Re:nothing particularly groundbreaking about it
on
lowercase music
·
· Score: 2
Um, I'd have to say you are wrong about the variability.
Consider how much of this music is made, often with Powerbooks running Max/MSP or Reaktor, or Logic Audio with a lot of VST instruments. Now, with Max/MSP and Reaktor, creating algorythmic music that does in fact change from playback to playback is relatively simple.
Max and Reaktor are both modular environments for music. Max is fully extendable, if you need an object that doesn't already exist, you can write your own in C++. Br00tal. It's the environment of choice for artists like Autechre and Tetsu Innoue.
Reaktor is less powerful, but is nearly as cool, and I use it because it doesn't get quite as low level as Max and I don't have my brain wrapped around Max just yet. (There are 1200 pages of documentation for Max/MSP for a reason.) Taylor Deupree uses Reaktor and I went to a roundtable discussion on Loops in music at Pier 1, NYC, a few months ago, and he played for us one second of sound, looped, but with a random start point on the sample. The sound evolved but did not repeat, at least not in a way that we could understand. Very cool to listen to.
If you are really interested in computer music that evolves, I highly recommend Autechre - Confield. It's not microsound, though there are micro-elements, but it's a mindblowingly different album, made by a pair of guys who have been pushing the edge of techno for over ten years and have finally fallen off the deep end into territory that is just paradigm shattering. For an equally complex but much more traditionally listener friendly release, check out Autechre's also recently released Peel Sessions 2.
(Peel Sessions 2 has the best minimalist cover art ever. It's white text on white background; you can only read it by angling the cover so that the difference in gloss shines at you.)
Autechre play live using two powerbooks, two Nord Modulars, and heavily custom max/msp patches. The recent live sets I've downloaded off of *soulseek* are generally comprised of 4 15 to 20 minute songs that are definitely evolving and changing.
The microsounders do this too. In my experience, there are two kinds of post-techno musicians:
1) those that improvise and "jam" with their machines
2) those that hyperedit and plan everything with extreme precision.
I tend to be in catagory 2, spending 8 hours on sequencing constantly changing drums for a 2 minute song. But many of the microsounders in question build libraries of sound files, and libraries of audio environments and when they play live, it is improvised.
With all that said, I figure I might as well continue:
Anyone intersted in what's going on in computer music should look into these software packages: max/msp, reaktor, supercollider, melodyne, ableton live, absynth, Audiomulch. While I also use stuff like Reason, these programs are more "forward thinking" and non-traditional.
the other name for the genre is MICROSOUND
on
lowercase music
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I wish I'd seen this topic earlier...
The other name for the genre is MICROSOUND, I would know, I'm on a mailing list by that name, that Richard Chartier, Taylor Deupree, Kim Cascone, and other "big name" microsounders are on. The name of the list, by the way, is Microsound.
Microsound is often a stark beautiful experience, akin to minimalist painting. I am very fond of Tetsu Innoue's "cuts and clicks" album, for it's ever shifting sound, and Bernhard Gunter's "Monochrome White / Polychrome w/ Neon Nails" double cd, which is a dense texture of sounds that are just outside the range of human hearing. The first disc is higher in pitch than the second disc, but it is the second disc that sounds higher, simply because you can hear it. Very moving, at least to me, despite all lack of melody.
Another great record, one that took me about 2 years to appreciate is Otomo Yoshihide & Sackhio M's "Filament". Yeah, this involves one of those "no input mixer" people. It really sounds liek the private conversation of two computers, not meant for human ears. At the time I got it as a birthday present from a friend of mine (who shares my interest in fringe experimental music) I was listening to a lot of Merzbow, who is the "god of Japanese noise music", which is a great deal denser and louder than any of this stuff, and I didn't know what to make of it.
A few years later, it clicked and now I love it, and even create some myself!
I bought a Dreamcast late last year and I've aquired all of these games for under $30 each, most at $14.99 or less:
Chu Chu Rocket Space Channel 5 Sonic Adventure Street Fighter Alpha 3 Marvel vs. Capcom Crazy Taxi Jet Grind Radio Resident Evil: Code Name Veronica Sega Bass Fishing Sega Marine Fishing Shenmue Soul Caliber Virtua Tennis Sword of Beserk Typing of the Dead (hilarious! type at zombies to kill them!) Dead or Alive 2 Power Stone (AMAZING 3-D fighter, a genre I'm only kinda into, this game is serious fun. I got it for $8.99 last week and have been playing it non-stop!)
There are a lot of seriously awesome games for the dreamcast that while you might have to search a bit, are worth the effort. Here's my list of games I'm currently tracking down (some are still easily availible, I just can't drop $300 on a dozen games right now.):
powerstone 2 seaman sega bass fishing 2 skies of arcadia granda II shenmue 2 Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Marvel v. Capcom 2 Capcom v. SNK 1 Capcom v. SNK 2 bust a move 4 house of the dead 2 (and light gun) samba de amigo (and special controller) alone in the dark 4 sonic adventure 2 crazy taxi 2 tony hawk pro skater tony hawk pro skater 2 fatal fury: mark of the wolves Bangai-O Bomberman Online Giga Wing 2 Gunbird 2 Project Justice (rival schools sequel) Dance Dance Revolution (and dance pad)
now, i realize hunting high and low for games isn't most people's idea of a good time, but if you're up for it, the dreamcast is WELL worth the effort. Not to mention all the neat hax0r things you can do with it, like boot linux, burn your own boot discs and play nes emulators...
the fishing controller and keyboards are easily availible, as are memory cards and additional regular controllers. Aracde stick controllers are a bit rarer.
the dreamcast is well worth the investment.
I do plan on getting a used ps1 to play metal gear solid, final fantasy 7, and dance dance revolution (easier than tracking down the import only DC version), so I see your point about if you're only going to buy one console, but I think for me, that one console would be the dreamcast. I'm starting to be fond of it in the way I am fond of my iBook, which says a lot.
This sounds great! I use OS X as much as I can on my 500/66 g3 ibook with 256mb ram, though I do boot to 9 to use Logic Audio, Reaktor, and tons of virtual instruments.
My father runs a desktop publishing company and relies purely on macs. He has three on his desk even (including a cube and an ancient and upgraded power computing clone), and he sure likes to bitch about some of X. Font management is his #1 concern. And Mail.app is his #2.
He uses X on an 700 mhz G3 iMac, the other 7 macs are using OS 9.
Apple is doing amazing things these days. Let's hope the dual 1.4 gighertz G4s with fast DDRAM aren't just rumors!
How do you like the Japanese subtitles on your episode one laser?
That is one of the real joys of DVD, the removable subtitles.
Also, find me an anamorphic widescreen laserdisc. They may exist, I just don't know about them. Watching eXistenZ in 16:9 on a friend's widescreen tv with a 6.1 dts system was incredible.
Also, the price point on dvds is substantially lower than it was with laserdisc.
The Criterion Collection edition of Brazil has three discs:
1. Terry Giliam's directors cut, which WAS the theatrical release!
2. Disc of extras, including some great documentaries on the controversy surrounding Brazil.
3. The studio's version, which ended up being sold to the TV markets!
The Director's cut has commentary from Giliam, while the TV cut has commentary from a film critic, who discusses all the differences between the two cuts and how the film's meaning changes because of the different edits.
Great set, it was the first thing I bought on dvd.
I use a small peer to peer program that is for a specific subgenre of music, and it has a few thousand users at most. It runs off of donated linux server space and is already buckling under the weight of the number of folks using it, so i'm not going to name it by name, but it's perfect. The ratio of quality music to crap is amazingly high. I regularly download a gig of worthwhile stuff in a day.
on napster, it was such a pain in the ass, wading through the garbage.
smaller is frequently better. (like the new imac, heh)
.
as a macintosh user since system one, finder 1 on a mac plus with a 400 k internal floppy drive, I'm well aware of the shortcuts and keyboardability that is already in the mac os.
I am looking to see it implemented to the point that windows has it, which is to say that I'd never have to lift my hands off the keyboard unless I chose to.
i haven't played around with the speakable voice shortcuts, but I really should, it'd be funny at least to get my mac to do stuff by voice.
>i cannot beleive people will be wowed by the imac, "hey, its a different shape, it must be really fast"
You are missing the point. My coworkers' reactions were "woah, takes up such little space, i need one." and "dvd burning and a g4 with monitor for $1800? I'm sold."
My reaction: "perhaps i don't need a second powerbook, when this imac would be portable enough for touring with."
It's a great piece of design. Those who value their living space (like those of us here in NYC) will eat it up. Those who want affordable dvd burning and video editing love it. Those in the market for a "nearly portable" are also gaga for it.
> the Ipod can not be used as a portable hard drive either
I'm afraid you are wrong about that, it just stores the mp3s for playback in a hidden directory. You can put files on it in clear view (that won't be read by the mp3 player)
and getting mp3s off of it is easy, plug it into a mac with OS X installed, fire up terminal, and copy files in the command line interface, as it ignores the visibility settings on the folders on your drive. Very easy.
Apple thinks music piracy is a social problem, not a technical one.
As a lifelong Apple computer fanatic, I was tickled pink by this keynote. The new iMac is wicked!
I'm currently the owner of an iBook dvd 500, and will probably be in the market for a new mac by the end of this year. I will be interested to see what they do to the powerbook line...
> It's like the difference between Legos and
> carpentry. Sure, it's a little harder to cut
> wood to the right length and you nails or
> screws to put it together, but would you want
> to live in a house made of legos?
From this audience, I doubt you are going to get the answer you are looking for.
anyone else find it ridiculous that both the 400 gig drives and 100 times faster processors are dismissed as "too powerful for people to need"
bring on the obscenely powerful computers for obscenely low prices, please! I do digital audio stuff and I would LOVE a 400 gig drive and a processor that's equivelent to a 50 gighertz G4, with appropriately fast system/memory buses...
it'd be nice to manipulate a large number of channels of stereo 24 bit 96khz audio doing massive fft effects on them, all in real time, from a laptop.
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Um, I'd have to say you are wrong about the variability.
Consider how much of this music is made, often with Powerbooks running Max/MSP or Reaktor, or Logic Audio with a lot of VST instruments. Now, with Max/MSP and Reaktor, creating algorythmic music that does in fact change from playback to playback is relatively simple.
Max and Reaktor are both modular environments for music. Max is fully extendable, if you need an object that doesn't already exist, you can write your own in C++. Br00tal. It's the environment of choice for artists like Autechre and Tetsu Innoue.
Reaktor is less powerful, but is nearly as cool, and I use it because it doesn't get quite as low level as Max and I don't have my brain wrapped around Max just yet. (There are 1200 pages of documentation for Max/MSP for a reason.) Taylor Deupree uses Reaktor and I went to a roundtable discussion on Loops in music at Pier 1, NYC, a few months ago, and he played for us one second of sound, looped, but with a random start point on the sample. The sound evolved but did not repeat, at least not in a way that we could understand. Very cool to listen to.
If you are really interested in computer music that evolves, I highly recommend Autechre - Confield. It's not microsound, though there are micro-elements, but it's a mindblowingly different album, made by a pair of guys who have been pushing the edge of techno for over ten years and have finally fallen off the deep end into territory that is just paradigm shattering. For an equally complex but much more traditionally listener friendly release, check out Autechre's also recently released Peel Sessions 2.
(Peel Sessions 2 has the best minimalist cover art ever. It's white text on white background; you can only read it by angling the cover so that the difference in gloss shines at you.)
Autechre play live using two powerbooks, two Nord Modulars, and heavily custom max/msp patches. The recent live sets I've downloaded off of *soulseek* are generally comprised of 4 15 to 20 minute songs that are definitely evolving and changing.
The microsounders do this too. In my experience, there are two kinds of post-techno musicians:
1) those that improvise and "jam" with their machines
2) those that hyperedit and plan everything with extreme precision.
I tend to be in catagory 2, spending 8 hours on sequencing constantly changing drums for a 2 minute song. But many of the microsounders in question build libraries of sound files, and libraries of audio environments and when they play live, it is improvised.
With all that said, I figure I might as well continue:
Anyone intersted in what's going on in computer music should look into these software packages: max/msp, reaktor, supercollider, melodyne, ableton live, absynth, Audiomulch. While I also use stuff like Reason, these programs are more "forward thinking" and non-traditional.
I wish I'd seen this topic earlier...
The other name for the genre is MICROSOUND, I would know, I'm on a mailing list by that name, that Richard Chartier, Taylor Deupree, Kim Cascone, and other "big name" microsounders are on. The name of the list, by the way, is Microsound.
Microsound is often a stark beautiful experience, akin to minimalist painting. I am very fond of Tetsu Innoue's "cuts and clicks" album, for it's ever shifting sound, and Bernhard Gunter's "Monochrome White / Polychrome w/ Neon Nails" double cd, which is a dense texture of sounds that are just outside the range of human hearing. The first disc is higher in pitch than the second disc, but it is the second disc that sounds higher, simply because you can hear it. Very moving, at least to me, despite all lack of melody.
Another great record, one that took me about 2 years to appreciate is Otomo Yoshihide & Sackhio M's "Filament". Yeah, this involves one of those "no input mixer" people. It really sounds liek the private conversation of two computers, not meant for human ears. At the time I got it as a birthday present from a friend of mine (who shares my interest in fringe experimental music) I was listening to a lot of Merzbow, who is the "god of Japanese noise music", which is a great deal denser and louder than any of this stuff, and I didn't know what to make of it.
A few years later, it clicked and now I love it, and even create some myself!
actually, biblically, the earth was made in a day, it was populated on the other days.
not that I believe that myth.
Bangai-O! is easily availible in the NJ/NYC area, though it is still at $30 in most places.
What crack are you smoking?
I bought a Dreamcast late last year and I've aquired all of these games for under $30 each, most at $14.99 or less:
Chu Chu Rocket
Space Channel 5
Sonic Adventure
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Marvel vs. Capcom
Crazy Taxi
Jet Grind Radio
Resident Evil: Code Name Veronica
Sega Bass Fishing
Sega Marine Fishing
Shenmue
Soul Caliber
Virtua Tennis
Sword of Beserk
Typing of the Dead (hilarious! type at zombies to kill them!)
Dead or Alive 2
Power Stone (AMAZING 3-D fighter, a genre I'm only kinda into, this game is serious fun. I got it for $8.99 last week and have been playing it non-stop!)
There are a lot of seriously awesome games for the dreamcast that while you might have to search a bit, are worth the effort. Here's my list of games I'm currently tracking down (some are still easily availible, I just can't drop $300 on a dozen games right now.):
powerstone 2
seaman
sega bass fishing 2
skies of arcadia
granda II
shenmue 2
Street Fighter 3: Third Strike
Marvel v. Capcom 2
Capcom v. SNK 1
Capcom v. SNK 2
bust a move 4
house of the dead 2 (and light gun)
samba de amigo (and special controller)
alone in the dark 4
sonic adventure 2
crazy taxi 2
tony hawk pro skater
tony hawk pro skater 2
fatal fury: mark of the wolves
Bangai-O
Bomberman Online
Giga Wing 2
Gunbird 2
Project Justice (rival schools sequel)
Dance Dance Revolution (and dance pad)
now, i realize hunting high and low for games isn't most people's idea of a good time, but if you're up for it, the dreamcast is WELL worth the effort. Not to mention all the neat hax0r things you can do with it, like boot linux, burn your own boot discs and play nes emulators...
the fishing controller and keyboards are easily availible, as are memory cards and additional regular controllers. Aracde stick controllers are a bit rarer.
the dreamcast is well worth the investment.
I do plan on getting a used ps1 to play metal gear solid, final fantasy 7, and dance dance revolution (easier than tracking down the import only DC version), so I see your point about if you're only going to buy one console, but I think for me, that one console would be the dreamcast. I'm starting to be fond of it in the way I am fond of my iBook, which says a lot.
.
This sounds great! I use OS X as much as I can on my 500/66 g3 ibook with 256mb ram, though I do boot to 9 to use Logic Audio, Reaktor, and tons of virtual instruments.
My father runs a desktop publishing company and relies purely on macs. He has three on his desk even (including a cube and an ancient and upgraded power computing clone), and he sure likes to bitch about some of X. Font management is his #1 concern. And Mail.app is his #2.
He uses X on an 700 mhz G3 iMac, the other 7 macs are using OS 9.
Apple is doing amazing things these days. Let's hope the dual 1.4 gighertz G4s with fast DDRAM aren't just rumors!
.
Portman is a great actress, or at least was in Leon / The Professional.
The trailer looks awful. The dialog is crap. I'll still see it, but I'm waiting till it's been in the theaters a few weeks.
How do you like the Japanese subtitles on your episode one laser?
That is one of the real joys of DVD, the removable subtitles.
Also, find me an anamorphic widescreen laserdisc. They may exist, I just don't know about them. Watching eXistenZ in 16:9 on a friend's widescreen tv with a 6.1 dts system was incredible.
Also, the price point on dvds is substantially lower than it was with laserdisc.
Actually, you've got that wrong.
The Criterion Collection edition of Brazil has three discs:
1. Terry Giliam's directors cut, which WAS the theatrical release!
2. Disc of extras, including some great documentaries on the controversy surrounding Brazil.
3. The studio's version, which ended up being sold to the TV markets!
The Director's cut has commentary from Giliam, while the TV cut has commentary from a film critic, who discusses all the differences between the two cuts and how the film's meaning changes because of the different edits.
Great set, it was the first thing I bought on dvd.
.
(0, redundant)
Best of luck!
.
Uh, there are a few mac only gaming companies, and many games for the Mac that are great and mac-like...
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/news/ for example.
Remember that Bungie was once a Macintosh only game company. Also did The Fool's Errand ever make it to PC? That game was amazing...
I totally agree with this.
I use a small peer to peer program that is for a specific subgenre of music, and it has a few thousand users at most. It runs off of donated linux server space and is already buckling under the weight of the number of folks using it, so i'm not going to name it by name, but it's perfect. The ratio of quality music to crap is amazingly high. I regularly download a gig of worthwhile stuff in a day.
on napster, it was such a pain in the ass, wading through the garbage.
smaller is frequently better. (like the new imac, heh)
.
as a macintosh user since system one, finder 1 on a mac plus with a 400 k internal floppy drive, I'm well aware of the shortcuts and keyboardability that is already in the mac os.
I am looking to see it implemented to the point that windows has it, which is to say that I'd never have to lift my hands off the keyboard unless I chose to.
i haven't played around with the speakable voice shortcuts, but I really should, it'd be funny at least to get my mac to do stuff by voice.
thank you for the in depth reply however.
> He said "MacOS," not "OS X."
And since all new Macs come with OS X installed as the default OS, and that it is still a MacOS, your point?
.
I agree that keyboarding is one area where windows is in fact better. Hopefully Apple will integrate this into os 10.2...
.
> Both can probably edit video to a limited extent.
the $1400 imac can do a heck of a job of video editing, while the $700 pc is gonna be a serious pain in the ass. that's the difference.
Apple appeals to people who realize that they get what they pay for. Good design, good software, excellent integration.
.
you don't think that UNIX (in the guise of OS X) is reliable?
OS X is certainly easy to use.
.
>i cannot beleive people will be wowed by the imac, "hey, its a different shape, it must be really fast"
You are missing the point. My coworkers' reactions were "woah, takes up such little space, i need one." and "dvd burning and a g4 with monitor for $1800? I'm sold."
My reaction: "perhaps i don't need a second powerbook, when this imac would be portable enough for touring with."
It's a great piece of design. Those who value their living space (like those of us here in NYC) will eat it up. Those who want affordable dvd burning and video editing love it. Those in the market for a "nearly portable" are also gaga for it.
A computer can be a work of art too, you know.
.
> the Ipod can not be used as a portable hard drive either
I'm afraid you are wrong about that, it just stores the mp3s for playback in a hidden directory. You can put files on it in clear view (that won't be read by the mp3 player)
and getting mp3s off of it is easy, plug it into a mac with OS X installed, fire up terminal, and copy files in the command line interface, as it ignores the visibility settings on the folders on your drive. Very easy.
Apple thinks music piracy is a social problem, not a technical one.
.
Ah good, found the joke I was going to make, so that I don't need to make it.
.
> Using the DC is an interesting idea, but why not
> just fix his current PC rather than trying to
> make an orange into an apple?
you can make a DC into an iMac? Cool!
actually, they use two nord modulars, two g4 powerbooks running cycling 74's Max/MSP (opcode stopped making max many years ago).
They also use Supercolider and Symbolic Composer.
Since they are using powerbooks, I would be surprised if they were not using something like the MOTU firewire audio out.
Autechre rules.
.
As a lifelong Apple computer fanatic, I was tickled pink by this keynote. The new iMac is wicked!
I'm currently the owner of an iBook dvd 500, and will probably be in the market for a new mac by the end of this year. I will be interested to see what they do to the powerbook line...
> It's like the difference between Legos and
> carpentry. Sure, it's a little harder to cut
> wood to the right length and you nails or
> screws to put it together, but would you want
> to live in a house made of legos?
From this audience, I doubt you are going to get the answer you are looking for.
.
anyone else find it ridiculous that both the 400 gig drives and 100 times faster processors are dismissed as "too powerful for people to need"
bring on the obscenely powerful computers for obscenely low prices, please! I do digital audio stuff and I would LOVE a 400 gig drive and a processor that's equivelent to a 50 gighertz G4, with appropriately fast system/memory buses...
it'd be nice to manipulate a large number of channels of stereo 24 bit 96khz audio doing massive fft effects on them, all in real time, from a laptop.