IDM Mailing Archive

okay, you're just asking for it.

quoted 6 lines I am a hipocrite because I use sequencing all the time, but I try like

> I am a hipocrite because I use sequencing all the time, but I try like > the rest (unsuccessfully) to make it more natural by introducing errors > (humainization) but it just isn't the same as natural rythym > ideosyncracies because nature isn't random, but chaotic in an > emotionally relevant way... computers can only be semi-random and have > no emotion at all.....

that you prefer a "natural" rhythm (such as that which can be attained by banging on an actual "drum") is your opinion entirely & i won't discuss that since there's no point. in fact, there are times when i certainly prefer a live drummer & others when i absolutely love the machine sound. the question "which is better?" has no answer, or even relevance. it entirely depends on your preference & no empirical fact can ever be used to support either side. so something like "nature isn't random, but chaotic in an emotionally relevant way" might mean something poetic on its own, but as an argument against machine beats, it holds no water whatsoever. in fact, & this is why i bother tackling the point... i really think it one of the shoddiest excuse for argument when people start throwing the word "emotion" around gratuitously. "emotion" is a vague term which can be used to justify pretty much any position. computers have no emotions? then does the snare drum have emotion? no, you'll say, but it's "chaotic in an emotionally relevant way". yet i can make a beat with fruity loops that is emotionally relevant to me, so emotions actually play no part in the problem or the solution. the problem is simply that machine beats sound too dry for some (& extremely enjoyable to others), which is a constatation relevant only to psychologists & semiologists who desire to study the phenomenon of sound preference. now, as for ways to make machine sounds more "chaotic", there are a number of approaches which one can take. one thing i've learned is that it's useful to think metaphorically in these cases. for instance, within fruity loops, there's an option where you can humanize your beats slightly by randomly assigning a given channel to another one, which is not chaos proper, but it gives the impression of chaos & actually doesn't sound random. also, for slightly off-beat rhythms (mimicking human sloppiness), there's nothing preventing you from touching up your samples & adding a few hundredths of seconds of silence before the actual drum sound (sure, this takes time, but what do you think richard devine does when he makes music? that he just pushes the "RICHIE DEVINE AUTOMATIC SOUND BUTTON" & then "record"?) there are also a number of dsp techniques which, while they don't strictly imitate human sloppiness, do help diversifying the beat which makes it more exciting to listen to. run audiomulch & use your granulator (ever so slightly, so it doesn't end up sounding like a mego record, though that can be interesting too) & you get an effect that is not plain randomness, & brings in what i would call "machine sloppiness", itself different from the aforementioned human sloppiness which makes live recordings so good (& sometimes so self-indulgent) but similar if you think of it metaphorically. a recent example of this can be found on track 5 of frank bretschneider's recent CD _curve_ (mille plateaux): the drum loop contains subtle variations in volume, giving it a surprisingly "mellowed down" feel where one would expect crispated bits. as a sidenote, this is a rather nice CD for those into minimal beats veering away from the good old house tricks. obviously, there's also the good old technique of just sampling a live drum beat & using it verbatim, but i'm sort of sick of that personally. apart from say amon tobin, whose CD _bricolage_ (ninja tune) remains an absolute classic in that respect, there are not many who do that sort of thing properly. i just think that the trick gets old quick when that's all there is to a song. the bottom line is that machine music requires more than special techniques; it also requires a different mode of listening. & thank god for it; if a computer were just the same as a live drum, what good would it be? ~ david --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org