On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 9:32 AM, Rob<lau(a)kudla.org> wrote: do you consider brian eno to be an engineer or a john cage wannabe?

On Thu, 3 Sep 2009 10:38:02 -0400 Joe Hartley <jh(a)brainiac.com> wrote: hmm, no doubt he hates classical music then. those fools really beat the old preset sounds to death. y'know.. the "piano", the "cello", the "violin".. all those awful overused generic sounds. if only those composers had gotten off their lazy backsides and constructed their own custom instruments with exciting and varied tonal properties, perhaps they would have left us with some decent music. alas, they mostly studied composition instead. what a waste. pete.

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 1:47 PM, Rob<lau(a)kudla.org> wrote: i think you're a little misinformed. eno has made much more as a producer than he ever did with roxy music. eno is arguably one of the most important 10 producers in the world, certainly in terms of influence if not in terms of absolute record sales. his work with U2 and more recently coldplay is just a minor part of the immense impact he has had on contemporary music. his entire style of working is a continual denial of almost everything you are claiming. it doesn't render your point invalid - presets are incredibly useful and for some people, they are actually essential. but it also serves as an indication that you can make phenomenally popular and occasionally rather innovative music in ways that are based around constantly trying to find the fastest way to get "the sound". there's room for everyone under the big tent of music, and no single road to goodness, fame or even fortune. --p

Indeed!!

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Rob schrieb: To have a handfull presets, that demonstrate, how an app works, ist important. But just to choose an entry in a given list of "cool killer-leads" and record it, yields in 9/10 cases to those boring Cubase-beginner tracks, we all have heared before and nobody is really interested in. Jaron Lanier (I know, he is controversal and I do not consider him a "guru" or something... still he is brilliant sometimes) has told an anecdote in a speech he gave in the 1990ies, that sums up the matter quite well. In short it says: A industry-guy said to him: "Well, take a violin, for instance. I mean, a violin has a crummy user interface. It's so hard to play. With computers we can build a better user interface for the violin, and then kids will be able to play it, everyone will be happy..." Lanier commented this lengthily but came to a brillant conclusion in the end: "Playing the violin is actually that mystery, it's the end of the line, it's not for any other reason." get the whole story: http://www.exhibitresearch.com/kevin/nyc/jaron/index.html Music is a complex work of art and it demands care and effort and most music-loving people like it exactly because of that. It does not need to be a Mahler-symphony or a Bach-partita - a simple structured song can be the same as worthwile listening to but it needs to be made with passion and care and inspiration and it will never be easy. Still I agree, that software made for complex work should be as usable as possible. But there is a difference between usability and cheap shortcuts to standard-sounds. best regs HZN

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 pete shorthose schrieb: Good musicians should have an interest in sound design. Remember that hundreds if not thousends of recordings are released every given day so the air is very thin for those, that want to be heared. So I guess, musicians, that are not only gifted composers and talented players but take care also for a very individual, new, original sound, have a better chance to prevail... And listeners, that spend their valuable time listening let alone spend money on buying records, are quite picky as well. At least I am as a listener: be it Antony and the Johnsons, PJ Harvey, Rose Kemp, Mogwai or Mastodon - all of those, I spend time and money this year are extremely careful when it comes to sound design. Why the rant? Because I was not clear enough I guess. Of course a great musician can play great music using a preset, but many preset-users do not. OK... ...but Can you name any combination of a virtual instrument and a controlling interface, that comes close to the endless opportunities a violin has to offer? Such an instrument would be the same as hard to play as a real violin and nobody would really see it as the same kind of thing like an average violin-preset that comes with a sampler. Such a "preset" I would consider a real instrument... This I agree - its the user, that matters. But some apps are advertised like this: "Click your hit now! No capabilities needed on your side!" It is the same as "Click your own homepage now! No programming knowledge needed!" Both tend strongly to produce the same level of quality. I really heared young guitarists lament, that they still have to tune their guitar by hand - and many never learn to tune their instruments by hearing. It makes them depend on "desperately needing" a tuner. Again: I do not condemn presets alltogether. I find them very useful as a starting point to work with a complex instrument. They are a essential part of the documentation for any virtual instrument or fx-processor. But any *specific* preset is NOT needed to make music with a software. And if one plays in a band and uses virtual synths, what will he/she do, if his/her bandmates say: "this bass-sound is quite OK but it should be more brilliant and get mot punch over time" Will he/she switch presets until hopefully the right sound is found? I would prefer to work with a musician, that has enough love for his/her sound to know how to work with filters and envelopes. As said before: there should be presets, we need them indeed to make the software more usable. I never found a ready to run preset for CLAM so I do not use it, it is more or less the same with PD and Csound. A software should offer some sounds out of the box and opening a file from usr/share/appname/demos/ (as with ams) should be enough to get some noise. These presets do not need to be particular useful in a music production but they should demonstrate the capabilies of the software to easily enable the user to build his/her own custom, perfect sound with as much ease as possible. best regards HZN

On Sun, Sep 06, 2009 at 08:28:36AM -0400, drew Roberts wrote: I'm late to this party, but figured why not throw my US$0.02 as well. In the last 4 months or so, I have more or less abandoned my only partially-successful attempts to be any kind of sound designer or synthesist, and have instead gone "back to basics", studying theory and technique, using "classic" sounds and patches. And, incidentally, getting lots of work doing that too. So, basically, I'm relying on the old workhorses like Rhodes, Clavinet (thanks Fons for the auto-wah!), Hammond B3, and that fantastic PMI Steinway piano for LinuxSampler (thanks Julien for the tip!). I did a gig Tuesday night where I played the (real, not synthesized) B3 almost all night. It's a fascinating and deep instrument, totally analog, and I'm finding I'm only beginning to discover its possibilities. Last night I worked as a side-man and played Rhodes and Clav most of the night, occasionally firing up AZR-3 on a couple tunes and a Vox Continental soundfont for a Fela-like Afrobeat song (haven't tried Connie yet, but will). The Steinway piano Gigasample is also very deep and there are lots of subtleties I'm learning for the first time to hear, let alone how to actually control and use (having only in the last few months started to take piano lessons). So, in short, not everyone is a synthesist or a sound designer. I'm very glad that those who are good at it publish and share (or sell, in the case of Gigasamples) their patches for others to use. Presets-- and databases of patches, samples, and instruments-- are essential for those of us who are just playing instruments rather than designing them. -ken

Grammostola Rosea wrote: I don't think so, at least I never saw it before. It indeed looks cool. Both apps compiled like a charm here (arch linux), that's a good sign :-) I only oped both apps very beiefly, so I'm must play with them later, but what leads you to believe they are "good for live"? My first impression is that they seem to be rather a traditional daw and sequencer (well the sequencer not so much traditional)... Thanks for mentioning these apps! -- Atte http://atte.dk http://modlys.dk http://virb.com/atte

hollunder(a)gmx.at wrote: All fine, but that doesn't have to mean the project is dead. I only tried the sequencer and that seems to work fine. Man this looks like a promising (revolutionary) project, at first sight at least...!! \r

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009, Grammostola Rosea wrote: [snip, regarding non-sequencer and non-daw...] I've been following these programs for a while... Mr. Liles appeared to be trying to program *both* at the same time. More recently, he started giving priority to non-daw development. His latest non-daw commit is Jan '09. His latest non-sequencer commit is Nov '08. AFAIK, there don't seem to be a lot of people using or developing it... and sometimes people's lives get in the way (esp. if they think nobody's benefitting). :-) Liles has been known to incorperate patches from others, and respond to peoples issues. Code is maintained in Git, and he seems to embrace a bazaar-like development ethic. I doubt if Liles considers these projects dead. HTH, Gabriel

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009, Grammostola Rosea wrote: I mentioned non-sequencer at one point. :-) -gabriel