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Musical Machines Gain Recognition
vena writes "CNN has an insightful article on the increased role of computers in the production of music. While Musikmesse, the world's largest musical instrument show, rapidly increases their support of the computer as a musical instrument, there are still limitations to the power and ability of software synthesizers. However, the ability of a computer to make the everyman a musician could herald a coming age of increased play and experimentation in music. Software such as Reason by Propellerheads Software brings unprecidented power to the hobby musician, and the presence of laptops as part of a live band's performance is becoming commonplace. The days of playing to your sequences off a DAT tape may be numbered, as musicians gain more control of their digital music in a live setting with the aid of new, powerful software and portable computers."
Anyone ever thought of a slashdot theme tune?
Video Game cheats, hints a
You better recognize!
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
If you're talking about all in one solutions, I would think that highly-programmable software such as pure data, being free and fairly (?) open would top the list, along with less open, but also powerful, packages like MAX/MSP. And if you're talking about Reason, I would think that all-in-one (cheap) packages such asOrion would deserve a mention.
I don't really use (beyo0nd experimentation) any of that software, though - sticking to my own buggy stuff and my hardware synths - so I'm no expert - but next time I update my own (very limited and crash-prone) software synth, it will certainly be a DirectX instrument and maybe a pure data object.
There's still safety for trombone players.
I've yet to hear a synthesis of that one brass instrument that sounded anything like the real thing. Bill Watrous fans rejoice.
If you think Reason is powerful, you need to be shot. It is a simple sequencer with a few built in samplers, synths and effects. Perhaps you were thinking of Reaktor, made by Native Instruments. There are countless sequencers, effects and instruments out there that can be combined in any way you can imagine. Here are a few links to get you started:
Native Instruments
Cubase VST
K-v-R (huge VST resource)
I have used computer based composing and synthesizing quite a bit, I have also listened to quite a bit. Sure, some guy might have a $14000 setup, but that doesn't mean he has any talent. There are mountains of bad techno/trance out there. Perhaps we should concentrate on developing sources for talent, instead of synthisizers. I have a crappy 2000 dollar system with an iMac, and its all I need to do techno, classical, jazz, and even some alternative stuff.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
If you don't have the $10k to set up a Pro Tools studio, check out Buzz at www.buzzmachines.com. You can set up virtual versions of your instruments and run them through effects, etc, then run all those into the master. It's very intuitive, give it a try.
Heck, I used computers on stage starting around 1985. My trusty C64 (later a SX64, the luggable version) ran Song Producer, software published by Moog that managed a multi-synth MIDI setup. Later, I wrote my own live performance software for the C64 and Atari ST. I brough the Atari on stage "headless"; text messages were sent via System Exclusive messages to the display window on one of my synths.
Transcript show: self sigs atRandom.
There once was a guy named Bill.
Whose penis was smaller than a pill.
He stole some code.
And to IBM it was sold.
And now he owns the U.S.
Yeah I felt like a real musician when I used that program. Its extremely easy to get professional sounding results. And I have next to no musical skills.
Software sequencers that incorporate sample data and MIDI event back have been around since the 80's. I think todays tools like Reason are incredible but a logical progression from the SID
o darchive.com. com
trackers and Paula trackers from the 80's e.g. Protracker etc. These days the best ( free, closed source ) tool is Modplug tracker which is an extremely powerful 200 channel 32bit tracker that can handle VST effects ( and shortly instruments ) it works in Linux+WINE. Check out soundtracker.org for die hard pure open source Linux users.
Buzz tracker is another powerful
synth/sequencer.
www.modplug.com
www.united-trackers.org
www.m
www.buzzmachines.com
www.maz-sound
www.scenemusic.net
www.soundtracker.org
have fun...
plastik s.
- http://www.kvr-vst.com - My favorite VST (softsynth and effect plugin) news and discussion site.
- http://www.em411.com - Another computer music news site.
- http://www.computermusic.co.uk/ - Lovely Computer Music magazine
- http://www.steinberg.net - Steinberg, makers of "Cubase"
... a software sequencer, music work environment and more.
- http://www.emagic.de - Makers of "Logic". A lot like Cubase. Sequencer holy warrior fanatics will track me down and rip me apart for mentioning Cubase first.
- http://www.cycling74.com/ - Makers of sound programming thingies Max/MSP and Pluggo. Pretty complicated, but reportedly worthwhile.
- http://microsound.org/ - Home of arguably the most snobbiest "experimental music" and computer music mailing list on the net. Plenty of interesting stuff here too. Prepare to listen to various 30 minute plus "masterpieces" of quiet shuffling sounds, only.
- http://www.nativeinstruments.de/index.php?home_us - (English Link) Stylish softsynth and plugin rockstar company. They make some incredible products. Geeks will have hard-ons for Reaktor.
- http://www.refx.net - Maker of interesting VST plugins, notably "QuadraSID" which is a sound plugin based on the Commodore 64's famous, classic "SID" chip.
I'm sure I left plenty of stuff outour written thoughts are gifts to our future selves
DAT stands for *digital audio tape* just like NIC stands for *network interface card*
So when you print "DAT tape" in the same sentence Taco, you sound like some MSNBC "journalist" who writes "NIC card." Kinda showing your unwillingness to be an editor.
I know: What's the point to being accurate, Slashdot doesn't matter anyway, right?
Consider, though, that yer old DAT or audio CD backing has far fewer points of failure than a laptop.
A friend who does a lot of live mixing and re-sampling in his performances with solely a laptop, usb soundbox and small midi keyboard has often complained bitterly about the number of little things that can go wrong.
Once, the power socket on his laptop became loose during a very hot gig and in the middle of a noisy crescendo everything stopped as the windows alert bell rang out and the wall projection of his screen told him (and everyone else at the gig) to change to mains power. Ouch.
When I was a kid, I used to play around with Concertware a lot - it was (as far as I know) the first software that let someone with only the most minimal knowledge of music write something down and hear what it sounded like. This is really neat, I'll grant, and I happily churned out hours and hours of bad chamber music.
However, after I started really playing with other people (band in school doesn't count) I concluded that computers were not really capable of producing music on their own. The computer plays whatever you type in perfectly, which is not what you want. The other musicians, if they're any good, adapt to what you play (this is particularly true of more improvised sorts of music, of course) which is a very "resource intensive" (in terms of your nervous system) proposition. Even if the players are producing exactly what the composer tells them, they're providing subtle variations in the sound (I don't want to mire myself in music-speak) that Concertware's great-grandchildren still cannot duplicate, at least that I've ever heard (although, to be fair, they can do a lot better than concertware.)
This is one of the reasons I don't like most electronic music - you can take a recording of tuvan chanting and sing/play along with it, remix it, what have you, but the technology does not successfully duplicate what the monks would do if they were in the room playing with you. When and if it can, I'll call whatever device an AI.
I suppose the people who actually operate cameras and draw cartoons have the same reservations about CG. As much as they I may love computer assisted editing (which is what most of the toys in the article are about), truely computer generated music still sounds like the stuff that plonked out of my Mac SE30.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
For one, there is the proliferation of formats: you have SCSI, ADAT, SP/DIF (coaxial & optical), USB (1.0 & 2.0), 8/16/32 bits + different sample rates, and you have to buy outrageous (and outrageously expensive) "converter boxes" for every one of them. Then of course you have to pay extra for equipment that does not honor some kind of copyright protection scheme.
Add to that the fact that the software has become so complex and outlandish that you really need a manual to go with your pirated copy, and you almost start to get the sense that they don't really trust the people to make music.
Pushin' 'n dealin', shovin' 'n stealin'
Reason is a decent program, but its interface is horrible, that is, you need to use mouse because keyboard way is inneficient.
Also, Reason actually costs, if you want some true hobbysts tool checkout Buzz by Jeskola ( http://www.buzzmachines.com/ ).
The basic premise: there are two types of plugins: Generators and Effects. Generators generate sound (303, 808, 909, etc), and effects morph a sound (delays, echos, modifiers). Buzz allows you to string any of these in any order, and dynamically control every aspect of a plugin. Because Buzz is free there are tons of volunteers writting new plugins (as it stands I have 512 and am missing the uptodate machine packs).
The only problem is that possibly Buzz at the begging is harder to use, this stems for two reasons: its designed to give maximum power, and it tries to tailor to people used to the old "tracking" way of making music.
conclusion: checkout buzz (at http://www.buzzmachines.com/ ) (note, some of demo songs are to show power of buzz (crontab) some are to just show example on how to use a specific engine (Sea Cucumber - Mute - a.sea.cucumber.demo)...
Sure, the computer makes a fine tool for producing musical recordings, and for actually composing certain genres of music as well (particularly electronica, but also "classical," from what I understand). I somehow doubt that the computer will increase creative experimentation, however. First of all, we've already reached the point where anyone can pick up an instrument and learn to play. Second, most people don't "experiment," they just copy what other people have done.
If you've made music on the computer and you've played a real instrument as well then you should know that only a real instrument gives you true, uninhibited power of expression. So much of music flows from the irrational part of us, and the computer can never help us with that.
Guys, tell me all open-source software for
band- , composing-, sampling-, or studio- use
that you know
Computer music is really amazing... You can create the most abstract sounds, but you can also create the most beautiful and complex string arrangements.
Laptops won't replace musicians, they will just aid them. Anyone can pick up a paint brush and paint.... this might just make music available to more people.
The European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music introduces the topic of musical machine cognition.
The Music, Mind, Machine project in The Netherlands carries it further.
The Research Project on Cognitive Musicology in Finland is the last word. Enjoy!
BeOS never had a problem BSOD'ing. BeOS also is a great platform for software synthesis due to the low audio latencies, though this hasn't quite been exploited yet (only a few synths exist :( and one commercial no longer is available) BeOS is also is great for MIDI stuff; the MIDI implementation in BeOS is probably the best I've ever encountered (i never really understood MIDI until I used it in BeOS). MIDI apps work nice and seamlessly with one another, too. *sigh*
I hope OpenBeOS reaches a point of usability soon.
my pet machine
Wouldn't it suck if musicians using laptops during concerts get a BSoD?
Hahahahahahah
Classical music does use computers for composition. Many musicians use Sibelius software to write down their compositions.
True, a computer can never compare to a live performance, particularly as far as solo work is concerned. However some of the recent top British musicians have been working to produce purely synthesised classical music. As one whose father owns the main woodwind company and producer of oboes in the UK, (shameless plug for Howarths)I know that a top oboist, Malcolm Messiter, produced a totally synthesised orchestra "The Virtual Orchestra". My father brought the cd home one night and put it on. I merely thought it was an poor recording and performance on terrible instruments. We tested it out on everyone we had to dinner- nobody made comment and all were astounded that it was totally synthesised.
So computers can be used much more than you think in real "classical" music in addition to the obvious uses in popular music.
- The days of playing sequences off a DAT are not numbered -- they're already long gone. Laptops have been used as sequencers to drive outboard MIDI gear for almost as long as there have been laptops (for me it started in 1992 with an Atari STacy). The new development, as mentioned in the CNN article, is using software synths (usually VSTi's) as live performance tools.
- I disagree that there are "limitations to the power and ability of software synthesizers". By example, I offer Absynth from Native Instruments. From the 68-stage envelopes(!) to the wave fractalization and spectral editing tools, this offers sound shaping tools that no hardware synth can compete with.
- Up until recently, you could argue that the latency problem with software synths kept them second-class citizens behind hardware boxes -- you'd hit a key and get your note a split-second later. This final limitation has been defeated with the advent of faster computers and cheap professional audio hardware. I use a 1.2 GHz computer and a $300 Emagic EMI audio interface, and my softsynth latency is about 2.5ms. Not perfect, but it actually beats some of my hardware synths. (Hit a fat chord with layered patches on an Emu Morpheus sometime and you'll see what I mean -- you get a flam, not a unison attack.) And when you play back sequenced software instruments, they're sample-accurate.
So the story is not laptops on stage, or computers making everyone a musician (if you can't write songs, the computer will not help you), but rather, software synths coming into their own as valid replacements for hardware on stage and in the studio.In response to some previous comments about perceived limitations of software synthesis for live performace, or emotional expression:
Good synth software like Reason (and its synthesizers, drum machines, and samplers), can be controlled realtime via standard MIDI devices. A couple interesting ones (I don't work for Midiman!):
Tactile interfaces like these allow for a huge range of expression and compensation in a live OR recording environment. A mouse/keyboard can be used too, but I often fid the onscreen controls are not large enough or truly desiged for exacting real-time control.
Some may not find electronic sounds familiar or comfortable, but I truly believe a GOOD electronic musician has all the tools to add variance and emotion to a musical performance. Do many do it? I dunno, but the capability and potential is there.
As computational power increase, first people can use word processors. Therefore, the writers gains a lot of freedom because previously, it's expensive to ask somebody to retype a manuscript or modify a part of your writings. With word processors it's a piece of cake. Then come the music softwares, which expedite a lot of music composition. You don't need to hire a band to play your music anymore, and symphony composition is not previleged to the few who are famous enough to get people to play his/her music. I predict that in the near future, people will make realistic movies all on computers. Therefore you don't need millions of $ to produce a movie. In the end, what counts for an artist is the talent because tools and the entry fee for being in some art business becomes cheaper and cheaper.
the computer is gradually becoming the instrument itself.
Gee, considering much of my CD collection has been computer music for almost a decade, I'm glad to see a mainstream article about it!
Computing machines have been used for music for quite some time. Other posters have mentioned the software like Reaktor, Absynth, FruityLoops, Max/MSP, Reason, etc, etc. Here are some random artists you can check out:
Richard Devine Uses Reaktor on several computers to create complex industrial electronic beats. His stuff is pretty unbelievable when you listen close to all the detail. He's written music for Nike ads recently so he's fairly accessible.
kid 606: An up-and-coming laptop punk. He's written silly stuff and serious stuff too and done at lot for the live electronic scene. He pretty much uses only Reaktor on a laptop as well. Look for the track " Catstep/My Kitten/Catnap Vatstep DSP Remix By Hrvatski" on your favorite music-sharing service, off his "Down With the Scene" album, you won't be disappointed! Or at least you'll laugh at the singing robot voice.
Autechre are the masters of abstract electronic music (imho). For the past few albums, they've slowly gravitated toward generative music (i.e., write a program to write the music). They use Max/MSP and other stuff (not entirely computers all the time). Their last album Confield is very abstract and almost unlistenable. But fascinating.
Taylor Deupree and his 12k label from New York are into the minimalist side of things, very minimal electronic noise, very art-school stuff. Some of 12k's stuff combines very well with the noise a computer makes, which I like to play when working so that my computer's fan noise is "remixed". Pretty cool if you're into the abstract. They use all sorts of software for their art.
Another Electronic Musician is a guy in the California scene who makes nice unpretencious (sp) electronic beats with Reaktor and other stuff.
Grooves magazine is one of many independent magazines on electronic music. If you see an issue at your local leftfield bookstore, flip through it. They review music software too.
There's plenty of academics into electronic music too. Paul Lansky is one off the top of my head. Several music schools have electronic music programs that use a lot of this software too (Berkeley uses Reason I believe).
So, there is a pretty huge scene for electronic music. There are plenty of young musicians who have chosen the laptop as their primary instrument, and don't even think twice about it.
I think people are turned off by the interface, but it is quite capable for the price. It's free to use, though all you can do is export to mp3/wav and you can't save your work and come back later. The cost is a little over $100 IIRC. Should be well worth it though, if you plan to make tons of music. It's actually the fastest pattern-based composer I've found. I was using ModPlug tracker, but that gets extremely tedious.
Dijkstra Considered Dead
Um, Berklee, one of the nation's most respected music schools, opted to use Reason as the tool of choice to teach electronic music. Maybe you're using some other definition of "powerful" that I was previously unaware of.
from Propellerheads site:
"Berklee has chosen Reason's virtual on-screen equipment to teach signal flow, routing, mixing, synthesis, sampling, and sequencing. Never before has one software application been able to provide students with virtual "hands on" experience using so many different pieces of electronic music gear."
c-hack.com |
I've had a link to Raymond Scott's web site in my sig off-and-on. He's the guy who wrote so much of the music of looney tunes, although ironically he "probably" died not knowing that he was immortalized because of it! In particular, he wrote "powerhouse" which is the "mechanical, assembly line" music you would know right off if you heard it. He also wrote "The Toy Trumpet" and "Dinner Music for Cannibals".
But he's also an interesting guy in his own right. He probably developed the first music sequencer, and some of the first synthesizers. In fact, a young Bob Moog was inspired by visits to the his massive music laboratory.
I highly recommend checking out his site (although he died sometime in the 90s).
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The open source software and tons of articles online about sound generation and synthesis will give you enjoyable hours of reading and playing. All this material can be very intimidating for the new comer or uninitiated so I would recommend the book published about CSound which is for newbies and experienced people a source of plenty of material written by top experts in the field. And did I mention that it's all open source and running on many platforms?
PPA, the girl next door.
PPA, the girl next door.
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
It's very interesting to see all the mildy different viewpoints on this.
:p
;)
;)
;) The fact that you can mimic a $100,000+ studio to great effect for the meager price of Reason is just fantastic. What if instead of trading MP3s, we were all trading the file formats that contained all the master tracks and sequence information? You like a song, but think it could use just a little more of something else? Open it up, and remix it! (Of course, this would probably just lead to even -more- crappy club-style remixes)
Yes, computers making music has been around for decades - listen to some of the music on Forbidden Planet. Yes, it's been commonplace on stage for quite some time. re: power - I see a lot of 'my dick is bigger than yours' posts on that: Reason's not a powerhouse, Reaktor is. Here's my $.02 - Reaktor's got nothing on Csound when it comes to synthesis power. However, I think Reason's a hell of a lot easier to use than both of them
I'm currently debating with my roommate over which recording tool we use - he likes Nuendo, I still like Vegas. He argues that he can get so much more done more efficiently with Nuendo. I show him all the songs I've put together in Vegas and ask him to show me one full song he's done in the past six months
Electronic musicians 'performing' on laptops is just plain boring. When I went to see Autechre, I didn't expect much more, I just thought it was cool to see Autechre. They turned out all (most) of the lights, and were just a couple of guys with Laptops and Nord Modulars. A little more interesting, Telefon Tel Aviv had a pair of laptops, but also played along with electric bass and guitar, and at least twiddled knobs. Twine did the laptop thing, but had a fantastic video showing to go along with it, and I think that was the most interesting - It's less of a 'lets go see our favorite musician perform' than it is 'lets go see a light and sound show' - unfortunately most of the kids who make electronic music can't afford a good light show
Getting back to something useful - I think it would be really smart if a program like Reason would be included with computers the way that programs like RealPlayer and MusicMatch are included. I had access to music software in the form of ScreamTracker and ImpulseTracker when I was about 14, and slowly got into making music because of that. What if a kid had access to a program like Reason at age 5? We start them on violins young, why not start them doing full compositions early on
No, computers won't ever replace traditional instruments. But computers are becoming a factory for new, inventive instruments - and not just bleepy-bloopy stuff - and bringing production, mixing, mastering all into that beige box I'm resting my feet on right now.
I am Leviathant and I approve this message.
there is a flamewar out there between music hardware and software, what is the best?
well, most professional musicians still use hardware (akai samplers, synths etc..), hardware is faster and the sound quality is much better, you cant beat a virus/triton/nord lead synth with just software, but the time will come.
on professional studios there is a combination between both. G4 macs is the most commun computer in studios running sequencers like cubase/logic/protools.
but the technology does not successfully duplicate what the monks would do if they were in the room playing with you.
Neither does Johnny Cash's new CD successfully duplicate what you would hear if he were in the room playing with you. Live music and recorded music are two completely different animals, as different as painting and acting. In live music, one or more people play instruments (guitars or samplers or tinfoil--anything that makes a sound) in a unique way. Doing so, they impart something intangible to the audience. An extreme example of this is Son House:
"I remember seeing Son House at the Gaslight Cafe in NYC. He had just been rediscovered and was still quite nervous to play before people. He slowly rambled up to the stage and took a seat. The lights were bright and made it almost impossible to see the audience. Next, the steel guitar was handed to him and he fumbled to get a brass piece of tubing from his vest pocket. The Cafe was full of noise and excitement. There was little recognition of Son's being on stage. Then, to quiet the place, an announcement was made introducing the "legendary bluesman from the Mississippi Delta." Still noise, as most of the audience were very unfamiliar with Delta music or Son House.
Then the amazaing part of the night occurred. Son slid the slide down the fingerboard of the guitar. The sound cried out. Everyone stood and looked. Next Son started his singing moan. His eyes rolled, arms shook, sweat quickly rolled down his forehead. Everyone remained standing, amazed at the sound. The song ended and from stunned silence a wave of applause emerged. Son played four more songs. The blues brought tears to people who had never been exposed to this type of sound. Those familiar with Son and his music cried for the joy of seeing him perform and the wailing sounds of the guitar."
--Stefan Grossman
Recorded music, on the other hand, is not merely a matter of recording the above performance. Sure, that's what people do, and some will try to convince you that their expensive mikes and high bit rate make it just like being there, but that's impossible. Let me make a tech-oriented sweeping generalization: No recording will ever capture a live performance in full. But here's the thing: recordings are a no less valid art form than performances. Once you accept the fact that you can't duplicate a live performance; once you embrace that fact, then you can use the CD medium to its true potential. No more is making a CD just a matter of getting the band to play one track without screwing up. People have realised that on a CD, that's not a guitar, that's not a voice, it's just a bunch of waveforms generated by 1s and 0s. No matter what you recorded, it's now electronic. So it doesn't make any difference if you loop one sound over and over. It doesn't matter if you apply massive effects to a vocal. And it's not cheating if every sound is programmed and not performed. The computer isn't making the music, it's still the person, just in a different way. You might say that your hard drive is your blank canvas, and when you start recording tracks to it, it's like you're painting, like you're constructing a song. Then when it's finished, through the glory (and I use that word with all seriousness) of technology, you can burn indentical copies of that to a CD as many times as you want, and an unlimited amount of people can enjoy your work in exactly the way it was intended.
c-hack.com |
I'm surprised this one hasn't been mentioned yet(heck, its worthy of a front page story)...
But what about The Creativity Machine? From the article:
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
There's been a very significant underground electronic music movement gaining momentum extremely rapidly for the past six or seven years that has been dubbed intelligent dance music (IDM) by the media and the music generated is almost entirely computer-based. Aphex Twin is the name from the genre that most people have heard, along with somewhat lesser-known but still easily found artists like Squarepusher, Autechre, Boards of Canada, -ziq, etc. This is without any doubt one of the most innovative groups of artists around, and their influence has been noted by and heard in the music of N*Sync, Michael Jackson, and Radiohead, just to name a few bands.
Computers are definitely the center of musical creation in this genre, to the point where one of the genre's biggest issues at present is the artists trying to figure out how to make their performances more interesting than them just standing in front of a laptop moving the mouse around. In addition to the use of computers, the internet is also a major component of the artists' music-making and distribution processes. There have been numerous collaborations that have been created by sending audio tracks back and forth via ICQ, each artist changing and adding to it and then sending it back. In addition, the labels' web sites and accompanying message boards are freqented very regularly by both fans and artists alike, and much of the genre's direction is discussed and even determined there. Also, because the genre is so mall at present, record pressings rarely exceed more than a few thousand so it is very often difficult to find out-of-print records, so file-sharing tools like AudioGalaxy and SoulSeek come to the rescue. Trading MP3s is far more acceptable to the artists in this genre than it is to those in more popular ones.
For a taste of the genre, check out these record labels:
Warp Records
Planet
tigerbeat6
Check out the artists Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, -ziq, Kid606, Autechre, Boards of Canada, Venetian Snares, Plaid, and Leafcutter John, just to name a few.
The day that we have a fully functional program that is as good as Buzz or Orion, I'll be a happy man and I'll have to reboot my machine less often.
I agree, and this is why I think we can finally do without the RIAA. In fact -- I think we can do without copyright on music entirely; there are now plenty of people who can and do make music just for fun and distribute it at very low cost. In such a world, piracy is a feature, not a bug. While I'm at it, here's my site of freeware plugins that you can use in most of these digital music programs: http://www.smartelectronix.com/~destroyfx/
dumbass.
I still find it hilarious that kid 606's most popular song is one that Hrvatski made. Why not just link to Hrvatski? I think he is much more clever...
I agree with what you're saying in a sense. Right now the computer is most suitable for making electronic music. But -- I think electronic music is far more experimental than in the "real instruments" world. I think we've covered almost all of that territory, and most of it was done as far back as say, Beefheart.
... THAT certainly increased my ability to express myself.
For sure, digital instruments are not so good at replicating their analog equivalents. (Except perhaps for a nice digital piano.) I don't think anybody is claiming that.
One thing that the computer definitely does is make it cheaper for artists to record at home. I recorded about 200 songs last year, almost all were digitally multi-tracked, with effects and editing done on the computer. I used real instruments. But I was able to do it by myself, without a trip to an expensive studio
I fear a lot of you might be missing the point of my post (yes I, not Taco, wrote it and said "DAT tape" and made everyone mad).
I'm not saying any of this is new, and I'm certainly not saying Reason is the be-all/end-all of software sequencers and synths. All I'm saying is that mainstreme instrument makers are starting to take notice. This is, believe it or not, a very big deal. The CNN article doesn't do it justice.
Buzz is a modular digital studio that has dozens (hundreds?) of effects, synths and other sound machines. It's not as slick, as stable or as expensive as Reason, but otherwise, it blows it away.
The best thing about Buzz is that anyone can code machines for it. This results in machines of varying quality, but very open development. The source for some machines is publically available.
www.buzzmachines.com is the place to go to grab the install and newest machines. #buzz on efnet (irc) is the place to go for more information/help.
Use Buzz --> http://www.buzzmachines.com -- It's free, better, free, and community supported.
NIME
CCRMA program
Joe Paradiso @ at MIT Media Lab doing some interesting stuff
enjoy
-Q
Soft-synths, improved digital recording software, better sequencers, and the proliferation of digital effects plugins will not turn Average Joe into a virtuoso performer. These things are tools. One still needs to have either innate talent or a basic schooling in musical theory and practice to take advantage of them.
I have a small digital home studio, comprised of an Alesis keyboard, an Athlon-based audio workstation, and packages such as Reason, ReBirth, Cubase, Reaktor, B4, and a stack of others. None of these made me a better musician. They did, however, provide me with a banquet of options from which to pick and choose as my skills develop.
The primary benefit of the digital and electronic home recording industry is this: people with talent who couldn't afford to produce professional-quality work can now do so. The hardware and software combinations that I've spend around $8,000 on, rival the capabilities of a $150 an hour studio of ten years ago. In addition, I have full control as musician and engineer.
Another benefit of software-based synthesizers is the accessibility of their parameters. Though slightly less convenient than the analog beasts of years past, a soft-synth with individual on-screen controls is many times easier to deal with than a digital hardware synth sporting a 4-line LCD in which to do all your parameter editing.
I use discrete hardware, still, for various purposes. However, digital sound generation, editing, post-production, and mixdown make my life much easier. That is its main appeal.
At 3 A.M. you can see people's auras; at five you can see their contrails...
As a professional musician (dance music, specifically trance), let me share my experience. Software synths such as Reason or Acid have a lot of potential for the future, but right now they just don't cut it. Compare the sounds you get out of reason to the sounds that come out of a piece of pro audio equipment, such as a Roland JP-8080, the Novation Nova, or even the two-decade-old Roland TB303. The sounds from Reason are much thinner and lacking in character. If you want thickly layered leads, sweeping pads, or strong, phat bass, you want hardware.
Why is it that they've yet to duplicate that richness in software synths? I'm not sure - I guess they just haven't been doing it as long. I have no doubt that in a few years - maybe as few as five - software synths will be rapidly outpacing their hardware counterparts.
But for the time being, if you want to create professional-quality audio, the kind that a top name DJ will spin into their set, forget about software. It's just not good enough yet.
My brother has a little crappy setup and no real musical training or insight. He mostly just cuts and pastes shit from bad electronic music to make it sound even worse :). Anyway, I'm not worried about what is considered artistic or not. What I'm afraid of is the day when you can just buy a console or some software, plug in an equation, alter a few variables, and pop out a tune. Oh wait, that's what N'Sync does. Seriously though, I feel music is becoming less artistic. Not to put the blame on the equipment itself, though. The blame falls on those users who haven't got a clue. Unfortunately, they seem to be the majority. I mean, when was the last time you heard GOOD electronic music? (The correct answer is NEVER)
Right now, Supercollider is Macintosh-only. However, the author of Supercollider is working on an OSX version, which he feels could be the basis of a Linux port.
Its the best for playing midi files..
If mp3 trading hurts anyone, it's the bedroom musicians you've referred to above. I sat down and talked to the head of Ninja Tune Records (Cold Cut, Funky Porchini, Kid Kowala) of North America and asked him a few questions about sales and the money situation.
Apparently shows for midlevel acts don't pay. The old adage that a performer makes their money in performance, rather than record sales doesn't apply to low and midlevel acts where ticket sales are just enough to pay for the bus. Tours are done for promotion and for the fun of it. Low and midlevel acts rely on album sales. Thus, they are not more accepting of mp3 trading of their material. If anything, they are less accepting because every dollar counts when you've got very little to pay rent and bills.
-ziq, as you know, has his own record label called Planet Mu. But did you know that he can barely pay the bills? And did you know that some of his top artists have to put out multiple releases, and play tonnes of shows just to eat? I heard a rumor that Mike (-ziq) might take a day job because the music simply did not pay.
I think that it's fair to say that electronic musicans are generally more comfortable with the idea of music trading because of their own proximity to the net. As a concept, it doesn't faze them. But you shouldn't suggest that they don't mind, because I bet 95% of them do.
The moral of the story: If you're into the music, buy the albums and go see the shows.
_KhlER3L efnet(#buzz)
[submit click off to oblivion no doubt, fuck...]
It's posts like this that make /. the wonderfully-objective, open-minded places that it is.
"DirtyTroll" - STFU, You stupid PRICK!
Oops! Did I really say that?!?
I don't give a rat's behind about "karma" here or anywhere else. Don't like what I have to say here? Deal with it!
This title was great. You could write music for the nice EMU sound chip in the IIGS. I used it when I was in grade school to have a LOT of fun with music. One had to be able to read music, though, to be able to use it.
These days it's a religious issue. My personal religion is that the hardware units are always going to be ahead. (I don't mean keyboards or pure MIDI modules specifically; I'm also counting computer-hosted hardware products like the Creamware Pulsar, the Korg OasysPCI, and souped-up breakout boxes like the Kyma Capybara and the Nord MicroModular.) Sure, latency is getting pretty damn tight on the native software, but if you're sharing a processor with Windows or MacOS it's hard to make it predictable. And the plug-in world is plagued with compatibility and reliability problems. The jury is out over sound quality - again, I hold that hardware units sound better because of the dedicated hardware (my OasysPCI, with its five dedicated DSP's and filter/modelling algorithms to match, sounds fabulous, to a degree which native software is not going to match just yet).
Having said all that, I'm a firm believe in computers as audio/MIDI processing tools. I've been using Cycling '74's Max for ten years, and am now doing projects with MSP, the digital audio toolkit portion, most recently a high-profile commission for Ballett Frankfurt, so this stuff can be used in professional contexts. (Nano-plug and disclosure: I reviewed Max/MSP for RECORDING magazine last October, so I had to look at these issues quite closely.)
There are laptop-only performers around, some of whom even write good music, but there's one other area where hardware will win out: laptops have dreadful ADC/DAC hardware so we'll always have external converter boxes.
Epilog: in the Mac world, none of this stuff works under OS X. OS X has a nice audio/MIDI framework but nobody's using it yet (except perhaps EMagic) so we Mac users are sitting in a MacOS 9.2.2 limbo right now.
Here come the electrical engineers and computer science majors talking smack about music packages which they can't understand and recommending Joe's beatmaker from CompUSA to make professional recordings. It's bad enough listening to you guys postulate on computing much less something of which you clearly haven't the faintest grasp. Leave music to the musicians and those who have taken the time to understand what audio remastering, digital sampling, subtractive synthesis, and sequencing really mean. Go talk shop about something else like IRQ's or Magic the Gathering.
"there are still limitations to the power and ability of software synthesizers". Wow, really??
Nowadays, we listen music mostly coming from speakers, being CDs or radio at home or even live bands. I am sorry, but that is POOR. Absolutely poor in comparison with live music directly coming from instruments, even if we use a high end hifi.
Now. Synthesizers are often a good solution if we are producing music to be played by speakers. They produce nice sounds that "blend" nicely and create a good overall results. Even, talented musicians and composers can make good themes using ONLY synths.
But if you think that synths can even go close to musicians, go to a small club and listen some live music, hear that jazz trumpet directly from the brass to your ears, listen that cymbal at one side and that snare drum close next to it: No speaker membrane will vibrate as those two. Not trying to convince or anything. I have played electronic drums myself, getting good "recording" quality. But don't go with the electronics to a jazz cafe or anything because anything will sound POOR, even the state of the art Roland Virtual Drums. And I also play trumpet, and that HAS to be played even in recordings..
So yes, there are STILL some limitations.
As I talk to several of the artists on Planet 's roster on a regular basis and am good friends with one of the two label managers, I didn't just make that statement up about the artists being more accepting of MP3 trading. Sure, they'll be upset if you grab the MP3s and don't buy the record, and you shouldn't do that. I don't condone that behavior. But the fact that so many of these labels' releases are so often out of print and/or difficult to find, it's quite common that you couldn't buy the record even if you wanted to.
...obviously something created by Reason's going to sound like crap if you're just running the output straight and uneffected. Thin, lacking character? That's what Professional EQ and multi-band compression are for.
I had a TR-606. Had a Future Retro 777. Got rid of 'em. Well, the 777 wasn't really mine, but I used it more than the fellow who owned it, and god it was fun. But your argument seems like it could be easily remedied if you knew a little more about engineering and production.
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