to techno so much I couldn't stand to go back to my Roy Acuff albums!!
Get a clue it said "TECHNO" dream studio not "true music" studio
I'd listen to my Plus 8 over Ace of Base anyday.
jk
.
Alex Currier
cla...@eniac.seas.upenn.edu writes:
> 7 Devices? You're not a musician, you're a MIDImonster. The
>Dream Studio for a *MUSICIAN* (read, not a technogeek dressed up in
>sound) doesn't need more than ONE GOOD wavestation with LOADS of sound
>data, one really GOOD drum machine (drum modules stink), one GOOD
>Sequencer, a mixer, and a DAT. Oops and a guitar with a synth module.
>
> THATS ALL!
Maybe for you. Sure, there are people who get an ESQ1 and an R8 and a copy
of cakewalk, crank out some IMHO weak and rather bland sounds and call it
a day. Your songs may be structurally and musically exciting and you may
be
very happy with them and that's fine. For me, however, the sounds I use
are
just as much a part of the music as the way I use them. Consider this...
could one successfully make oompah music with a pan flute and a bagpipe?
I doubt it. How would Beethoven's 5th sound played on the kazoo? I
maintain
that in order to do what *I* consider good music I have to have a degree
of
flexibility about the types of sounds I want to use. Unfortunately this
means I have quite a complex array of sound generators and processing
gear. The end result is music that depends almost entirely on the sounds
being used... and I like it that way.
I will respect your style of composition, it would be nice if you would
respect mine.
Eric
>...I find that the greater the number of devices
>and synth engines available, the less time I get to create what is at
>heart, fine sounding music.
>Music that would sound beautiful, even if
>all I had to perform on MTV UnPlugged.
In other words, music is boring layered orchestral
newage musings with no more imagination or creativity
behind it than a paint-by-numbers picture?
Techno is based on getting music out of machines.
Some of it can be played on acoustic instruments
but that's not the aim of techno. The full potential
of machines and music is far from exhausted, and is
limited only by the imagination of the user. You have
incriminated yourself.
...
> Techno is not music. Usually that is, there are a few pieces
>that actually feature a musically appealing series of chords. Techno
bad when used to approximate music by organizing them in a series.
That's something found too often in western music, but here we are.
Chords are a _consequence_ of the combination of melodies, not
a subsitute for melody. Using them as a subsitiue for melody
can make for some pretty boring and unimaginative pablum.
>is a series of kicks and snares overlaid with sound patches that fit
>somewhere in the sonic range of would-be-music. But then again, it
>serves a different purpose. Techno is dance music, you don't just
>listen to it to enjoy (until you've listened to so much that you
>actually begin to like it).
little merit.
>... Whatever happened to being concerned more with the mood
>or tone of the chord/note sequence you are trying to get across
>through music?
>The particular sound (within the ranges of sound
>types) is a superficial issue.
comprise about 50% of all solo classical tuba compositions?
Yeah right. Timbre has nothing to do with it...NOT!
>A true musician will be able to make
Elitist!
>music that sounds good (or at least musically recognizable) on a
>variety of different instruments.
>Dream Studio for a *MUSICIAN* (read, not a technogeek dressed up in
>sound) doesn't need more than ONE GOOD wavestation with LOADS of sound
>data, one really GOOD drum machine (drum modules stink), one GOOD
>Sequencer, a mixer, and a DAT. Oops and a guitar with a synth module.
he's tha shit. Or; 2) a person who has none of this equipment, but imagines
if he did he would be tha shit?
--Eric
C J Silverio
cla...@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Speaker4TheDead) writes:
| Techno is not music. [...]
Oh, god. Look, just do us all a favor and pith yourself.
Slip the icepick in over your eyeball and you're done.
Meanwhile, I'll put this thread in my killfile because
you've probably started ANOTHER useless "<stuff I don't
like> isn't music" flamefight.
---
C J Silverio ceej@[ netcom.com | well.sf.ca.us | genmagic.com ]
Jon Elliott
(Speaker4TheDead) wrote:
> In article <jelliott-2...@twilight1h120.its.utas.edu.au> jell...@postoffice.SandyBay.utas.edu.au (Jon Elliott) writes:
> The whole *DREAM STUDIO* kick is a bit tired. Its as if some
> of us believe that there is an exponential relation between technology
> and musical ability. I find that the greater the number of devices
> and synth engines available, the less time I get to create what is at
> heart, fine sounding music. Music that would sound beautiful, even if
> all I had to perform on MTV UnPlugged.
Oh, *do* grow up. If I was ever stating that, I retract it. However, if
you honestly believe that I am claiming that technology is a substitute for
talent then you'd better learn to read a little more carefully, my friend.
> >Basically, you're very right. Non-musicians often assume that the
> >technology is available to enable *them* to produce acceptable music. Why
> >do you think that every third-rate DJ is releasing tracks to vinyl?
> >Because the technology is there. This music tends to be pretty bad. I
> >could do better in my bedroom with a piece of tissue paper and a comb. To
> >a degree, it's fine to have non-musicians writing their own music but we
> >are starting to reach a point where the incompetent is seen as the
> >incomparable and the untalented as the unfettered. There are a *lot* of
> >Korg i-series workstations and 01/Ws out there now, dude! Go to your
> >downtown music store. If it's interested in making money, it will hire a
> >salesperson who says things like "With General MIDI and auto-arrangers and
> >style libraries, you can become a regular Beethoven in your own loung in a
> >matter of minutes!". This is the starting point in the rot that has set in
> >to our market. Sigh.
>
> Techno is not music. Usually that is, there are a few pieces
> that actually feature a musically appealing series of chords. Techno
> is a series of kicks and snares overlaid with sound patches that fit
> somewhere in the sonic range of would-be-music. But then again, it
> serves a different purpose. Techno is dance music, you don't just
> listen to it to enjoy (until you've listened to so much that you
> actually begin to like it).
Hmm...For something to be called "music" then it must have a tune that you
can hum? Go back and discover a whole world of music theory, boyo. I'm
sure that Schoenberg, Berio, Cage and even Stravinsky might beg to differ
with that school of thought. Techno is dance music, sure, but that doesn't
exclude it from the category of sounds that we refer to as "music". Techno
does not rely on an appealing series of chords. Good music does not
neccessarily rely on one, either. Listen to the work done by Luciano Berio
or Karlheinz Stockhausen. Sure, it may not appeal to all tastes but it is
definitely music. Good techno relies upon many things but one common theme
is the use of unusual intervals in the melody. Augmented fourths and minor
seconds are used with abandon. Major sevenths and augmented fifths are
thrown together to produce "tough" sounding melodies. Melodies they are.
Just because they don't follow the "formula" for melody construction
doesn't mean that they're inferior. Admit it...It's just a matter of
personal taste.
> >I've got to agree. My dream studio is pretty much what I've got at the
> >moment. I'd probably add to it a K2000 and a WaveStation but apart from
> >that I'm pretty happy. Notice that I have only 7 devices connected to MIDI
> >in any way (the ARP Axxe is used purely as a device to be sampled. Might
> >also provide resonant filtering for the stuff coming out of the EPS from
> >time to time...
>
> 7 Devices? You're not a musician, you're a MIDImonster. The
> Dream Studio for a *MUSICIAN* (read, not a technogeek dressed up in
> sound) doesn't need more than ONE GOOD wavestation with LOADS of sound
> data, one really GOOD drum machine (drum modules stink), one GOOD
> Sequencer, a mixer, and a DAT. Oops and a guitar with a synth module.
Not a musician? Tell me what *you've* achieved (apart from flaming me to
ashes for an innocuous article in an innocuous thread). I am a more than
competent pianist who also plays trumpet, drums, sax and guitar. I've been
studying classical (so-called "classical") piano for upwards of fourteen
years and could happily say that I am of a high standard. I also think
that you should forget using synths at all if you don't believe that the
actual *sounds* have a bearing on the music. Synthesisers are there to
make sounds that are unique to their domain, not produce "a nice string
sound" or a "realistic brass sound". Synths become very dull when you use
the same sounds in them over and over and over and over and over and over
again. Their limitations lie in the fact that you can't get as much tonal
variation out of a synthesised patch than you can in, say, a piano. That's
why a lone lounge-lizard pianist playing a piano never sounds dull but a
similar musician playing a synth's piano patch gets grating after a while.
What do you expect me to do? Throw out all the gear that I use to make
unique sounds and get a Sound Canvas? Then I can sound like the
homogenised crowd and start playing loungeroom jazz or maybe play hammond
organ parts in a funk band or maybe play some Van Halen-esque OB-8 type
sounds in a rock band (oops...Musicians aren't allowed to have more than
one sound module and the Canvas that you talked me into buying doesn't do
OB-8 type sounds so maybe I'll just have to forget that).
> THATS ALL!
You reckon? Maybe it will be but *don't* make aspersions to *anyone's*
musicianship (or lack of) and state what you believe without labelling
people things like "technogeek". As for musicianship itself, I'm happy
with my standard which is much quite acceptable by the standards of most
people, thank you.
--
Jon.
-----
Jonathan Elliott
jell...@postoffice.SandyBay.utas.edu.au
ALQ - Trance for the masses
EPS/EPS 16+/JX-3P/TG33/VC-330/TB-303/DX100/Axxe
-----
Thomas Weedon Hume
> > serves a different purpose. Techno is dance music, you don't just
> > listen to it to enjoy (until you've listened to so much that you
> > actually begin to like it).
I disagree with this bit... I *do* listen to techno to enjoy it, and it's only recently that I "discovered" it, so to speak... before that I'd heard almost none (and disliked what I had heard...)
---
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Fug fug fug wug wug Hume | A breathing fungus on a haemorraged lawn invented |
| email: ssu...@rdg.ac.uk | me one summer's morn... I lost you now but I'll |
| 2:441/80....@fidonet.org | get you later - wading through your ventilator... |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Nick Rothwell
In article <16FAAC6DES...@cms.cc.wayne.edu> eiv...@cms.cc.wayne.edu
(Eric) writes:
>Techno is based on getting music out of machines.
>The full potential
>of machines and music is far from exhausted, and is
>limited only by the imagination of the user.
... and the number of TB303's one owns.
James B. Hinton
Ace of Base is about as "Techno" as REO Speedwagon
Can You Say Puyallup?
> Ace of Base is about as "Techno" as REO Speedwagon
I hope somebody redirects followups after this; I'm not sure where to send
this, but I did have a question: what *is* techno? I mean, I've listened to
Group A or Group B, who call themselves techno, and then Group C comes along
and says, familiarly, "No, see, Groups A and B *thought* they were techno,
but they weren't." Group C then doesn't offer any reason for their judgment.
What is up with a musical distinction that has *no* criteria, necessary or
sufficient (short of the use of a TB-303 and a 909)?
Jon Wätte
>I hope somebody redirects followups after this; I'm not sure where to send
>this, but I did have a question: what *is* techno? I mean, I've listened to
Well, for starters, most of the songs should have a three-digit
tempo... (actually, >120 is pretty mandatory, and >140 for the
hardcore people)
Cheers,
/ h+
--
-- Jon W{tte, h...@nada.kth.se, Mac Hacker Deluxe (on a Swedish scale) --
Clearly, most humans are not rational beings; they are rationalizing beings.
-- Mel Walker
Hendrik Jan Veenstra
>In <2quj78$r...@amhux3.amherst.edu> ljne...@unix.amherst.edu (Can You Say Puyallup?) writes:
>>I hope somebody redirects followups after this; I'm not sure where to send
>>this, but I did have a question: what *is* techno? I mean, I've listened to
>Well, for starters, most of the songs should have a three-digit
>tempo... (actually, >120 is pretty mandatory, and >140 for the
>hardcore people)
And a base every quarter, a hi-hat every sixteenth, lots of ripped-off samples,
no noticable melodic or harmonic progression, and use of outdated horrible
sounding drum machines. O, and of course lots of halftone sequences, because
they're so easy to play :-).
Working on a piece full of D#min maj7b11 stuff, and wondering for the umpteenth
time what all the techno-fuzz is about...
--
Hendrik Jan Veenstra (h...@phil.ruu.nl) Dept. of Philosophy
University of Utrecht The Netherlands
This message was passed by value
Eric
>>Well, for starters, most of the songs should have a three-digit
>>tempo... (actually, >120 is pretty mandatory, and >140 for the
>>hardcore people)
>And a base every quarter, a hi-hat every sixteenth, lots of ripped-off samples,
>no noticable melodic or harmonic progression, and use of outdated horrible
>sounding drum machines. O, and of course lots of halftone sequences, because
>they're so easy to play :-).
>Working on a piece full of D#min maj7b11 stuff, and wondering for the umpteenth
>time what all the techno-fuzz is about...
and you just had to flaunt it in front of all of us.
So you like to use tired western chord forms. Very nice. I'm sure
your music is very boring.
But what do I know? I'm just a poor non-musician who uses layered dissonant
keys and baroque modulations to agument the development of themes and
variations while avoiding ABACABAB arrangments and other cliches of
20th century western pop tradition. I make techno.
Your citiques remind me of my once myopic view of disco. I was wrong
then and you are wrong now.cogito ergo techno
--Eric
Hendrik Jan Veenstra
>Clearly you guys have not heard any really good techno.
Hmpff... I suppose I've heard all kinds of stuff, ranging from top-40 House to
esoteric small-label techno to ambient stuff to hard-core analog things to...
>>Working on a piece full of D#min maj7b11 stuff, and wondering for the
>
>So you like to use tired western chord forms. Very nice. I'm sure
>your music is very boring.
Try to play a D#min maj7b11 and wonder again if the predicate 'tired western
chord form' is really applicable. Don't think so... And just for fun, let it
be followed by an A b6/9... Etc.
And boring??? Thump thump thump thump thump thump thump (140 bpm) hahaha...
>But what do I know? I'm just a poor non-musician who uses layered dissonant
>keys and baroque modulations to agument the development of themes and
>variations while avoiding ABACABAB arrangments and other cliches of
>20th century western pop tradition. I make techno.
Who was talking about western pop tradition? Not me... And layered dissonant
keys is a synonym for randomisation , I suppose?
>Your citiques remind me of my once myopic view of disco. I was wrong
>then and you are wrong now.
Well, at least you're funny...
>cogito ergo techno
How wonderful it must be to be so sure about your own being right. Geesh,
almost makes me jealous...
However, I never said that there will never come anything good and lasting out
of techno. Maybe there will, one day, maybe there won't. For now, however,
I'm afraid the techno-stream is just still too young, too immature and too many
techno-geeks without any musical or compositorial capability crowd the scene.
Let's wait and see what happens... once the 808 and 909 become obsolete, once
the charm of analog sounds dies out, once the fear for all that 'has been done
already' disappears, once the 4-4-8, 8-8-16 schemes are replaced by something
more creative (who was talking about 'tired western forms'... ?).
Maybe one day the concept of 'expression' will even penetrate techno... when
techno makers start thinking like grown-up composers instead of sample-editors,
knob-tweakers, remix-makers or button-pushers.
Ok, enough raving for today (pun intended).
Enjoy your music, whichever kind it is...
--
Hendrik Jan Veenstra (h...@phil.ruu.nl) Dept. of Philosophy
Scott Brian Wright
Hendrik Jan Veenstra (h...@phil.ruu.nl) wrote:
<a lot of drivel about how much techno sucks deleted>
: Enjoy your music, whichever kind it is...
I'm glad you did not close this post with a statement like-
Sincerely, Hendrik
Or I would have surely called you a liar. But since you didn't, i can
safely assume you meant the preserved line above as sarcasm and not an
honest sentiment.
Enjoy your music, whichever kind it is...
Sincerely, Scott.
_______________ ____________________________________ _________________
| ________ / / / / |
| \ / / / \ \ Scott B. Wright \ \ S I L E N C E |
| \/\/\/ / / sb...@Ra.MsState.Edu / / = |
| L I V E ! \ \ Mississippi State University \ \ D E A T H ! |
|______________/ /____________________________________/ /_________________|
Nicolai Thilo
>eiv...@cms.cc.wayne.edu (Eric) writes:
>
>>Clearly you guys have not heard any really good techno.
>
>Hmpff... I suppose I've heard all kinds of stuff, ranging from top-40 House to
>esoteric small-label techno to ambient stuff to hard-core analog things to...
^^^^^^^^
Like what, if I may ask?
Techno is a term describing electronic music. Beneath that you have a lot
of different styles, like ambient, new wave, electro, trance, hardhouse,
industrial, acid, and even pop. Yeah, as if you care!
>Try to play a D#min maj7b11 and wonder again if the predicate 'tired western
>chord form' is really applicable. Don't think so... And just for fun, let it
>be followed by an A b6/9... Etc.
Damn, I don't know how to! Does that mean, I can't make music?
>And boring??? Thump thump thump thump thump thump thump (140 bpm) hahaha...
Try listening to something like Doubting Thomas and early Skinny Puppy,
if you can find it. Listen real good with earphones, then come back and
tell me that there's no creativity in there.
>However, I never said that there will never come anything good and lasting out
>of techno.
There already is. It's just that you haven't heard it. Maybe if you
started listening to some of the "techno" not intended for raves and
radio, you would realize.
>Maybe there will, one day, maybe there won't. For now, however,
>I'm afraid the techno-stream is just still too young, too immature and too many
>techno-geeks without any musical or compositorial capability crowd the scene.
Get real. You still need musical and compositorial abilities to do
techno that people will buy. Granted, the hardhouse/trance music is
not that hard to do (IMHO), but then again, what would a rave be
without it? (I suppose you don't enjoy being at a rave, so you wouldn't
know).
>Let's wait and see what happens... once the 808 and 909 become obsolete, once
>the charm of analog sounds dies out, once the fear for all that 'has been done
>already' disappears, once the 4-4-8, 8-8-16 schemes are replaced by something
>more creative (who was talking about 'tired western forms'... ?).
Man, try digging a little deeper than house.
>Maybe one day the concept of 'expression' will even penetrate techno... when
>techno makers start thinking like grown-up composers instead of sample-editors,
>knob-tweakers, remix-makers or button-pushers.
What are you doing in this newsgroup? This kind of prejudice really
makes me sick. You must be suffering from technophobia.
>Ok, enough raving for today (pun intended).
>Enjoy your music, whichever kind it is...
Same to you. What *do* you like, BTW? Just wondering...
__
/\/./.
Can You Say Puyallup?
> So you like to use tired western chord forms. Very nice. I'm sure
> your music is very boring.
How so? I'm curious as to how techno is not. Genuinely curious, that is; not
a flame. I'd like to hear somebody who can tell me *why* techno is moving
forward and not backward to some derivative of one-chord rock and roll. When
I listen, I hear one or two chords based off a phrygian lick, some admittedly
original sounds -- or originally mangled, at any rate -- and not much else.
Except that oh-my-god-shut-it-off-now 909 kick. :)
> But what do I know? I'm just a poor non-musician who uses layered dissonant
> keys and baroque modulations to agument the development of themes and
> variations while avoiding ABACABAB arrangments and other cliches of
> 20th century western pop tradition. I make techno.
Baroque modulations? Like IV-V7-I? Or something else? Modulations to what
key? Are there sections to a techno piece? Are there keys, for that matter?
Is techno music theme and variations? Is there any set way to vary the theme?
How long does a theme typically last? What kinds of things do you do to vary
it? Do you take pieces of the theme and improvise over them? Do you just play
the theme up a fifth? What's the process here?
Layered dissonant keys, by the way, touch a sore point here: go listen to some
Duke Ellington. And I don't mean "Satin Doll."
> Your citiques remind me of my once myopic view of disco. I was wrong
> then and you are wrong now.
I'm not right *or* wrong; I'm asking questions.
> cogito ergo techno
Ergo...quod? Techno *est*? Erit? Erat?
Can You Say Puyallup?
> Techno is a term describing electronic music.
"Switched on Bach" is techno? Wow. I think I have a lot of learning to do
here. Let's see...that must make the "Miami Vice" theme song techno.
> Beneath that you have a lot
> of different styles, like ambient, new wave, electro, trance, hardhouse,
> industrial, acid, and even pop. Yeah, as if you care!
What's the difference between "electro" and "hardhouse"? Can you give me some
necessary and/or sufficient conditions?
> Man, try digging a little deeper than house.
Oh, and the difference between "house" and the others is...? And "trance"?
Curious,
Eric
>Hmpff... I suppose I've heard all kinds of stuff, ranging from top-40 House to
>esoteric small-label techno to ambient stuff to hard-core analog things to...
what I heard on the radio or from my raver friends. Where I live is where
most would credit to be the birthplace of what mutated into today's techno.
Have you heard much by Underground Resistance? Derrick May? Kenny Larkin?
Juan Atkins? Carl Craig? How about Kraftwerk (the grandfathers of techno)?
>>>Working on a piece full of D#min maj7b11 stuff, and wondering for the
>>So you like to use tired western chord forms. Very nice. I'm sure
>>your music is very boring.
>Try to play a D#min maj7b11 and wonder again if the predicate 'tired western
>chord form' is really applicable. Don't think so... And just for fun, let it
>be followed by an A b6/9... Etc.
When I use chords, they are often so off-the-wall that you can only
properly refer to them by naming the individual notes. Personally I
tend to avoid chords because I feel they are a substitute for a good
combination of melodies. Simple sets of chord changes assembled sequentially
and repeated in patterns are just as annoying a cliche to me as 4/4 time
must be to you.
And my computer has no problem playing any
series of chords you could care to name. :)
>And boring??? Thump thump thump thump thump thump thump (140 bpm) hahaha...
>>But what do I know? I'm just a poor non-musician who uses layered dissonant
>>keys and baroque modulations to agument the development of themes and
>>variations while avoiding ABACABAB arrangments and other cliches of
>>20th century western pop tradition. I make techno.
>Who was talking about western pop tradition? Not me...
>And layered dissonant
>keys is a synonym for randomisation , I suppose?
which are in different (and often radically so) keys but,
due to clever note selection and arrangement, combine to
form pleasing tone clusters
It's nothing too incredible, in fact Charles Ives and George Antheil
have pulled it off somewhat better than I have been able to do so far. :)
>Well, at least you're funny...
>However, I never said that there will never come anything good and lasting out
>of techno. Maybe there will, one day, maybe there won't. For now, however,
>I'm afraid the techno-stream is just still too young, too immature and too many
>techno-geeks without any musical or compositorial capability crowd the scene.
>Let's wait and see what happens... once the 808 and 909 become obsolete, once
>the charm of analog sounds dies out,
revoloution? It took the technoids to notice that there's a lot of
old equipment that never got fully exploited.
>once the fear for all that 'has been done
>already' disappears, once the 4-4-8, 8-8-16 schemes are replaced by something
>more creative (who was talking about 'tired western forms'... ?).
I base my arrangements on feel, not formulas.
>Maybe one day the concept of 'expression' will even penetrate techno... when
>techno makers start thinking like grown-up composers instead of sample-editors,
>knob-tweakers, remix-makers or button-pushers.
>Ok, enough raving for today (pun intended).
>Enjoy your music, whichever kind it is...
Eric
WRT "boring"
>How so? I'm curious as to how techno is not. Genuinely curious, that is; not
>a flame. I'd like to hear somebody who can tell me *why* techno is moving
>forward and not backward to some derivative of one-chord rock and roll. When
of music, only boring examples of a style.
To me techno represents freedom from convention. That I find very exciting.
Have you ever heard _Overdrive_ or _Information_ by Elecktric Music?
Sure, they are repetitious, but since they are primarily dance pieces,
that is not a condemning factor. I find them intensely interesting.
And let's look at repetition for a second (he said mixing metaphors).
Is it not our culturation that has told us how long a piece of music
should be or how many chords it should contain, etc.?
One of the most musically liberating experiences of my life came
when I heard an African family perform authentic African tribal
dance pieces. No overstated melodies, no chords, no strict adherance
to arrangements--but lots of rhythm, timbral contrast, feeling, and
it sure as heck held my interest for the hour of so of their performance.
>I listen, I hear one or two chords based off a phrygian lick, some admittedly
>original sounds -- or originally mangled, at any rate -- and not much else.
>Except that oh-my-god-shut-it-off-now 909 kick. :)
in a tried-and-true formula that prolongs the listener's tolerance
for same. To my ears, there's painfully little going on there.
>> But what do I know? I'm just a poor non-musician who uses layered dissonant
>> keys and baroque modulations to agument the development of themes and
>> variations while avoiding ABACABAB arrangments and other cliches of
>> 20th century western pop tradition. I make techno.
>Baroque modulations? Like IV-V7-I? Or something else? Modulations to what
>key?
be amused. (of course, I'm more of a Vivaldi fan, but that's another story)
>Are there sections to a techno piece? Are there keys, for that matter?
a cut-and-paste shortcut of creating a composition. I prefer
gradual development without overly delineated shifts (i.e. no "eight bars
of this, then we go to the bridge").
Have you heard _Numbers_ by Kraftwerk (the grandfathers of techno)?
It has wonderful development of it's themes and there's not a whit
of melody in it, and thus no keys!
>Is techno music theme and variations?
use of the intrinsic automated quality of the machines that
are used to create it.
>Is there any set way to vary the theme?
>How long does a theme typically last?
an audience, I would be sensitive to their reactions and augment the
arrangement accordingly. This, by the way, does not cheapen the
composition, in my view it makes it better.
>What kinds of things do you do to vary
>it? Do you take pieces of the theme and improvise over them?
if it inspires me, I proceed to improvise. Over the course of improvsation
I may come up with several themes and variations. Then comes the fun part,
going over what I've improvised and gleaning the best parts. Maybe I'll
combine riffs into something new entirely, or perhaps I'll adjust phrasing
of a passage. Every step of the process is open to change and new ideas.
This includes the mixing phase and the editing phase. Eventually the parts
become a coherent whole.
Of course, sometimes people can't get past the amounts of repetition
in my music, and even though there is the sort of development I've
been going on about, some people will just shrug their shoulders and mutter
something about a lack of chord chages and a maddeningly constant thump. :)
>Do you just play
>the theme up a fifth? What's the process here?
more creativity than that. :)
>Layered dissonant keys, by the way, touch a sore point here: go listen to some
>Duke Ellington. And I don't mean "Satin Doll."
>> cogito ergo techno
>Ergo...quod? Techno *est*? Erit? Erat?
>LAiRD
--Eric
Hendrik Jan Veenstra
>h...@phil.ruu.nl (Hendrik Jan Veenstra) writes:
>>eiv...@cms.cc.wayne.edu (Eric) writes:
>
>>Hmpff... I suppose I've heard all kinds of stuff, ranging from top-40 House to
>>esoteric small-label techno to ambient stuff to hard-core analog things to...
>
>Sorry, I guess I'm at an advantage here, since I came to techno not from
>what I heard on the radio or from my raver friends. Where I live is where
>most would credit to be the birthplace of what mutated into today's techno.
Most techno I heard came to me from people who make techno for a living, and
who tried (just as you do) to let me 'see the light' by giving me tons of CD's
to play at home. I did, I listened, I listened again, and, needless to say, I
still don't see the light. :-)
A huge part of techno is (imo) just stupid 1-chord 1-beat dance music. Another
part is trying to imitate Brian Eno and fails miserably, yet another part is
trying to do something along the lines of Kraftwerk, but doesn't succeed too
well either (and I already disliked Kraftwerk when I was a youngster), yet
another part tries to sound like 'modern classical music in a pop-form', but
only ends up in chaos, another part tries to be experimental (lots of analog
shrieking and such), but Einsturzenden Neubauten (sp?) was some 15 years
earlier and a lot more original, etc, etc. Should I continue? :-)
>Have you heard much by Underground Resistance? Derrick May? Kenny Larkin?
>Juan Atkins? Carl Craig? How about Kraftwerk (the grandfathers of techno)?
Yes, yes, no, yes, don't know (sounds vaguely familiar). And w.r.t.
Kraftwerk: I probably already listened to Kraftwerk when you were still
crawling in your craddle :-). My first Kraftwerk album was bought somewhere in
the mid-seventies, I guess. And I didn't like it from the onset, just as I
don't like the other artists you mentioned...
Sure, there's some relatively pleasant stuff among all techno (right now I'm
listening to U.F.Orb -- another quite boring Eno rip-off), but 'relatively
pleasant' isn't enough. It's quite easy to make a 32-bar sequence that, when
repeated for an hour, makes for 'relatively pleasant' background noise. But
that's not what music is about imo.
>>Try to play a D#min maj7b11 and wonder again if the predicate 'tired western
>>chord form' is really applicable. Don't think so... And just for fun, let it
>>be followed by an A b6/9... Etc.
>
>My point being that you can define it so easily.
>When I use chords, they are often so off-the-wall that you can only
>properly refer to them by naming the individual notes.
Sorry, but this is nonsense. Any chord can be given lots of different names,
depending on the context. E.g. this D#m thingy would have been an Eb... in
another context, or a Gm maj7 b6, or ... Wadda ye mean, 'define it so easily'?
And even if the chords are relatively straightforward and relatively easily
identifiable, then still it doesn't necessarily hold that the resulting music
is boring or that the predicate 'tired western chord forms' holds for the
entire result (i.e. the sequence of chords as such). Sure, a plain C-chord is
simple, as is a F#-chord, but when played after each other (or simultaneously),
things already are a lot less boring.
And what about the sequence Bm/B - G#m6/A# - F#m9/A - Gm maj7/G. Just to take
an example...
Things are not as simple as you state them... Bach uses easily definable,
tired western chord forms. So what? Try to write something like the
Wohltemperiertes Klavier, or the Goldberg Variations, and then rethink your
judgement a bit...
>Personally I
>tend to avoid chords because I feel they are a substitute for a good
>combination of melodies.
But a combination of melodies (i.e. polyphony) *automatically* results ins
sounding chords. So the one doesn't 'defeat' the other.
>Simple sets of chord changes assembled sequentially
>and repeated in patterns are just as annoying a cliche to me as 4/4 time
>must be to you.
Who was talking about simple sets of sequentially assembled chords, repeated in
patterns??? Not me -- that's something I never used after my first few songs
(i.e. more than a decade ago).
>No, it's a way to describe the combining of melodies
>which are in different (and often radically so) keys but,
>due to clever note selection and arrangement, combine to
>form pleasing tone clusters
"Pleasing tone clusters" Oh, you mean 'chords'... :-)
>And please let me know what kind you like so I can belittle it further! :)
Bach, Eno, 70-ies sympho rock, Peter Hammill, Stravinsky, Arvo Part, Ingwie
Malmsteen, Steve Reich, Zappa, Elvis Costello, Luciano Berio, Dave Brubeck,
Benjamin Britten, Rickie Lee Jones, Charlie Parker, Van Morrisson, etc, etc...
--
Hendrik Jan Veenstra (h...@phil.ruu.nl) Dept. of Philosophy
Hendrik Jan Veenstra
>Hendrik Jan Veenstra (h...@phil.ruu.nl) wrote:
>: Enjoy your music, whichever kind it is...
>I'm glad you did not close this post with a statement like-
>Sincerely, Hendrik
>Or I would have surely called you a liar. But since you didn't, i can
>safely assume you meant the preserved line above as sarcasm and not an
>honest sentiment.
O no, I completely meant every character I typed. I don't object to people
making techno (a very good friend of mine even makes a living of his making-
techno), and I don't object to people enjoying techno. I just find all the
techno (and house and hiphop...) ulimately non-interesting in the end.
Some pieces manage to grab my attention for a few minutes -- or maybe even for
the entire piece upon first hearing -- but on repeated hearing I've never found
a piece of lasting interest.
But how could I reasonably object to people enjoying what they're doing, be it
making music I don't like or listening to music I don't like? However, all
that doesn't take away the fact that *I* don't like it, and that I feel free to
write down my thoughts, likes, dislikes, views and arguments on a free network
like usenet.
And if *you* want to call that 'drivel'... well, that's *your* freedom, isn't
it?
When people throw cans of paints against canvases, 10 paintings a day, and call
that Art (mind the capital), then I will object. I appreciate and respect the
fun they have while throwing paint, and ocassionally there may even be a canvas
that I like (accidentally, I suppose :-), but calling such random colour-blobs
Art is way over the edge imo.
That's not to say that all techno is made in a similar way -- I _know_ it
isn't. It's just to make something clear about the differences between
appreciating something someone *does*, appreciating the result, and the
predicate one gives to this result.
>Enjoy your music, whichever kind it is...
Sure I will. And same to you, honestly.
Hendrik Jan Veenstra
>h...@phil.ruu.nl (Hendrik Jan Veenstra) wrote:
>>Hmpff... I suppose I've heard all kinds of stuff, ranging from top-40 House to
>>esoteric small-label techno to ambient stuff to hard-core analog things to...
> ^^^^^^^^
>Like what, if I may ask?
Sorry, but I really don't (want to) remeber the tons of names of techno-bands I
listened to during the years. Some friends of mine make techno, some even make
a living out of it, and they're still trying to convert me, which means that
every few weeks I get another set of CD's -- samplers and one-band CD's -- of
all kinds of techno, and they still hope that one day I'll return the records
with a statement 'wow, now *this* is really good'. Which still hasn't
happened, as will be clear :-).
But, since they're friends, and since I tend to be quite open-minded, I still
listen to all the stuff they give me. But all in all, I think I listened to
hundereds of techno-bands of the most diverse kinds, of places all over the
world, of the most esoteric labels, so I think I _do_ know somewhat what I'm
talking about.
>Techno is a term describing electronic music.
You surely mean 'a very specific kind of electronic music'? Or would you call
Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, Wendy Carlos, Stockhausen, etc all 'techno'? :-)
>Beneath that you have a lot
>of different styles, like ambient, new wave, electro, trance, hardhouse,
>industrial, acid, and even pop. Yeah, as if you care!
I know, I know. And why wouldn't I care? I do care, and you tell me nothing
new. And so, there are many different sub-styles... So what? What's your
point?
>>Try to play a D#min maj7b11 and wonder again if the predicate 'tired western
>Damn, I don't know how to! Does that mean, I can't make music?
No, of course not. At best it *might* mean you lack some very handy conceptual
and technical tools, that, at times, would make writing music a bit easier.
And besides: the above wasn't directed at you, but at someone who was talking
about 'tired western chord forms'. I don't think people should judge about
stuff they know nothing about -- i.e. you shouldn't have been the person who
wrote the judgement 'tired western chord forms', since you clearly know little
about chord forms. But then, you indeed _were_ not the person who wrote that,
so what are we arguing about anyway?
>Try listening to something like Doubting Thomas and early Skinny Puppy,
>if you can find it. Listen real good with earphones, then come back and
>tell me that there's no creativity in there.
I never said *all* techno is lacking *any kind* of creativity. I heard some
very creative uses of samples, very creative uses of electronic gear, very
creative polyrythms, etc. I've just hardly ever heard something that was
interesting (let alone impressing) as a whole. Even the creative parts become
boring after a few times in general...
>There already is. It's just that you haven't heard it. Maybe if you
>started listening to some of the "techno" not intended for raves and
>radio, you would realize.
Read one of my other postings, or the 1st paragraph above. I hardly ever
listen to the radio, because I find most of what I hear there boring beyond
imagination.
>Get real. You still need musical and compositorial abilities to do
>techno that people will buy.
Not true. I know people whithout those abilities that make a living out of
making techno (no names will be mentioned, as I'm tralking about friends).
>Man, try digging a little deeper than house.
I did. A whole lot deeper...
>>techno makers start thinking like grown-up composers instead of sample-
>>editors, knob-tweakers, remix-makers or button-pushers.
>What are you doing in this newsgroup? This kind of prejudice really
>makes me sick. You must be suffering from technophobia.
Excuse me? Sorry, I hadn't noticed this was rec.music.makers.techno. I
thought it was r.m.m.synth, a newsgroup for people using electronic gear to
make music...
In case you don't get it: people with synths and samplers don't necessarily
make techno. Some of them actually make something entirely different, like
stuff involving D#m maj7b11 chords...
>Same to you. What *do* you like, BTW? Just wondering...
See one of my previous postings.
cheers, Hendrik Jan
Nicolai Thilo
>Nicolai Thilo (ni...@login.dkuug.dk) wrote:
>> Techno is a term describing electronic music.
>
>"Switched on Bach" is techno?
Yes, IMHO.
>Wow. I think I have a lot of learning to do here.
You sure do.
>Let's see...that must make the "Miami Vice" theme song techno.
Right. And Jean Michel Jarre, and Kraftwerk, and Yello, and so on.
>What's the difference between "electro" and "hardhouse"? Can you give me some
>necessary and/or sufficient conditions?
See below.
>> Man, try digging a little deeper than house.
>
>Oh, and the difference between "house" and the others is...? And "trance"?
Yeah, as if you care. I could easily tell you the differences, but if
you like different electronic music, you ought to know them. If you
don't like it, then why should I bother telling you?
__
/\/./.
Can You Say Puyallup?
> >Oh, and the difference between "house" and the others is...? And "trance"?
> Yeah, as if you care. I could easily tell you the differences, but if
> you like different electronic music, you ought to know them. If you
> don't like it, then why should I bother telling you?
Goodness. *Blink*. Well, can *anyone* of some moral worth tell me what the
difference between these forms of music is? I'm not trying to make a point
here; I had hoped that was clear -- I'm merely curious. Maybe I think I
don't like techno because of the people who get insulted when questions are
asked about it.
Eric
>trying to do something along the lines of Kraftwerk, but doesn't succeed too
>well either (and I already disliked Kraftwerk when I was a youngster), yet
>another part tries to sound like 'modern classical music in a pop-form', but
>only ends up in chaos, another part tries to be experimental (lots of analog
>shrieking and such), but Einsturzenden Neubauten (sp?) was some 15 years
>earlier
>and a lot more original, etc, etc. Should I continue? :-)
>>Have you heard much by Underground Resistance? Derrick May? Kenny Larkin?
>>Juan Atkins? Carl Craig? How about Kraftwerk (the grandfathers of techno)?
>Yes, yes, no, yes, don't know (sounds vaguely familiar). And w.r.t.
>Kraftwerk: I probably already listened to Kraftwerk when you were still
>crawling in your craddle :-).
* If you did, what is the relevance to this thread?
* Since I gave up the cradle a good 6 years before Ralf and Florian
first met, I can say with some authority that you are wrong.
>My first Kraftwerk album was bought somewhere in
>the mid-seventies, I guess. And I didn't like it from the onset, just as I
>don't like the other artists you mentioned...
>Sure, there's some relatively pleasant stuff among all techno (right now I'm
>listening to U.F.Orb
20th century Debussey ripoffs that you could care to name. This is not
to say that _No Pussyfooting_ and _Evening Star_ weren't milestone albums.
(Robert Fripp truly is incredible :)
>-- another quite boring Eno rip-off),
I mostly like his rock stuff, but tell me; how did you like Eno's
_Fractal Zoom_ remix CD?
>but 'relatively
>pleasant' isn't enough. It's quite easy to make a 32-bar sequence that, when
>repeated for an hour, makes for 'relatively pleasant' background noise. But
>that's not what music is about imo.
WRT Db min Maj7 b11
>>My point being that you can define it so easily.
>>When I use chords, they are often so off-the-wall that you can only
>>properly refer to them by naming the individual notes.
>Sorry, but this is nonsense. Any chord can be given lots of different names,
>depending on the context. E.g. this D#m thingy would have been an Eb... in
>another context, or a Gm maj7 b6, or ... Wadda ye mean, 'define it so easily'?
single recognizable key? :)
Even if there was a tonal center, I'd be the first to deny it. :)
>And even if the chords are relatively straightforward and relatively easily
>identifiable, then still it doesn't necessarily hold that the resulting music
>is boring or that the predicate 'tired western chord forms' holds for the
>entire result (i.e. the sequence of chords as such). Sure, a plain C-chord is
>simple, as is a F#-chord, but when played after each other (or simultaneously),
>things already are a lot less boring.
>And what about the sequence Bm/B - G#m6/A# - F#m9/A - Gm maj7/G. Just to take
>an example...
>Things are not as simple as you state them... Bach uses easily definable,
>tired western chord forms. So what?
>Try to write something like the
>Wohltemperiertes Klavier, or the Goldberg Variations, and then rethink your
>judgement a bit...
he wrote the _Well-tempered Klavier_? Sure, I've been meaning to do
just that very thing.
>But a combination of melodies (i.e. polyphony) *automatically* results ins
>sounding chords. So the one doesn't 'defeat' the other.
subsequent harmonic spectrum are, after all, different frequencies.
It's really a matter of perception, isn't it?
>Who was talking about simple sets of sequentially assembled chords, repeated in
>patterns??? Not me -- that's something I never used after my first few songs
>(i.e. more than a decade ago).
techno.
>"Pleasing tone clusters" Oh, you mean 'chords'... :-)
>Bach, Eno, 70-ies sympho rock, Peter Hammill, Stravinsky, Arvo Part, Ingwie
>Malmsteen, Steve Reich, Zappa, Elvis Costello, Luciano Berio, Dave Brubeck,
>Benjamin Britten, Rickie Lee Jones, Charlie Parker, Van Morrisson, etc, etc...
Pretty decent overall. Some good and some bad by each artist.--Eric
Jon Elliott
Jan Veenstra) wrote:
> >In <2quj78$r...@amhux3.amherst.edu> ljne...@unix.amherst.edu (Can You Say Puyallup?) writes:
>
> >>I hope somebody redirects followups after this; I'm not sure where to send
> >>this, but I did have a question: what *is* techno? I mean, I've listened to
I believe that a simplistic definition of techno is "4/4 time dance music
with a heavy emphasis on electronically created or, especially, electronic
sounding timbres". The whole genre has become so muddled up with its
numerous subgenres that we can hardly find a catch-all definition. Tempi
range from just below andante (100bpm or so) up to prestissimo (160bpm+).
> >Well, for starters, most of the songs should have a three-digit
> >tempo... (actually, >120 is pretty mandatory, and >140 for the
> >hardcore people)
>
> And a base every quarter, a hi-hat every sixteenth, lots of ripped-off samples,
> no noticable melodic or harmonic progression, and use of outdated horrible
> sounding drum machines. O, and of course lots of halftone sequences, because
> they're so easy to play :-).
Real understanding at work, there, good buddy. Perhaps Stockhausen spliced
tape together because he couldn't play? I think not. Music is music is
music. What you say is dreck another may describe as heavenly. Doesn't
matter.
My friend, if you have a problem with the melodic content or harmonic
progression of techno then you're listening to it with the ears of someone
who's not particularly willing to give it a chance. A good techno artist
is like a Stockhausen, Berio, Cage or even Carlos. They're trying to
create a soundscape. That is, the melodies/harmonies may well play second
fiddle (no - don't shove it ;-)) to the timbres used. Sure, there's a lot
of stuff out there that goes (assume 303 imitation)
"bzaat...pleep...nyaaar...bloop...bloop...bloop...bloop..." but it's
progressing beyond that.
Techno is often about minimalism (in the Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream,
Jean-Michel Jarre sense) whether that be minimal instrumentation, slowly
evolving repeated melodic fragments or simply repetition. It is possible
to listen to techno with a musical ear and maybe even appreciate it. For
God's sake, I can't understand people, for example, who rave and rave about
a piece for string orchestra by Penderecki who will, in the same breath,
damn techno on the grounds that it sounds horrible/is too
repetitive/doesn't have much harmonic or melodic progression/<insert
typical put down of techno here>.
As to the halftone sequences, something is worth noting here. Techno is
primarily dance music (although I attempt to make my own work listenable as
well). The use of halftone sequences is common because it "sounds tough".
Deliberately constructing melodic fragments that contain dissonant
intervals (for example, an augmented fourth, minor second, major seventh)
makes the music sound more aggressive, gives it that "edge" that get's a
dancer's adrenalin pumping around. Well, that's my theory, anyway.
> Working on a piece full of D#min maj7b11 stuff, and wondering for the umpteenth
> time what all the techno-fuzz is about...
I have written pieces based around tone rows, whole-tone, pentatonic and
blues scales. I am a competent musican. I write ambient, quasi-baroque,
jazz and rock music (no, not a fusion of these things :-)). I write
orchestral works. I also write techno. Got a problem with that?
--
Jon.
-----
Jonathan Elliott
jell...@postoffice.SandyBay.utas.edu.au
ALQ - Trance for the masses
EPS/EPS 16+/JX-3P/MKS-7/TG33/VC-330/TB-303/DX100/Axxe
-----
Hendrik Jan Veenstra
>h...@phil.ruu.nl (Hendrik Jan Veenstra) writes:
>>shrieking and such), but Einsturzenden Neubauten (sp?) was some 15 years
>>earlier
>
>Kind of hard to believe when EN is barely 14 years old itself. :)
Ahw... nitpicker! :-) '*Some* 15 years' might easily be '14 years'. Do you
really think I remember all those dates exactly?
>>>Have you heard much by Underground Resistance? Derrick May? Kenny Larkin?
>>>Juan Atkins? Carl Craig? How about Kraftwerk (the grandfathers of techno)?
>
>>Yes, yes, no, yes, don't know (sounds vaguely familiar). And w.r.t.
>>Kraftwerk: I probably already listened to Kraftwerk when you were still
>>crawling in your craddle :-).
>
>A few points...
>* If you did, what is the relevance to this thread?
I'm trying to make clear that I'm not a complete newbie w.r.t. music in
general and synth-music in particular. Sure, I could have stated it in a
different way... :-)
>* Since I gave up the cradle a good 6 years before Ralf and Florian
> first met, I can say with some authority that you are wrong.
Note the :-) behind my statement... What I meant was: I'm 31 years old, bought
my first Eno record (Discreet Music) when I was 13, started building my first
synth when I was 15, started listening to 'modern classical' when I was 16 and
have been exploring electronic music ever since. Is that clearer?
>This is not
>to say that _No Pussyfooting_ and _Evening Star_ weren't milestone albums.
>(Robert Fripp truly is incredible :)
Is is Eno. And yes, those two indeed are among my Eno-ambient faves.
>>-- another quite boring Eno rip-off),
>
>Oh, that's right, Eno *owns* the concept of ambient music. ;-7
No, he doesn't own it, but I've simply never heard anyone do it any better...
>I mostly like his rock stuff, but tell me; how did you like Eno's
>_Fractal Zoom_ remix CD?
Horrible. I have nearly all Eno has made, but Fractal Zoom (the CD) is one of
the worst (imo of course) and the remix CD's (Fractal Zoom and Ali Click) are
realy horrible examples of cut/copy/paste and cheapish knob-twiddling and
button-pushing.
>>Sorry, but this is nonsense. Any chord can be given lots of different names,
>>depending on the context. E.g. this D#m thingy would have been an Eb... in
>>another context, or a Gm maj7 b6, or ... Wadda ye mean, 'define it so easily'?
>
>Whadda ya mean "context"? Are you implying that my music is in a
>single recognizable key? :)
Nope. I mean that preceding and following harmonic contexts determine the
current context. That has little to do with music being in a single key or
whatever. Even if a piece changes key every bar or so, then still there is
something like a harmonic context. Even if music doesn't use plain chords, but
only uses polyphony, then _still_ there is this context.
Music has to become quite random before harmonic contexts cease to exist.
>>And what about the sequence Bm/B - G#m6/A# - F#m9/A - Gm maj7/G. Just to take
>>an example...
>
>No substitute for a good sequence of melodies.
That's not the point. The above chords might very well be the sounding result
of a 5-voice polyphony. The point is that condemning chords 'as such' and
calling them 'tired western chord forms' is a bit narrow-minded imo. Yes, the
12-bar blues might be called a tired western chord form, but that's not what
we're talking about here, are we? As I already said:
>>Things are not as simple as you state them...
>>Bach uses easily definable, tired western chord forms. So what?
>
>Well, at least when he wrote them, they weren't tired yet! :)
What I meant was: Bach's music still stands the test of time. If one was able
to write a baroque piece *now*, with the same quality as some of Bach's best
pieces, then it would still be a master-accomplishment, even though it would
use your so-called 'tired western chord forms'.
>>Try to write something like the
>>Wohltemperiertes Klavier, or the Goldberg Variations, and then rethink your
>>judgement a bit...
>
>You mean write something in a new tuning system, like Bach did when
>he wrote the _Well-tempered Klavier_? Sure, I've been meaning to do
>just that very thing.
No, that's not what I mean. I mean: try to write something of *that* quality,
while using 'tired western...'. The old forms, even though I myself hardly use
them, are not as 'used up' as you try to suggest.
I'm 100% sure it's still possible to write something breath-taking with only a
C and G chord. Sure, it *will* require a fair amount of compositorial
creativity -- at least more than *I* have to offer -- but that's not the point.
>>But a combination of melodies (i.e. polyphony) *automatically* results ins
>>sounding chords. So the one doesn't 'defeat' the other.
>
>So does playing a single note on the piano...the fundamental and it's
>subsequent harmonic spectrum are, after all, different frequencies.
>It's really a matter of perception, isn't it?
Viewed in physical terms, you're right, yes. But I think musical perception is
not functioning like a plain physical system.
A plain C-chord, when played by 3 trumpets or by 3 oboes, is still a plain
C-chord to me. Even though the harmonic spectra of trumpets and oboes have
little in common -- and so *physically* I'm listening to completely different
"chords", to use your terms. From a listener's point of view, I don't think
your claim is valid.
>Still, that doesn't help to explain your attitude towards techno.
My attitude is simple: I listened to tons of techno and heard nothing that
could interest me for more than a few minutes. Conclusion: I don't like it :).
>>"Pleasing tone clusters" Oh, you mean 'chords'... :-)
>
>"Chords?" Oh, do you mean "waveforms?" :)
Nope, that's not the same. Same argument as above: the trumpet and oboe
C-chords are completely different waveforms, but clearly constitute the same
chord. There's a limit to human perception that defeats physical theoretical
"sameness". Or: 'the same chord with different timbres' is not the same as 'a
different waveform' (from a perceptual point of view -- and music is about
*perception*, isn't it, and not about physical/theoretical sameness or
differences).
>>Bach, Eno, 70-ies sympho rock, Peter Hammill, Stravinsky, Arvo Part, Ingwie
>>Malmsteen, Steve Reich, Zappa, Elvis Costello, Luciano Berio, Dave Brubeck,
>>Benjamin Britten, Rickie Lee Jones, Charlie Parker, Van Morrisson, etc, etc...
>
>That's an almost predictable selection, based on your comments.
I'd never thought that my somewhat 'wild' musical taste would one day be called
'predictable" :-).
--
Hendrik Jan Veenstra (h...@phil.ruu.nl) Dept. of Philosophy
Eric
>>>shrieking and such), but Einsturzenden Neubauten (sp?) was some 15 years
>>>earlier
>>Kind of hard to believe when EN is barely 14 years old itself. :)
>Ahw... nitpicker! :-) '*Some* 15 years' might easily be '14 years'. Do you
>really think I remember all those dates exactly?
My mistake.
A better reply on my part would be; EN did it better some 15 years before?
So what! John Cage did it better some 30 years before them! :-P
>Note the :-) behind my statement... What I meant was: I'm 31 years old, bought
>my first Eno record (Discreet Music) when I was 13, started building my first
>synth when I was 15, started listening to 'modern classical' when I was 16 and
>have been exploring electronic music ever since. Is that clearer?
bad and decided you didn't like Kraftwerk. Incidentally, I believe
Eno is a big fan of Kraftwerk.
>>This is not
>>to say that _No Pussyfooting_ and _Evening Star_ weren't milestone albums.
>>(Robert Fripp truly is incredible :)
...
>>I mostly like his rock stuff, but tell me; how did you like Eno's
>>_Fractal Zoom_ remix CD?
>Horrible. I have nearly all Eno has made, but Fractal Zoom (the CD) is one of
>the worst (imo of course) and the remix CD's (Fractal Zoom and Ali Click) are
>realy horrible examples of cut/copy/paste and cheapish knob-twiddling and
>button-pushing.
Something makes you like Malmsteen, whereas I like Satriani.
We are similar, yet incompatible.
We are like Brian Eno and Brian Ferry. :)ENOugh said
--Eric
Nicolai Thilo
>ni...@login.dkuug.dk (Nicolai Thilo) writes:
>
>>h...@phil.ruu.nl (Hendrik Jan Veenstra) wrote:
>
>>>Hmpff... I suppose I've heard all kinds of stuff, ranging from top-40 House to
>>>esoteric small-label techno to ambient stuff to hard-core analog things to...
>> ^^^^^^^^
>>Like what, if I may ask?
>
>Sorry, but I really don't (want to) remeber the tons of names of techno-bands I
>listened to during the years.
[stuff deleted]
Then it surely can't have ment much to you. I have 100+ CDs with
different types of electronic music, and I listen to them all
occasionally except for maybe two or three that I don't like.
>Some friends of mine make techno, some even make
>a living out of it, and they're still trying to convert me, which means that
>every few weeks I get another set of CD's -- samplers and one-band CD's -- of
>all kinds of techno, and they still hope that one day I'll return the records
>with a statement 'wow, now *this* is really good'. Which still hasn't
>happened, as will be clear :-).
>But, since they're friends, and since I tend to be quite open-minded, I still
>listen to all the stuff they give me. But all in all, I think I listened to
>hundereds of techno-bands of the most diverse kinds, of places all over the
>world, of the most esoteric labels, so I think I _do_ know somewhat what I'm
>talking about.
If you only heard the "acid/house" techno, then I agree with you, that
it's boring *for listening*. However, a rave would be worthless without
it.
>>Techno is a term describing electronic music.
>
>You surely mean 'a very specific kind of electronic music'?
No, I mean 'electronic music'. Industrial, electronic body music,
acid, ambient, house, trance, Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream,
The Orb, Skinny Puppy, Jean Michel Jarre, 2 Unlimited... it is all
techno. Even a lot of pop and hiphop is techno.
>Or would you call
>Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, Wendy Carlos, Stockhausen, etc all 'techno'? :-)
Yes, I would. I was told that Kraftwerk was "techno" long before anyone
thought of raves and house and all that stuff. So indeed, if somebody
do music only or mostly with electronic equipment, it's techno by my
book.
>>>Try to play a D#min maj7b11 and wonder again if the predicate 'tired western
>
>>Damn, I don't know how to! Does that mean, I can't make music?
>
>No, of course not. At best it *might* mean you lack some very handy conceptual
>and technical tools, that, at times, would make writing music a bit easier.
Not the way I work.
>And besides: the above wasn't directed at you, but at someone who was talking
>about 'tired western chord forms'.
You've got a point there..
>I don't think people should judge about
>stuff they know nothing about
I didn't.
>-- i.e. you shouldn't have been the person who
>wrote the judgement 'tired western chord forms',
I wasn't.
>since you clearly know little
>about chord forms. But then, you indeed _were_ not the person who wrote that,
>so what are we arguing about anyway?
I don't know! :-)
>>Try listening to something like Doubting Thomas and early Skinny Puppy,
>>if you can find it. Listen real good with earphones, then come back and
>>tell me that there's no creativity in there.
>
>I never said *all* techno is lacking *any kind* of creativity. I heard some
>very creative uses of samples, very creative uses of electronic gear, very
>creative polyrythms, etc. I've just hardly ever heard something that was
>interesting (let alone impressing) as a whole. Even the creative parts become
>boring after a few times in general...
Depends on who you are, and how much you devote yourself to the music.
I usually get a kick out of knowing, how a band made a specific sound,
because I make electronic music myself. If a band uses some reversed
sample, I will play it backwards to hear, what it says - and stuff like
that.
However, I can see now, that you obviously think, "techno" means only
rave music, while I think it means all types of electronic music.
So when you said
>>>Maybe there will, one day, maybe there won't. For now, however,
>>>I'm afraid the techno-stream is just still too young, too immature
>>>and too many techno-geeks without any musical or compositorial
>>>capability crowd the scene. Let's wait and see what happens...
- I had to follow up.
I will agree that making "techno-house" and acid is not that difficult,
but you still need some knowledge about music and electronic gear. In
other words: Not everybody can just make a living of it.
>>There already is. It's just that you haven't heard it. Maybe if you
>>started listening to some of the "techno" not intended for raves and
>>radio, you would realize.
>
>Read one of my other postings, or the 1st paragraph above. I hardly ever
>listen to the radio, because I find most of what I hear there boring beyond
>imagination.
I agree here! :-)
>>Get real. You still need musical and compositorial abilities to do
>>techno that people will buy.
>
>Not true. I know people whithout those abilities that make a living out of
>making techno (no names will be mentioned, as I'm tralking about friends).
Well, they have to compose some sort of melody and/or rhythm that someone
likes, in order to make a living of it, right? Just because *you* don't
like what these guys compose, it doesn't mean that they can't compose.
I will agree with you, that there are many "wannabe" musicians out
there who just got hold of some cheap sampler and a record collection,
and suddenly they know everything about music - but they will hardly be
able to make a living of their work.
>>Man, try digging a little deeper than house.
>
>I did. A whole lot deeper...
I guess I misunderstood what you said, then. Oh, well. I did ask
for it by just jumping into the thread.
>>>techno makers start thinking like grown-up composers instead of sample-
>>>editors, knob-tweakers, remix-makers or button-pushers.
What's wrong with that? See below...
>>What are you doing in this newsgroup? This kind of prejudice really
>>makes me sick. You must be suffering from technophobia.
>
>Excuse me? Sorry, I hadn't noticed this was rec.music.makers.techno. I
>thought it was r.m.m.synth, a newsgroup for people using electronic gear to
>make music...
>In case you don't get it: people with synths and samplers don't necessarily
>make techno. Some of them actually make something entirely different, like
>stuff involving D#m maj7b11 chords... ^^^^^^^^^
Different, yeah, good one... :-)
You still tweak knobs and push buttons, don't you? Does it offend
you that some people want to create something *NEW* with their
synths, and not just play conventional chords with sounds that can be
made without synths?
>>Same to you. What *do* you like, BTW? Just wondering...
>
>See one of my previous postings.
I'll check to see if they are still here.. :-)
__
/\/./.
Nicolai Thilo
>Nicolai Thilo (ni...@login.dkuug.dk) wrote:
>> >Oh, and the difference between "house" and the others is...? And "trance"?
>> Yeah, as if you care. I could easily tell you the differences, but if
>> you like different electronic music, you ought to know them. If you
>> don't like it, then why should I bother telling you?
>
>Goodness. *Blink*. Well, can *anyone* of some moral worth tell me what the
>difference between these forms of music is? I'm not trying to make a point
>here; I had hoped that was clear -- I'm merely curious.
Okay... I shall give you my humble opinion:
Industrial: The hard core. The black sheep of techno. Often very
noisy and metallic sounds, weird rhythms and distorted lyrics. Industrial
is what death, thrash and grind-core is to heavy metal. Industrial is
what makes other people think, you have bad taste in music. :-) Examples:
Skinny Puppy, Einsturtzenden Neubauten, Nitzer Ebb.
Acid, house and trance: Various types of rave music. The dance-friendly
"thump thump thump"-music that everybody loves to hate. Usually no lyrics.
Examples not needed.
Ambient: Very "invisible" music or sound sculptures. Can be used as
meditation music and is very popular in the "chill-out" zones at raves.
Nice to have in the background when you just want some sound instead of
silence. No lyrics. Often no rhythm. Examples: Delerium, Aphex Twin.
Electro (or techno-pop): The "happy", popular techno with pop-ish
lyrics. Examples: Early Depeche Mode, Petshop Boys, Yazoo, Erasure.
And then there's all the stuff, I can't put labels on! :-) Like Jean
Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, The Tear Garden and many, many
others which are none of the above... It's just techno!
Now I would suppose a lot of people here would disagree with some of
this, so let me point out that this is the way *I* seperate the
different genres in electronic music, or "techno" for short. I believe
that friends of mine does it this way too. But I have noticed, that
the popular belief is that techno = acid/house. Have anybody else had
this conversation:
- So, what music do you like?
- Techno.
- Oh, you like Technotronic?
- Eh, not really...
It has made me stop saying "techno". The problem is that few people
know what industrial is.
I have loved all sorts of techno since I was introduced to Kraftwerk's
"We Are The Robots" in 1979, and the friend who had the record called
it - you guessed it - "techno music".
If you're not into techno, then you will probably not be able to
distinguish trance from acid - just like I can't hear the differences
between the jazz-genres swing and bebop, it's just jazz to me.
>Maybe I think I
>don't like techno because of the people who get insulted when questions are
>asked about it.
Don't judge music on the fans.. :-) I apologize for sounding harsh.
__
/\/./.
Hendrik Jan Veenstra
>h...@phil.ruu.nl (Hendrik Jan Veenstra) writes:
>A better reply on my part would be; EN did it better some 15 years before?
>So what! John Cage did it better some 30 years before them! :-P
And I'm no Einsturzenden Neubauten fan, whereas I tend to like most stuff John
Cale did. Your turn... :-)
>We have similar backgrounds, yet somewhere along the line, you went
>bad and decided you didn't like Kraftwerk. Incidentally, I believe
>Eno is a big fan of Kraftwerk.
I went *bad*??? Ha! :-) No comment...
>We are similar, yet incompatible.
>We are like Brian Eno and Brian Ferry. :)
Who's who? :-)
>ENOugh said
:-) Yep... Back to music...
cheers, Hendrik Jan
--
Hendrik Jan Veenstra (h...@phil.ruu.nl) Dept. of Philosophy
Hendrik Jan Veenstra
>h...@phil.ruu.nl (Hendrik Jan Veenstra) wrote:
>>ni...@login.dkuug.dk (Nicolai Thilo) writes:
>>>h...@phil.ruu.nl (Hendrik Jan Veenstra) wrote:
>>Sorry, but I really don't (want to) remeber the tons of names of techno-
>>bands I listened to during the years.
>Then it surely can't have ment much to you.
Indeed, that's right. And that's precisely what I tried to get across all the
time... Sigh... I don't remember the names because I found the music utterly
unimpressive.
>>Or would you call
>>Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, Wendy Carlos, Stockhausen, etc all 'techno'? :-)
>Yes, I would. I was told that Kraftwerk was "techno" long before anyone
>thought of raves and house and all that stuff. So indeed, if somebody
>do music only or mostly with electronic equipment, it's techno by my
>book.
Ah, so you're using a very private definition of a word that's commonly used in
a completely different way, and thus create a lot of confusion in public. And
then the people who don't get what you're talking about are to blame, I
presume? That's a bit silly imo.
99.9% of the people I know would not call Tangerine Dream, Eno, Vangelis...
'techno', so I think you're stretching the common meaning of the word way
beyond the borders of normal usage.
But if you insist on calling e.g. all Eno's electronic works 'techno', then,
yes, I suddenly have a whole lot of techno albums I absolutely enjoy... Geesh,
is *that* a fresh persepective on life in general and my record collection in
particular! :-) So I've been a techno-fan ever since I was 13! Wow... have to
tell my mom... :-)
>However, I can see now, that you obviously think, "techno" means only
>rave music, while I think it means all types of electronic music.
That's not a matter of 'thinking'; it's a matter of definition. You
appartently define the word to mean something different from the meaning most
people give to it. That's ok, as long as you make your definition clear up
front, and are ready for the confusion you will surely cause. Private
languages is a Bad Idea (philosophers who have read Wittgenstein will know what
I'm talking about :-).
>>Not true. I know people whithout those abilities that make a living out of
>>making techno (no names will be mentioned, as I'm tralking about friends).
>Well, they have to compose some sort of melody and/or rhythm that someone
>likes, in order to make a living of it, right? Just because *you* don't
>like what these guys compose, it doesn't mean that they can't compose.
Uhm... I think these people have a good feeling for what's apt to sell, what
sounds 'right', what kind of rythms, sounds and breaks are commercial, etc.
That's still doesn't mean they need much compositorial abilities.
Absolutely shitty furniture is sold, just because it looks 'trendy' and
fashionable. That still doesn't make the maker a decent carpenter.
>You still tweak knobs and push buttons, don't you?
Yes, of course, even if some days it's only the power-button :-)
>Does it offend
>you that some people want to create something *NEW* with their
>synths, and not just play conventional chords with sounds that can be
>made without synths?
Thus implying that the stuff I make is more conventional that what techno-bands
do. Sorry, but this is nonsense. 4/4 meters, 8-8-16 patterns, base drum on
the 1st and 3rd beat, snare on 2nd and 4th, etc, etc, is all far more
'conventional' than any stuff I make. Just because I have the background that
enables me to identify what I'm doing (i.e. call a chord a 'D#m..'), doesn't
mean I write 12-bar blues.
Just because a carpenter uses a handsaw and knows it's called a 'handsaw',
doesn't mean he still makes 19th-century furniture.
Sebastian Baseman Nyberg
>techno-bands
>do. Sorry, but this is nonsense. 4/4 meters, 8-8-16 patterns, base drum on
>the 1st and 3rd beat, snare on 2nd and 4th, etc, etc, is all far more
>'conventional' than any stuff I make. Just because I have the background that
>enables me to identify what I'm doing (i.e. call a chord a 'D#m..'), doesn't
>mean I write 12-bar blues.
>Just because a carpenter uses a handsaw and knows it's called a 'handsaw',
>doesn't mean he still makes 19th-century furniture.
Big mouth, small mind. Why don't you just let it rest?
Base
--
Sebastian Nyberg | Helsinki University of Technology
bas...@snakemail.hut.fi | Department of Computer Science
Eric
>>A better reply on my part would be; EN did it better some 15 years before?
>>So what! John Cage did it better some 30 years before them! :-P
>And I'm no Einsturzenden Neubauten fan, whereas I tend to like most stuff John
>Cale did. Your turn... :-)
Are you saying that matter-of-factly, or did you misread my post?
>>We are similar, yet incompatible.
>>We are like Brian Eno and Brian Ferry. :)
>Who's who? :-)
(of course, *you* are the one who doesn't like _Fractal Zoom_ ;-)
>>ENOugh said
>:-) Yep... Back to music...
>cheers, Hendrik Jan
--Eric
Hendrik Jan Veenstra
>h...@phil.ruu.nl (Hendrik Jan Veenstra) writes:
>>Just because a carpenter uses a handsaw and knows it's called a 'handsaw',
>>doesn't mean he still makes 19th-century furniture.
>Big mouth, small mind. Why don't you just let it rest?
Big mouth, little arguments...
And the reason I don't let it rest is simple: I don't like people 'accusing' me
of something they know nothing about. Not only because I find it personally
offensive, but also because I deeply dislike bad arguments and simple,
uninformed conclusions -- and evern more so when they're posted to the entire
world.
Hendrik Jan Veenstra
>>>A better reply on my part would be; EN did it better some 15 years before?
>>>So what! John Cage did it better some 30 years before them! :-P
> ^
>>And I'm no Einsturzenden Neubauten fan, whereas I tend to like most stuff John
>>Cale did. Your turn... :-)
> ^
>Are you saying that matter-of-factly, or did you misread my post?
I was saying it with a :-). Although the 1st sentence *is* true...
>>>We are like Brian Eno and Brian Ferry. :)
>>Who's who? :-)
>
>You can be Eno if you want, then I get to kick you out of my band. :)
>(of course, *you* are the one who doesn't like _Fractal Zoom_ ;-)
Hahaha... :-)
C J Silverio
ljne...@unix.amherst.edu (Can You Say Puyallup?) writes:
|How so? I'm curious as to how techno is not. Genuinely curious, that is; not
|a flame. I'd like to hear somebody who can tell me *why* techno is moving
|forward and not backward to some derivative of one-chord rock and roll.
It has nothing to do with rock and roll. (Except insofar as
both genres explore timbre and often do nothing particularly
interesting with chord progressions or rhythm.) Perhaps
when you hear a raga you dismiss it as "derivative of one-chord
rock and roll".
|When
|I listen, I hear one or two chords based off a phrygian lick, some admittedly
|original sounds -- or originally mangled, at any rate -- and not much else.
|Except that oh-my-god-shut-it-off-now 909 kick. :)
You don't dance, do you.
Oh, I shouldn't even bother. Idiots who claim that some
genre they don't like isn't muuuuuuuuuuusic are all too
common on Usenet. They never learn; they never listen;
they go into my killfile.
*plonk*!
---
C J Silverio ceej@[ netcom.com | well.sf.ca.us | genmagic.com ]
"But believe me, almost every other group of people I know can have a
discussion about rap without mentioning Rush."
-- Clayton Glad, in rec.music.misc
Nicolai Thilo
>>h...@phil.ruu.nl (Hendrik Jan Veenstra) wrote:
>>>ni...@login.dkuug.dk (Nicolai Thilo) writes:
>>>>h...@phil.ruu.nl (Hendrik Jan Veenstra) wrote:
>>>Or would you call
>>>Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, Wendy Carlos, Stockhausen, etc all 'techno'? :-)
>
>>Yes, I would. I was told that Kraftwerk was "techno" long before anyone
>>thought of raves and house and all that stuff. So indeed, if somebody
>>do music only or mostly with electronic equipment, it's techno by my
>>book.
>
>Ah, so you're using a very private definition of a word that's commonly used in
>a completely different way, and thus create a lot of confusion in public.
Private? A definition that I have used for more than 10 years?
>And
>then the people who don't get what you're talking about are to blame, I
>presume? That's a bit silly imo.
Well, how was I to know that some Usenet users got it wrong? :-)
>99.9% of the people I know would not call Tangerine Dream, Eno, Vangelis...
>'techno',
Well, what would they call it then?
>so I think you're stretching the common meaning of the word way
>beyond the borders of normal usage.
I will indeed not use my socalled "private" definition on the net again,
but this is the only "place", that I'll have to avoid it, since all my
friends seem to use the very same definition as I do... This is not some
clique thing, though... I believe a lot of people use this "different"
definition, at least around here.
>>However, I can see now, that you obviously think, "techno" means only
>>rave music, while I think it means all types of electronic music.
>
>That's not a matter of 'thinking'; it's a matter of definition.
Well, just out of curiosity, when did you use it for the first time? I
am very sure that this "public" definition of yours is younger than mine.
Not that it matters, really - "the damage is done".. :-)
>You
>appartently define the word to mean something different from the meaning most
>people give to it.
No, I don't "appartently define the word to mean something different", I
use the word like I have always done. I'll have to stop doing that and
say "electronic music" instead, because some fool redefined the word to
mean the commercial techno which is really called house. Great. :-(
>>>Not true. I know people whithout those abilities that make a living out of
>>>making techno (no names will be mentioned, as I'm tralking about friends).
>
>>Well, they have to compose some sort of melody and/or rhythm that someone
>>likes, in order to make a living of it, right? Just because *you* don't
>>like what these guys compose, it doesn't mean that they can't compose.
>
>Uhm... I think these people have a good feeling for what's apt to sell, what
>sounds 'right', what kind of rythms, sounds and breaks are commercial, etc.
>That's still doesn't mean they need much compositorial abilities.
>Absolutely shitty furniture is sold, just because it looks 'trendy' and
>fashionable. That still doesn't make the maker a decent carpenter.
Well, you can't blame *them*, can you? Blame the buyers, they are the
ones who make it possible. I'd love to do the very same thing, just make
pop music for teenage girls. I mean, the morons who buy NKOTB stuff (and
thus make it possible for bands like NKOTB to exist) really deserve to pay
for shit.
>>You still tweak knobs and push buttons, don't you?
>
>Yes, of course, even if some days it's only the power-button :-)
But what's wrong with doing it? You clearly stated that it was
childish to experiment with the options of digital sound equipment
when you said:
>>>>>techno makers start thinking like grown-up composers instead of sample-
>>>>>editors, knob-tweakers, remix-makers or button-pushers.
However, not only "techno makers" do this. All the old grandfathers of
electronic music also did. All the industrial bands do. So what are
you saying, really?
>>Does it offend
>>you that some people want to create something *NEW* with their
>>synths, and not just play conventional chords with sounds that can be
>>made without synths?
>
>Thus implying that the stuff I make is more conventional that what techno-bands
>do.
Hey man, no offence! :-) BTW, you didn't answer the question.
>Sorry, but this is nonsense.
Not necessarily. You seem to forget that the "techno" that you dislike
so much is a very young type of music, and that your music (which
obviously consists of conventional chords, as you said that yourself) may
still sound more conventional than techno, at least to the average
listener. This does not mean that it's bad, though...
>4/4 meters, 8-8-16 patterns, base drum on
>the 1st and 3rd beat, snare on 2nd and 4th, etc, etc, is all far more
>'conventional' than any stuff I make.
I've agreed several times that "techno" music is fairly easy to create.
That doesn't mean, it's not music.
>Just because I have the background that
>enables me to identify what I'm doing (i.e. call a chord a 'D#m..'), doesn't
>mean I write 12-bar blues.
I never said so.
>Just because a carpenter uses a handsaw and knows it's called a 'handsaw',
>doesn't mean he still makes 19th-century furniture.
Agreed.
__
/\/./.
Hendrik Jan Veenstra
This thread's becoming quite funny, after the initial flamish start... :-) I
wonder how many people agree on this, and maybe it should be taken to email,
but, oh well... maybe there's still something of general interest in all
this...
>>Ah, so you're using a very private definition of a word that's commonly used
>>in a completely different way, and thus create a lot of confusion in public.
>Private? A definition that I have used for more than 10 years?
No matter how long you've used it, if you're (almost) the only one that uses
the word that way, it's still a private definition. Even if I've called a
horse a cow all my life, it still is a private meaning of the word 'cow'.
>>99.9% of the people I know would not call Tangerine Dream, Eno, Vangelis...
>>'techno',
>Well, what would they call it then?
Electronic (pop) music, synthesizer music, etc. Eno being often 'ambient', TD
falling in the sub-class 'German synth music', together with Klaus Schulze,
Kraftwerk and such, etc, etc. There was a sort-of-taxonomy for electronic
music long before 'house', 'techno' and all their sub-divisions entered the
scene.
>I believe a lot of people use this "different"
>definition, at least around here.
Maybe a cultural difference... I've never heard someone use the word 'techno'
to describe e.g. Eno's or Tangerine Dream's music... Where are you from? Is
'dk' Denmark? That would explain *something*... :-)))
>Well, just out of curiosity, when did you use it for the first time? I
>am very sure that this "public" definition of yours is younger than mine.
Even if you used the word long before I did (which is probably true), then
still that's no argument. It's not like "the first one who uses a word
determines it's meaning".
>>Uhm... I think these people have a good feeling for what's apt to sell, what
>>sounds 'right', what kind of rythms, sounds and breaks are commercial, etc.
>>That's still doesn't mean they need much compositorial abilities.
>>Absolutely shitty furniture is sold, just because it looks 'trendy' and
>>fashionable. That still doesn't make the maker a decent carpenter.
>Well, you can't blame *them*, can you? Blame the buyers, they are the
>ones who make it possible.
Well, this is a very complicated matter. In a sense you're right. On the
other hand, lots of buyers are 'uneducated listeners/consumers', so they can't
really help it either.
The real ones to blame are probably the record companies, DJs, pushers, the
whole commercial network surrounding the so-called pop-scene. Whenever you
turn on the radio, most of what you hear is simple shit. So the uneducated
have very little chances to educate themselves, since they're hardly ever being
exposed to something worth listening to. It's not that the radio plays what
people want to hear, but the radio plays what is pusehd by the companies, and
since that is what people get to hear day after day after day after day, *that*
is what they will start buying.
Take a record, no matter how bad it is, and play it 20 times a day -- and
you're sure it will start selling. So it's not the audience that determines
what's sold and what's not (at least for the larger part).
And yes, you could also, in a sense, blame the people who make the shitty
music. They use the system of commercial stations, big labels big money,
pushers and DJs to make a nice living -- which in itself is not wrong of course
(we all have to eat, don't we?). What I'm objecting to is the apparent lack of
artistic integrity these people have. I make my music *not* because I want to
be rich and famous, but because I'm an 'artist' who feels he has to do what
he's doing. I believe I have something to tell by means of my art, and I try
to communicate what I think I have to tell. That means that I'll have to use
some kind of common language, since otherwise communication would be impossible
-- so I'm forced to do an absolute minimum of concessions. But there's a limit
to all this; there is a border in concession-land that I would never cross,
since crossing that border would mean I would lose the richness of the language
I now have at my disposal -- which in turn would mean I wouldn't be able
anymore to communicate the things I want to communicate, which in turn would
mean my art would become senseless and worthless -- i.e. would stop being art.
Selling your artistic integrity to the Big Labels is imo the Worst Sin any
artist can commit. I'd rather be an office-clerk, making my _own_ music in my
spare time, than be a mega-star who is forced to throw away his artistic
freedom and integrity, and is forced in the jacket of 'thump thump thump',
4/4/8, chorus/verse/chorus and other Big Bucks Formulas.
I'm not saying that everyone who sells his/her records has sold his/her soul
to the Big Bucks -- there are always artists who are able to navigate on the
thin edge that seperates the one form the other. What I _am_ saying is that I
have the feeling that the majority of contemporary 'top 40 artists' have sold
their artistic integrity for the 'greater good' of earning money by making
shitty music (btw, the same holds for most other art forms I think).
And that *is* something for which you can blame them imo.
End of sermon. Amen :-).
>I mean, the morons who buy NKOTB stuff (and
>thus make it possible for bands like NKOTB to exist) really deserve to pay
>for shit.
See above: it's not so much the listeners who are the morons, but the stations
and companies who force the shit upon them.
>>>You still tweak knobs and push buttons, don't you?
>>Yes, of course, even if some days it's only the power-button :-)
>But what's wrong with doing it?
Pushing buttons in itself is not 'wrong'. I only think it is a means and
should not become an end in itself (as happens so much in the new electro-pop/
techno/whhatever scene).
>You clearly stated that it was
>childish to experiment with the options of digital sound equipment
>when you said:
>>>>>>techno makers start thinking like grown-up composers instead of sample-
>>>>>>editors, knob-tweakers, remix-makers or button-pushers.
Nope. Even someone who thinks like a composer can occasionally be busy pushing
buttons and editing samples (of course). It's not the activity that's wrong,
it's the attiteue that is.
Thinking that 'more gear will give beter music' (or any variation thereof) is
silly and misguided. Editing a sample is in itself a creative process, but a
decently edited sample still is no good composition. Even a combination of
decent samples (add a drum-beat and you have the average commercial house-hit)
is not necessarily a decent piece of music.
>>>Does it offend
>>>you that some people want to create something *NEW* with their
>>>synths, and not just play conventional chords with sounds that can be
>>>made without synths?
>>
>>Thus implying that the stuff I make is more conventional that what
>>techno-bands do.
>
>Hey man, no offence! :-) BTW, you didn't answer the question.
Ok, answer: no, it doesn't offend me. Why would it? I myself make music that
often couldn't be made without synths...
>Not necessarily. You seem to forget that the "techno" that you dislike
>so much is a very young type of music, and that your music (which
>obviously consists of conventional chords, as you said that yourself) may
>still sound more conventional than techno, at least to the average
>listener. This does not mean that it's bad, though...
I still don't think this is true. Even Schoenberg, Berio and other 'gods of
modern westen classical music' use some kind of tradition on which their
musical concepts are based. The score of e.g. Berio's "Synfonia" looks very
traditional to me. Still I'm sure the average listener would find this music
far more challenging (or horrible :-) than they would find any kind of techno.
The fact that music is rooted in a tradition, and uses some traditional tools,
doesn't imply it's 'easier' or less renewing than music that tries to do
something 'entirely new' (which, btw, is completely impossible imo).
>I've agreed several times that "techno" music is fairly easy to create.
>That doesn't mean, it's not music.
Maybe not, but it does say something about artistic value. As soon as anyone
can create a certain kind of art, that art stops being art. I'm sure someone
will now acuse me of an elitist point of view... :-)
Take for an extreme example the well-known books for very young kids: 10 pages,
each page with a very simple drawing and a very simple sentence -- "this is
doggy. doggy walks in the garden. look, there's a rabbit. ...". Now, almost
anyone could write such books, agreed? Is it art (or even Art)? If the answer
is 'yes', then that's the end of this discussion, since we clearly have points
of view w.r.t. art that are _way_ too far apart. If the answer is 'no', well,
then I guess I managed to get my point across... :-)
Enough for today. The sun is shining, so what are we doing behind these
machines anyway? :-)
cheers,
Hendrik Jan