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Ask Slashdot: Can Digital Music Replace Most Instrumental Musicians?
deviated_prevert writes "Most instrumental music used today in television commercials, background sounds and themes even on the majority of produced shows comes from completely digital composers who produce the product through digitized instrument samples. This has almost eliminated the need for real human instrumental musicians. For many listeners this makes no difference, as such music is essentially background in nature and does not need to have a true musical interaction with a listening audience at all. The same thing applies to the waves of digital music produced for things like raves. To quote one observer at the Globe and Mail 'So now we know why Deadmau5 and Daft Punk wear helmets when they perform. Everybody is digging the music, but no one is dancing. It is a sad development; the headgear of the maestros is there to mask their tears.' Will the live performance of instrumental musicians also become a thing of the past, or will there continue to be a real need for it? Purely instrumental groups like Booker T and the MGs, as well as solo performers like Herbie Hancock or John McLaughlin, seem not to take the spotlight as they once did. It is apparent that unless someone with a young fresh face is singing, today's producers will not attempt to seriously promote them. Regardless of how great today's instrumentalists are musically, there no longer seems to be a market for real musicianship. Even great performing classical musicians and ensembles are becoming scarcer due to faster and cheaper digital music production."
An article by a digital musician I read recently claimed that although digital synthesis can approach the quality of a real orchestra, it's extremely time-consuming to shape every note to fit the mood and context of that note.
If you factor in the time and effort to "carve" the note to sufficient quality, it's not economical compared to a smaller orchestra, because experienced musicians do the same in real time, with 1 practice and 2 takes on average. The performing group gets it done in about an hour, while diddling a synth rendering can take weeks. Even though it's one dude or so, it's a LOT of one dude.
Plus, you risk "ear burn-out" from so many replays such that you cannot recognize quality anymore. One has to switch between projects and styles to keep their ears fresh, delaying the finished product.
Maybe the editing software eventually will get better and the computer can assist with more natural "guesses" to get closer to expectations to reduce customization, but at this stage if you want quality performances, synthesis is not fully competitive.
Table-ized A.I.
You're underestimating a synthesizer. Take a look at a Moog sometime. There's a lot of knobs and dials, and they all do something (and most of them do something that was nearly impossible with any other instrument invented). A saxophone can't gradually alter its entire timber mid-phrase, the closest wind instruments have are the various kinds of mute, each limited in its ability in a way a synthesizer isn't. The electric guitar is the closest, because using different digital and analog pedals one can achieve a massive range of effects, in much the same way a synthesizer does. And, may I ask you to remember what the common reaction was to the invention of the electric guitar? Much the same as the modern reaction of so-called 'purists' to the popularization of sampling, synthesizing, and digital production via software. The fact of the matter is, they are no longer able to be looked at as more or less than each other. They are simply different ways of making art, and each is capable of truly amazing things.
I have yet to meet the synthesizer that can even remotely duplicate the dulcet noises of the old-fashioned dead trees and metal strings of my grand piano. Or the delightfully analog feel. Or dynamic range. Or imposing presence in the living room. As well the synthesizer completely fails at those little weird harmonics only found in acoustic pianos but which add rich character to the sound.
Just because you are ignorant, doesn't mean it's not doable (it might just not be easy to do it real-time with current processing abilities). Waveguide synthesis can replicate all of that, and in a way that's perfectly undistinguishable by a human (with its limited frequency range) from the real thing, given appropriate sampling rates... it's just not very computationally cheap.
Besides, if what you want is "the delightfully analog feel" (whatever you mean by that), there are analog synths out there, you know (e.g. a theremin)?
Nay, sir, the music comes from the soul, through the fingers, and sings or roars out from the harmonious combination of iron, steel, copper, and spruce.
So, whatever comes out of an electric guitar cannot be classified as music, right?
Protip: "music" is just structured sound, which can be obtained from a wide range of means; redefining "music" to mean "sounds that come out of $choose_arbitrary_instrument" is not insightful.
The pure pitch and harmonic perfection of your electronically generated waveforms only takes away from the music; it adds nothing.
Yes, because it's impossible to add noise or otherwise detune oscillators. Also, try to figure out how "pure" the pitch of the common analog synth is (protip: not very pure).
Computerized precision has no soul, sir.
The difference between a computer and a piano is that, with a computer, you can choose to be as precise or imprecise as you want; with a piano, you have no choice.
The funniest thing is that, for sure, you have already heard renditions of piano that you thought were "real" (i.e. were recorded from a physical piano), but actually weren't (i.e. were recorded from a waveguide model of a piano).
A computer might not have a soul, but if you can't distinguish between the sound that a soulful piano makes vs. the sound a soulless computer makes, maybe that distinction is purely arbitrary autism?
TL;DR: You need to polish your "no true scotsman" fallacy, brah.