IDM Mailing Archive

quoted 6 lines From: "Giles Ward" <gilesw@globalnet.co.uk>

>From: "Giles Ward" <gilesw@globalnet.co.uk> >Subject: Re: (idm) Cichlisuite (Come To Daddy) > >erm.. surely it'd be three-to-the-floor in 3/4 time? more to the point, >why do the rhythmic elements in supposedly innovative tracks have to use >the equivalent of kick drum, snare, hi-hats etc. ?

I like breaks but what I love is synthesised, single-hit percussion. And dedicated drum machines. I like it when artists like Bochum Welt say use electro sounds (clicks, booms and thuds) and use standard percussion as a reference point and then screw it up. I tend to find that a lot of IDM at the moment kind of goes to other extreme - using white noise and uber-distortion to kind of knock out the reference to more 'traditional' use of percussion and therefore I was disappointed by say stuff like _0161_ and the V/Vm comp. And you *can* be innovative using traditional sounds. I like crazy drum machine programming - I often like to program standard drum machine loops and then muck around with them, switch the hi-hat with the snare or pitch it all down or whatever. There are ways of being innovative without having to experiment for the sake of it just so you can pat yourself on the back for being marked as 'innovative'. Also, its not purely the rhythms that should mark a track as innovative - there are other elements too.

quoted 4 lines Given a sampler, why do

>Given a sampler, why do >99% of artists restrict themselves to imitating real world forms of >percussive instrumentation? It's like getting one of those expensive new >modelling synths and wanting a piano sound out of it.

It all depends on how you use that piano sound within the track though doesn't it? I can't wait for the day when someone writes some astounding IDM using a cheap GM module. || [CiM] || simonw@sol.ftp.com || -

On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Mark Kolmar wrote:

quoted 11 lines On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Simon Walley wrote:

> On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Simon Walley wrote: > > > I can't wait for the day when someone writes some astounding IDM using a > > cheap GM module. > > Check into the first half-dozen or so releases on Axis, esp. the ones > where Robert Hood was involved. OK, the tracks are not all like that, and > it might fall outside a given person's definition of IDM. But just the > same, plenty of the sounds could have come from a cheap GM box. It's not > the sounds that would draw you in, but the way they are used. >

Not a GM module precisely, but a Yamaha QY20, which is a combination sound source/sequencer which is about as big as a VHS video cassette. "Nighttime World" has sounds from the mighty QY on nearly every track.