anig browl is quite right in my opinion, some stuff contains mistakes etc.,
but I also think there are some understandable reasons for that.
i'd like to make it clear that i don't think ALL glitches, pops etc. in idm
stuff are production or mastering mistakes of course, as some of it is
clearly intentional or at least half intentional (in the case of dsp
machines etc. especially).
but some of them are, and i think there are two main reasons for them to be
still on the final product:
1) sometimes it's just too much of a fucking hassle to fix them once the
stuff is bounced and/or mastered, and no way you are re-making a nice track
because of minor mistakes like that. what I mean is that sometimes it can
happen that you make a track and *know* it's in perfect form like that, it
just sounds right, and you want to capture it in that form, knowing that
you'd better not change anything or it might go back to being mediocre or
crap: what happens is you bounce it or make a final master, maybe at the
end of a long day, and then maybe also scrap all the original bits you used
in the first place (usually to maintain disk space etc.). you know those
little "mistakes" are there, but you just wanna capture the track or else
it will go, and you do it: it's more important to have the track in that
form than to worry about complete perfection. sometimes very horrible
things can happen, too, like losing samples, midi files and/or entire sound
patches, and you are left only with the bounce or master you did.
then, you discover (or re-discover) these glitches etc.in the master: what
can you do? re-make the track from the beginning just like that is mostly
out of the question: usually, it never sounds the same, even if it does
(subjectivity rules here). cleaning the master up with plugins etc. is
sometimes just impossible without affecting the way it sounds: yeah,
plugins and applications are better and better, but nothing makes miracles,
and if you like the track you ain't gonna touch it too much, or you will
affect the way it sounds.
This is where 2) comes in :-)
2) the poetics of idm are partly based on what many would call an
"experimental" approach to music, and this is often expressed as an
interest in random sound generation and also in the technical aspects of
making music. this makes it viable to make music actually *entirely made*
of glitches and pops, or drowned in heavy distortion. my opinion is that
this also allows for such production and mixing mistakes to be left there,
because in a sense they can be "justified" in some way, even if they were
not intentional. what I mean is that in this genre it is possible to "get
away" with such mishaps *after* they happen, citing "random aspects" and
"experimentation" as a reason behind this. please read carefully before
flaming: ***I don't think this is wrong***, ok? it is in fact one of the
beautiful aspects of this music, and it is very peculiar to the genre. the
"random" fans will revel in that all the time :-), while others might be
more, ahem, moderate, but the fact is that even if these production
mistakes are there, they still pertain to the genre. what I don't subscribe
to is the idea that they are always intentional, as some people maintained
during this discussion, and that this is some sort of "creative production
authority" the music makers have and will exploit as they want. mistakes
happen and sometimes it is hard or impossible to fix them without ruining
the track, and what is good about idm is that this does not affect the
overall result too much, as this kind of "weird sounds" are part of the genre.
consider this for a sec: labels *will* supervise what they release, always,
and it's usually them who have the stuff mastered etc. at the end.
detractors of these "mistakes" during the discussion, instead, hinted that
it is sad on the artists' part to chuck badly produced stuff at us. well,
no way an artist can decide that on his/her own... if the label thinks it
sounds bad, either they will not publish it or they will spend more than
the already quite high amounts they spend for mastering and cleanup in
order to make it sound better. no way they take what the artist sends them
and press it straight away, just because "he's the artist" (I don't think
even Aphex enjoys this status). so, if we in idm get records that contain
these "mistakes", it is because of 2) above, which I think in idm generates
a process of negotiation between artist and label people that is way more
open to discussion than in other genres. mistakes can be justified in many
ways after they have been made, and it still is part of the genre.
sometimes the people who make these "final" decisions are also just fucking
stoned while they do it :-), and to them the record sounds good that way,
and hey that is no reason for criticism i think, it's life in the real world.
i don;t know whether I have made myself clear, it can all sound a bit
confusing, and english is not my mother tongue, but i think it explains why
you get these strange and sometimes irritating things on the records. you
would never get them in Britney Spears or in U2, and you would never get
them in folk music etc., because it's clearly not part of the genre. but
some of them ARE unintentional and undesired, and not part of an
intentional creative process: they just "stay" because of the
practicalities of music making and music publishing in this genre. we are
lucky that in idm we can do it without the product being refused, that's
what I think is great about this genre :-)
and of course, idm is not a genre, it's just a mailing list (this is my
safety extinguisher, thanks :-)
nd
(the music makers on the list might want to support or counter the above,
and I'd be interested in their opinions)
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