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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
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.
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.
I've yet to hear a synthesis of that one brass instrument that sounded anything like the real thing.
Even the best of digital pianos doesn't sound/feel nearly as close to the Real Thing as I'd like. There will always be a place for real instruments.
But increasingly, the music you listen to includes more and more electronic elements. Being able to do this stuff on your laptop in Cubase means you don't have to cart around racks of synth equipment like you used to. The days of seeing a guy "jamming" on a synth are coming to a close. Instead you'll see more band members tweaking their laptops. You probably already have.
Why is this cool? It means the barriers to entry for making music are coming down. When the tools get good enough and easy enough, the potential pool of people making innovative music opens wide up.
I listen to a lot of IDM (experimental electronic music) so I'm pretty used to seeing "bands" consisting of a guy and his Kaos Pad, but it takes some getting used to at first.
- 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
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.
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.
- 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.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'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.
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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/
If you think Reason isn't powerful, then you simply don't know how to use it very well.
Luckily for me, and plenty of other people who are actually working professionally as electronic music producers, Reason exists as a simple, highly configurable environment for sound design and composition. Furthermore, if you want to use it in conjunction with apps like Reaktor, just use the ReWire protocol to fly the audio and midi data into the sequencer of your choice (Cubase, Logic, Nuendo) and you can use the two side-by-side with sample accurate sync.
I love the "Reason is a toy" mentality. I really think that it's just GUI-prejudice - if an app or an environment looks to clean and is too easy to use, it must be junk.
No matter. My last 2 12"s and my upcoming full-length were all made primarily in Reason. The remixes that I've been doing with other people on my label have been greatly simplified by flying Reason files back and forth over the net, because plenty of them are using it as well.
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/
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
Use Buzz --> http://www.buzzmachines.com -- It's free, better, free, and community supported.
Put a little effort into your search:
http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/354/
From the _front_page_ of freshmeat.net. Sheesh.
--Ray
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
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.
I would _love_ to jam live on synthetic sounds- though my facility is much more with guitar and bass. It doesn't have to be pushing buttons to play premade loops.
Some types of music, like Techno in the strictest interpretation, may be all about calculation and forbid messy human expressiveness, but that is NOT about the technology. To me the exciting thing about technology is when it can let you project emotion beyond what traditional instruments allow...
I took an old FM synth module (Yamaha FB-01) and programmed it so it made a mellow, voicelike tone. Then I did something I couldn't do with other instruments- I mapped the modulation wheel to a really, really fast squarewave vibrato, like 50 hz maybe. That gave me a solo voice that could play notes, could pitchbend, but could ALSO pitchbend half of itself and leave the other half fixed, except instead of making a double note it made a weird composite sound like tracker 'fake chord generating'- except, THAT is done with harmonic notes...
I ended up with a solo voice where you can ride two separate 'bend' controls to produce a weird diffracted sound that can range from a moan to a prismatic spray of inharmonic tone color (and now I've told you how to make one for yourself ;) )
But playing it- ahhhh. Do you want to make a note or a vocalization? Are you ready to wrestle with the pitchbend as the thing breaks up and refuses to 'diffract' to the note you're trying to hit? This is what really makes it an INSTRUMENT- yet it is totally synthetic, can't exist in nature, and doesn't even model any analog process. Technology in music can mean more than thumpa thumpa thumpa. AND it doesn't preclude alive improvisation and interaction.
If anyone is interested in hearing my take on the instrument I've described- tsk, you should be making your own music using it! ;) but if you DO want to hear what it sounds like, I have this tune (always been pretty popular really) called "Rain Dragon" that uses it as a lead instrument. In that tune I make it moan and angst around like a sick animal and also do some of the twitchy diffracted-note-hitting stuff I was talking about, it's in the higher registers and you can hear it sometimes struggling to hit a note that keeps diffracting off to the sides- bit hard to describe really. But this is COMPUTER stuff. It's played as if it was some tricky acoustic instrument like a saxophone, but it's a computer process that just happens to be complex enough to give rise to unexpected and twitchy behaviors that you can use in your improv...
(by the way: gotta explain something about 'Ampcast'. The site actually will give me a nickel for each of you who goes and downloads a track completely- but if you think about it, this explains why they have you make a 'myAmp' account- doesn't cost you anything but people would cheat if there was no way to count how many NICKELS they're supposed to pay me, get it? They can't just go by server logs. I know 80% of you guys could whip up a script to fake 3,000,000 downloads if you wanted- and please don't fake downloads on my account- and that's why they gotta take note of which myAmp account DLed what. Also, not that ANYbody ever notices, but you're also allowed to RATE stuff at Ampcast, and this is pretty much the only thing that will boost people in the 'Ampcast Charts' which aren't that bad for an OMD chart system- so if you want to see ol' Slashdot User #580, the GPL-using free software writing noisy indie-supporting musician here, doing well and being listened to, then take the effort to 'rate' the tunes! If that bugs you, then stream stuff (which doesn't pay anybody anything, might not ask for a registration) until you find something of mine you HATE, then register just to give it a BAD rating. Fair enough? ;D )
For the best in laptop assisted musical extravaganzas, I suggest you catch CEX. He's currently touring with the Dismemberment Plan and Deathcab for Cutie (two excellent bands)
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