I think getting a pro sampler program like Kontakt ($300-$400) might be a bit overkill. There's a nifty program called SoundPlant that lets you assign a sample to each key on the (computer) keyboard and tweak various settings. And it's free.
It, (like Kontakt) can stream audio files directly from the hard drive, eliminating the need for a lot of RAM. You would need an audio card with 10 outputs, however, like the parent poster said. You could get multiple cards if you need to have more outputs. Maybe USB or firewire external ones would be a good idea.
As for rigging play buttons, look into MAME cabinet building sites. They describe how to wire seperate buttons into a keyboard encoder, which is outputed as a keyboard or USB signal.
This is probably the simplest and most reliable way to do this. It should be better than having 10 different playback devices. It shouldn't be too expensive, either.
It's not difficult, but it's a pain in the ass and it's slow and inefficient. This is why I love right click menus and even more than that, I love keyboard shortcuts.
Many Mac people (among others) seem to think that moving a mouse cursor about 500 miles on screen to accomplish what could be done with a quick right click, left click or couple of keypresses is better because it's simpler. While simplicity is good, it can hinder power and efficiency. I'd rather take a little time to learn the interface, so that I can use it quickly and efficiently later than be able to use the interface right away, and be slowed down by it later.
But then, I'm an extreme minimalist when it comes to computer interfaces. I like having as much of the interface off the screen and stored in my mind as possible. I use Litestep and my theme shows nothing on the screen (except wallpaper and a cursor) by default and can only be accessed with right-clicking or pressing key combinations. Other people have a difficult time using my computer, but it works very well for me.
For professional software, which is used by people to do their job--rather than editing pictures to send to grandma--power and the ability to work quickly and efficiently seems to me to be of the most importance. If using software is your job, then taking a while to learn the ins and outs of its interface shouldn't be an issue. How many jobs require no training?
When I download a new program and am learning to use it, I regularly right click on things, since it seems natural to me that to interact with something, you right click on it to bring up a menu specific to that object. By the same token, it irritates me when I have to move the cursor all the way back up to the top of the screen and back. It's not laziness; It's just unnecessary movement that takes time.
On the other hand, when I do access something from the top menu, I usually do it with ALT and a letter. Try it. When you're used to it, it's much quicker. You can probably move your fingers to hit multiple keys more quickly than you can move a cursor to click one button. To me, it's the most tedious thing in the world to watch someone select a box of text, click on edit, click on cut, click where they want it, click edit, and click paste. Use CTRL+X and CTRL+V and be done with it already.
Anyway, to make a long post short, it is a unnecessary pain to move the cursor to the top of the screen, though it isn't *difficult*.
A "gimp" is a cripple. Or as an adjective: "a gimpy leg". It's not used that often in any sort of offensive way that I'm aware of.
That's in american slang, it may not exist elsewhere.
Re:Are there any girls there?
on
D&D Is 30
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· Score: 1
Does anyone other than me prefer to play Shadowrun without any magic/elves/dragons/etc? It's the best cyberpunk game system I've found so far (I like the rules better than Cyberpunk 2020), but I just want to play a Cyberpunk game, not a Cyberpunk/fantasy game.
My absolute favorite RPG, however, is Call of Cthulhu, but I have noone to play with. Hah, not only am I a geek, I don't even have geeky friends.
Yeah, I remember back when I was in elementary school and a friend got me into D&D. When I bought my first D&D book, my mom asked, "Is that that devil-worshipping game?"
I, having not heard of this idiocy, said, "Uh, no."
Re:About the d20 system....
on
D&D Is 30
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· Score: 1
CoC isn't being moved to d20, there was just a d20 version released for fans of d20 that might not play the game otherwise. The original (well, new versions of them) rules will still be made, and are the primary focus.
I don't know if the d20 version would be that successful. Maybe it was--I don't know--but it seems like actual Lovecraft fans would play it regardless of whether it's d20 compatible. Has anyone here discovered and played CoC before getting into Lovecraft or at least Mythos-inspired works?
I agree, I haven't jumped onto the 3 ed bandwagon yet. I don't know much about it, however, so I can't really comment intelligently on it.
CoC, however is still being developed in the original, non d20 form. If you read somewhere on the site, they answer the alarm and criticism over releasing a d20 version with a statement that they will continue with both, and that they considered the original rules the real deal. Also that the d20 version was mainly to get money from a wider audience so they could continue to develop the real rules.
As long as they don't abandon the real rules to jump on the d20 bandwagon (like some companies have done), I don't have a problem with it. Buy whichever version you prefer. If you're a real CoC fan, of course, you'll prefer the real rules.:)
Uhm...correct except for one point: Inform was not created by Infocom. Infocom created the Z-machine standard, which is the virtual machine and its bytecode files which it runs.
Inform was created in 1993, over a decade later (the Z-machine was created in 1979). The link between the two is that Inform compiles into Z-machine files, which are the same format as the ones Infocom used. It's a new(ish) compiler that simply outputs the older Z-machine format.
The actual Inform language is, as far as I know, similar to the proprietary language used by Infocom, but not identical.
Other Interactive Fiction languages, notably TADS, implement their own language, virtual machine, etc. Inform and the Z-machine are still as close to a standard as there is, followed closely by TADS.
Who in the world uses these? You obviously know nothing about IF. 99.95% of IF is written with one of the many IF languages: mainly Inform, TADS, and Adrift. These come with very complex parsers and other features that are commonly used in IF. The more powerful ones (Inform, TADS) are fully functional programming languages, as well.
The other major benefit to using one of these langauges is that they compile to bytecode, and can be used an an insanely varied number of platforms, including Palm devices, Game Boy Advance, Dreamcast and anything that can run a Java Applet. All this with no modification or recomplication.
So if you want to write IF from scratch in C, go ahead, but do it as an excercise in writing parsers, not as a entry to this competition.
That is not correct. Interactive fiction is *not* a synonym for text adventures. Text adventures are a subset of interactive fiction. There are many examples of IF that are not adventures in any sense of the word, nor are they games.
Anyway, yes, there are many people who still like IF, and there's a thriving community based around it. Once cool thing about it is that just about anyone who learns one of the many IF authoring languages can write one. This leads to many interesting works that wouldn't be commercially viable to a mass market, but are entertaining to fans. This also leads to crappy IF, of course, but there are plenty of sites that review works of IF. Much IF written by writer types rather than programmer types, althogh it requires both skills to be an excellent author.
Just as there are people who read books instead of just watching movies, there are people who write and play IF, including me. But then, I play the most modern graphical games as well.
That's the traditional view of IF, but it's been moving toward puzzleless "games" generally, and there are many puzzleless works of IF now.
Which I generally think is good, because if there are too many puzzles, it's more of a game than an IF to me. I'd rather focus on the story and the process of discovering it rather than some convoluted puzzle.
I'm working on a Lovecraftian interactive story now that will hopefully live up to or surpass Anchorhead. It will have some obstacles that are relatively easy to overcome, but no traditional puzzles. The hard part will be finishing the story without going insane.:)
Yes, Wal-mart's music selection does suck, but so do the selections of just about every store I've been to, which is why I don't do my music shopping anywhere but online or sometimes pawn shops. But then I listen to pretty unusual stuff that's not in the mainstream.
I too have my sense of style. It's pretty geeky, actually. The only shirts I ever buy from stores like Hot Topic (which is somewhat closer to my style than the Gap, but still far off) are their Nintendo and video game shirts. I have a disdain for what most style-concious people wear, that's all. Lately I've been wearing some pretty worn (they didn't even come that way) jeans and various tech, game, horror, and music shirts. Pretty boring, yeah, but I'm not conserned that much with it.
There's nothing wrong with having non-geeky interests, but to me, clothing and fasion is pretty shallow an interest to spend much time on.
This summer, I plan to spend lots of quality time on the computer, reading, playing airsoft, restoring an old 30s radio, writing interactive fiction, playing GameCube games, and maybe start writing music again. So I don't just sit at the computer all the time either, but I don't do the bar thing, or socialize, or get in the sun or any of that (those things all give me headaches).
Who cares about style? Especially corporate endorsed style? What kind of nerd/geek are you?
The Gap has the stylish clothes because they regularly put out commercials saying what's stylish, like Old Navy: "Look, it's fleece vinyl crotchless cardigan capri biker pants! Brand-new from Old Navy!" Then soon after, everyone is wearing said ridiculous garments, until the next Old Navy or Gap commercial comes out.
If you have a style, it should be something you come up with for youself, not something corporations and clothing designers ram down your throat.
BTW, Wal-Mart also generally tries to keep up with styles, albeit in generic brands. I don't see Grandma jeans there unless they're in the Grandma section (Which is a section in which I do not shop).
Merzbow isn't to everyone's taste, to put it mildly, but I like him. Another good one is Dissecting Table. Also from Japan and very harsh, but a little more structured. Some of it sounds kind of like electonic death metal. Masonna is similar to Merzbow's harsher moments and then Aube (I think that's the name) is cool too, most albums are centered around one sound source that's manipulated and varied throughout: water dripping in one, something else in another.
And yeah, the Merzbow performance I saw (only one in Texas ever that I know of) was loud and he blew out the PA speakers in the first five minutes. Had to take a break while they brought in more. Earplugs would have been a good idea, but I didn't think of it.
It's been around for a long time, since at least the 80s in serious experimental music. It's just now been seen fit to post on Slashdot to be mocked by everyone, that's all.
There are whole genres of music, like glitch and noise that make use of things like this regularly.
Think outside your little box of what society has told you music is. When people started making music, don't you think people thought it was weird? When people started plucking strings and blowing into carved tubes and beating on stretched skins? Remember that jazz and rock were both considered noise with no redeeming value when they were new. This has been true of all forms of new music; same thing with art. What makes plucking a piece of metal-wound wire any more valid than generating tones on electronic devices? We've now developed the technology to go beyond the limit of sounds that can be generated in the physical world, and have the capabilites to push sound into barely imagined areas. Do you think we should ignore those possiblities just because it hasn't been done before and because people raised on country or classical or butt-rock don't appreciate it?
I don't ask you to like this stuff if you don't want to. But can't you accept that it has musical and artistic value to people? The same merits we see lacking in most music we find in experimental music. If anything is not music, it's this corporate-spawned drivel that's so popular now. It may have the parts that people consider necessary in music, but not the creative spirit.
Sorry if you're bitter about wasting your time following in the footsteps of long-dead musicians. Don't get mad at people who listen to truly new music. Notes, shmotes. This is Slashdot, not old-fogey (in mind, anyway) central, shouldn't you be more openminded?
I would expect the closeminded attitudes from most places, but I thought that geeks and nerds were supposed to be open minded. I love electronics and I love electronic music. Not crappy dance music, but music that sounds like it was created by robots and cyborgs and artificial intelligences.
The guitar/bass/drums thing has been done, done, done, done, done to death. Blah. How boring. It's the 21st century. I think it's time for new kinds of music created by new kinds of instruments. To paraphrase Masami Akita of Merzbow, if noise is sound that's unpleasant to listen to, then pop music is noise to me.
Go ahead, mod me as as flamebait or a troll. But try to open your mind just a bit first.
They are a cool band, but I'm much more into their old stuff compared to the new. Their classic music was performed on all kinds of metal junk. And this was well before Stomp.
I heard about circuit bending a *long* time ago, but then I'm into noise, industrial, and experimental music and I make it when given the time and inclination.
Exactly my definition. Sound created with artistic intent. A rather extreme example: Someone records the sound of a truck driving by. Someone gives the tape or whatever medium to someone and says, "This is a recording of the sound of a truck driving by." Another person, an experimental musician, to express his/her rebellion against "normal" music, records the same truck driving by. He gives this tape to someone and says, "This is a song/track/work that I just finished recording." The former is not music, while the latter is. Now, I wouldn't be too impressed with said musical work, and I'd probably only listen to it once before absorbing all the appreciation I could from it, but I wouldn't say, "Are you crazy or stupid? That's not music! You need rhythm and melody to have music!"
I'm sure most of you will mock this example, but in my mind, that is what seperates music from just sound. Sound is just a waveform, just like a painting is just a bunch of matter arranged to form patterns of color. What makes them art/music is the intent. Are they created for functional purposes, or simply to express the creator's self? That is the difference, to me.
Otherwise, music and art both become very messy to define, as well as unnecessarily exclusive.
Have any of you ever heard Merzbow or any other Japanoise bands? It's some of the most extreme and nontraditional music I've heard. Most people would think it's simply the sound of electronics going badly badly wrong. White noise. Screeches. Metallic squeals. Snatches of looped jazz. Check it out if you want to see how far the limits of music can be stretched. I attended a Merzbow concert at the end of a film festival and was amused at the stream of people leaving, not knowing what the hell was going on and covering their ears, leaving the people who actually came to the festival to see him (like me).
BTW, if you are actually interested in hearing Merzbow, www.amazon.com has audio samples. Be sure to turn your speakers down, however. Check out Venereology for one of his harsher albums.
Believe it or not, I actually would rather my (fictional, and will probably stay that way) children watch violence rather than gratuitous sex.
To me, sex is something kids are more likely to engage in unwisely than violence. Violence, if done right, particularly in a good war movie, doesn't glorify itself, in my opinion. After and during watching Saving Private Ryan, particularly the first time, I thought how glad I was that I'd probably never have to do those things, while having an immense ammount of respect for those who did.
I think that violence for the wrong reasons has worse effects than sex for the wrong reasons, but that's a different matter than watching it. I think kids watching violence, particularly if it's not glorified, are less likely the go attack someone than they are to have wanton sex after watching years of TV and movies obsessed with sex in all its glory.
I'm sure many of you will disagree. Both have been with us since the first human and will until the last human. But if I had kids, I'd rather them watch too much violence than too much sex.
And yes, I am American, so *THPTHHHHPT*.
BTW, this opinion has nothing to do with religion, as I'm an atheist.
Slashdot Mirror
I think getting a pro sampler program like Kontakt ($300-$400) might be a bit overkill. There's a nifty program called SoundPlant that lets you assign a sample to each key on the (computer) keyboard and tweak various settings. And it's free.
It, (like Kontakt) can stream audio files directly from the hard drive, eliminating the need for a lot of RAM. You would need an audio card with 10 outputs, however, like the parent poster said. You could get multiple cards if you need to have more outputs. Maybe USB or firewire external ones would be a good idea.
As for rigging play buttons, look into MAME cabinet building sites. They describe how to wire seperate buttons into a keyboard encoder, which is outputed as a keyboard or USB signal.
This is probably the simplest and most reliable way to do this. It should be better than having 10 different playback devices. It shouldn't be too expensive, either.
Many. The "assault weapons" ban (which will hopefully sunset in September), for instance.
I think "feel-good" legistlation is the worst kind. It accomplishes nothing positive; it has only negative effects--taking away rights.
Well, if it makes you feel any better, I metamodded that off topic mod as 'unfair'.
I understood it and thought it was vaguely humorous, myself.
It's not difficult, but it's a pain in the ass and it's slow and inefficient. This is why I love right click menus and even more than that, I love keyboard shortcuts.
Many Mac people (among others) seem to think that moving a mouse cursor about 500 miles on screen to accomplish what could be done with a quick right click, left click or couple of keypresses is better because it's simpler. While simplicity is good, it can hinder power and efficiency. I'd rather take a little time to learn the interface, so that I can use it quickly and efficiently later than be able to use the interface right away, and be slowed down by it later.
But then, I'm an extreme minimalist when it comes to computer interfaces. I like having as much of the interface off the screen and stored in my mind as possible. I use Litestep and my theme shows nothing on the screen (except wallpaper and a cursor) by default and can only be accessed with right-clicking or pressing key combinations. Other people have a difficult time using my computer, but it works very well for me.
For professional software, which is used by people to do their job--rather than editing pictures to send to grandma--power and the ability to work quickly and efficiently seems to me to be of the most importance. If using software is your job, then taking a while to learn the ins and outs of its interface shouldn't be an issue. How many jobs require no training?
When I download a new program and am learning to use it, I regularly right click on things, since it seems natural to me that to interact with something, you right click on it to bring up a menu specific to that object. By the same token, it irritates me when I have to move the cursor all the way back up to the top of the screen and back. It's not laziness; It's just unnecessary movement that takes time.
On the other hand, when I do access something from the top menu, I usually do it with ALT and a letter. Try it. When you're used to it, it's much quicker. You can probably move your fingers to hit multiple keys more quickly than you can move a cursor to click one button. To me, it's the most tedious thing in the world to watch someone select a box of text, click on edit, click on cut, click where they want it, click edit, and click paste. Use CTRL+X and CTRL+V and be done with it already.
Anyway, to make a long post short, it is a unnecessary pain to move the cursor to the top of the screen, though it isn't *difficult*.
A "gimp" is a cripple. Or as an adjective: "a gimpy leg". It's not used that often in any sort of offensive way that I'm aware of.
That's in american slang, it may not exist elsewhere.
Does anyone other than me prefer to play Shadowrun without any magic/elves/dragons/etc? It's the best cyberpunk game system I've found so far (I like the rules better than Cyberpunk 2020), but I just want to play a Cyberpunk game, not a Cyberpunk/fantasy game.
My absolute favorite RPG, however, is Call of Cthulhu, but I have noone to play with. Hah, not only am I a geek, I don't even have geeky friends.
Yeah, I remember back when I was in elementary school and a friend got me into D&D. When I bought my first D&D book, my mom asked, "Is that that devil-worshipping game?"
I, having not heard of this idiocy, said, "Uh, no."
CoC isn't being moved to d20, there was just a d20 version released for fans of d20 that might not play the game otherwise. The original (well, new versions of them) rules will still be made, and are the primary focus.
I don't know if the d20 version would be that successful. Maybe it was--I don't know--but it seems like actual Lovecraft fans would play it regardless of whether it's d20 compatible. Has anyone here discovered and played CoC before getting into Lovecraft or at least Mythos-inspired works?
I agree, I haven't jumped onto the 3 ed bandwagon yet. I don't know much about it, however, so I can't really comment intelligently on it.
:)
CoC, however is still being developed in the original, non d20 form. If you read somewhere on the site, they answer the alarm and criticism over releasing a d20 version with a statement that they will continue with both, and that they considered the original rules the real deal. Also that the d20 version was mainly to get money from a wider audience so they could continue to develop the real rules.
As long as they don't abandon the real rules to jump on the d20 bandwagon (like some companies have done), I don't have a problem with it. Buy whichever version you prefer. If you're a real CoC fan, of course, you'll prefer the real rules.
Uhm...correct except for one point: Inform was not created by Infocom. Infocom created the Z-machine standard, which is the virtual machine and its bytecode files which it runs.
Inform was created in 1993, over a decade later (the Z-machine was created in 1979). The link between the two is that Inform compiles into Z-machine files, which are the same format as the ones Infocom used. It's a new(ish) compiler that simply outputs the older Z-machine format.
The actual Inform language is, as far as I know, similar to the proprietary language used by Infocom, but not identical.
Other Interactive Fiction languages, notably TADS, implement their own language, virtual machine, etc. Inform and the Z-machine are still as close to a standard as there is, followed closely by TADS.
See www.inform-fiction.org for more info.
There's at least one here in the Houston suburbs.
But that's the only one I've seen. I'd like to see these things be more common, as they seem like a good idea.
I also found a list of LAN centers, most of which seem to be in Texas. At least that's true of those on this list.
Who in the world uses these? You obviously know nothing about IF. 99.95% of IF is written with one of the many IF languages: mainly Inform, TADS, and Adrift. These come with very complex parsers and other features that are commonly used in IF. The more powerful ones (Inform, TADS) are fully functional programming languages, as well.
The other major benefit to using one of these langauges is that they compile to bytecode, and can be used an an insanely varied number of platforms, including Palm devices, Game Boy Advance, Dreamcast and anything that can run a Java Applet. All this with no modification or recomplication.
So if you want to write IF from scratch in C, go ahead, but do it as an excercise in writing parsers, not as a entry to this competition.
That is not correct. Interactive fiction is *not* a synonym for text adventures. Text adventures are a subset of interactive fiction. There are many examples of IF that are not adventures in any sense of the word, nor are they games.
Anyway, yes, there are many people who still like IF, and there's a thriving community based around it. Once cool thing about it is that just about anyone who learns one of the many IF authoring languages can write one. This leads to many interesting works that wouldn't be commercially viable to a mass market, but are entertaining to fans. This also leads to crappy IF, of course, but there are plenty of sites that review works of IF. Much IF written by writer types rather than programmer types, althogh it requires both skills to be an excellent author.
Just as there are people who read books instead of just watching movies, there are people who write and play IF, including me. But then, I play the most modern graphical games as well.
That's the traditional view of IF, but it's been moving toward puzzleless "games" generally, and there are many puzzleless works of IF now.
:)
Which I generally think is good, because if there are too many puzzles, it's more of a game than an IF to me. I'd rather focus on the story and the process of discovering it rather than some convoluted puzzle.
I'm working on a Lovecraftian interactive story now that will hopefully live up to or surpass Anchorhead. It will have some obstacles that are relatively easy to overcome, but no traditional puzzles. The hard part will be finishing the story without going insane.
Yes, Wal-mart's music selection does suck, but so do the selections of just about every store I've been to, which is why I don't do my music shopping anywhere but online or sometimes pawn shops. But then I listen to pretty unusual stuff that's not in the mainstream.
I too have my sense of style. It's pretty geeky, actually. The only shirts I ever buy from stores like Hot Topic (which is somewhat closer to my style than the Gap, but still far off) are their Nintendo and video game shirts. I have a disdain for what most style-concious people wear, that's all. Lately I've been wearing some pretty worn (they didn't even come that way) jeans and various tech, game, horror, and music shirts. Pretty boring, yeah, but I'm not conserned that much with it.
There's nothing wrong with having non-geeky interests, but to me, clothing and fasion is pretty shallow an interest to spend much time on.
This summer, I plan to spend lots of quality time on the computer, reading, playing airsoft, restoring an old 30s radio, writing interactive fiction, playing GameCube games, and maybe start writing music again. So I don't just sit at the computer all the time either, but I don't do the bar thing, or socialize, or get in the sun or any of that (those things all give me headaches).
Who cares about style? Especially corporate endorsed style? What kind of nerd/geek are you?
The Gap has the stylish clothes because they regularly put out commercials saying what's stylish, like Old Navy: "Look, it's fleece vinyl crotchless cardigan capri biker pants! Brand-new from Old Navy!" Then soon after, everyone is wearing said ridiculous garments, until the next Old Navy or Gap commercial comes out.
If you have a style, it should be something you come up with for youself, not something corporations and clothing designers ram down your throat.
BTW, Wal-Mart also generally tries to keep up with styles, albeit in generic brands. I don't see Grandma jeans there unless they're in the Grandma section (Which is a section in which I do not shop).
Merzbow isn't to everyone's taste, to put it mildly, but I like him. Another good one is Dissecting Table. Also from Japan and very harsh, but a little more structured. Some of it sounds kind of like electonic death metal. Masonna is similar to Merzbow's harsher moments and then Aube (I think that's the name) is cool too, most albums are centered around one sound source that's manipulated and varied throughout: water dripping in one, something else in another.
And yeah, the Merzbow performance I saw (only one in Texas ever that I know of) was loud and he blew out the PA speakers in the first five minutes. Had to take a break while they brought in more. Earplugs would have been a good idea, but I didn't think of it.
It's been around for a long time, since at least the 80s in serious experimental music. It's just now been seen fit to post on Slashdot to be mocked by everyone, that's all.
There are whole genres of music, like glitch and noise that make use of things like this regularly.
Right on. I was about to post pretty much this exact message, but you beat me to it.
I do agree that Skinny Puppy was a *fantastic* band, but they'd be technically post-industrial.
Think outside your little box of what society has told you music is. When people started making music, don't you think people thought it was weird? When people started plucking strings and blowing into carved tubes and beating on stretched skins? Remember that jazz and rock were both considered noise with no redeeming value when they were new. This has been true of all forms of new music; same thing with art. What makes plucking a piece of metal-wound wire any more valid than generating tones on electronic devices? We've now developed the technology to go beyond the limit of sounds that can be generated in the physical world, and have the capabilites to push sound into barely imagined areas. Do you think we should ignore those possiblities just because it hasn't been done before and because people raised on country or classical or butt-rock don't appreciate it?
I don't ask you to like this stuff if you don't want to. But can't you accept that it has musical and artistic value to people? The same merits we see lacking in most music we find in experimental music. If anything is not music, it's this corporate-spawned drivel that's so popular now. It may have the parts that people consider necessary in music, but not the creative spirit.
Sorry if you're bitter about wasting your time following in the footsteps of long-dead musicians. Don't get mad at people who listen to truly new music. Notes, shmotes. This is Slashdot, not old-fogey (in mind, anyway) central, shouldn't you be more openminded?
I would expect the closeminded attitudes from most places, but I thought that geeks and nerds were supposed to be open minded. I love electronics and I love electronic music. Not crappy dance music, but music that sounds like it was created by robots and cyborgs and artificial intelligences.
The guitar/bass/drums thing has been done, done, done, done, done to death. Blah. How boring. It's the 21st century. I think it's time for new kinds of music created by new kinds of instruments. To paraphrase Masami Akita of Merzbow, if noise is sound that's unpleasant to listen to, then pop music is noise to me.
Go ahead, mod me as as flamebait or a troll. But try to open your mind just a bit first.
They are a cool band, but I'm much more into their old stuff compared to the new. Their classic music was performed on all kinds of metal junk. And this was well before Stomp.
I heard about circuit bending a *long* time ago, but then I'm into noise, industrial, and experimental music and I make it when given the time and inclination.
Exactly my definition. Sound created with artistic intent. A rather extreme example: Someone records the sound of a truck driving by. Someone gives the tape or whatever medium to someone and says, "This is a recording of the sound of a truck driving by." Another person, an experimental musician, to express his/her rebellion against "normal" music, records the same truck driving by. He gives this tape to someone and says, "This is a song/track/work that I just finished recording." The former is not music, while the latter is. Now, I wouldn't be too impressed with said musical work, and I'd probably only listen to it once before absorbing all the appreciation I could from it, but I wouldn't say, "Are you crazy or stupid? That's not music! You need rhythm and melody to have music!"
I'm sure most of you will mock this example, but in my mind, that is what seperates music from just sound. Sound is just a waveform, just like a painting is just a bunch of matter arranged to form patterns of color. What makes them art/music is the intent. Are they created for functional purposes, or simply to express the creator's self? That is the difference, to me.
Otherwise, music and art both become very messy to define, as well as unnecessarily exclusive.
Have any of you ever heard Merzbow or any other Japanoise bands? It's some of the most extreme and nontraditional music I've heard. Most people would think it's simply the sound of electronics going badly badly wrong. White noise. Screeches. Metallic squeals. Snatches of looped jazz. Check it out if you want to see how far the limits of music can be stretched. I attended a Merzbow concert at the end of a film festival and was amused at the stream of people leaving, not knowing what the hell was going on and covering their ears, leaving the people who actually came to the festival to see him (like me).
BTW, if you are actually interested in hearing Merzbow, www.amazon.com has audio samples. Be sure to turn your speakers down, however. Check out Venereology for one of his harsher albums.
Believe it or not, I actually would rather my (fictional, and will probably stay that way) children watch violence rather than gratuitous sex.
To me, sex is something kids are more likely to engage in unwisely than violence. Violence, if done right, particularly in a good war movie, doesn't glorify itself, in my opinion. After and during watching Saving Private Ryan, particularly the first time, I thought how glad I was that I'd probably never have to do those things, while having an immense ammount of respect for those who did.
I think that violence for the wrong reasons has worse effects than sex for the wrong reasons, but that's a different matter than watching it. I think kids watching violence, particularly if it's not glorified, are less likely the go attack someone than they are to have wanton sex after watching years of TV and movies obsessed with sex in all its glory.
I'm sure many of you will disagree. Both have been with us since the first human and will until the last human. But if I had kids, I'd rather them watch too much violence than too much sex.
And yes, I am American, so *THPTHHHHPT*.
BTW, this opinion has nothing to do with religion, as I'm an atheist.