Hello all,
What I keep seeing on these threads is a completely untenable, and quite
perplexing tendency to differentiate between "real" and "not real" sounds. The
former, having been produced by "musical instruments" or by a recording them
from the "real world". And the latter being that which is generated/modified by
some kind of logic engine. Since when is what goes on inside of a computer, the
kind that rests on your desk, or at the top of your spinal column for instance,
not "real". A computer being manipulated in such a fashion as to produce such
and such a sound is a very real event, in a very tangible sense. It is no less
"real" than banging two sticks together. This is really a very old and tired
metaphysical debate rearing it's head once again. The absence of realness or
thingness, or whatever you want to call it, just simply does not exist. On a
more practical tangent: If you like twiddling your knob, buy a knob controller.
Regards,
Christophe
P.S. What the fuck does Eno know about Africa.
Lukas Bergstrom wrote:
quoted 45 lines From: Lee Azzarello <roswell@antioch-college.edu>
> > From: Lee Azzarello <roswell@antioch-college.edu>
> > Subject: Re: (idm) Re: lets talk equip.
> >
> > >ajwells@ix.netcom.com wrote this on 3/8/00 1:32 PM
>
> > >removes the artist from the reality that sound emanates from THINGS
> > >vibrating, not numbers approximating waves... that physical quality of
> > >sound is often lost or changed in a computer environment...
> >
> > I don't understand. I mean, speaking of electronic music, there is
> > nothing that vibrates, or even moves inside analog _or_ digital
> > equipment.
> > I understand the necessity of
> > physical vibrations with non-electronic music (being a classical pianist
> > myself), I still haven't found a sampled piano that sounds anything like
> > the Steinway Grand in the hall I practice in.
>
> Actually...these two comments triggered some thoughts about psychoacoustics
> I've had. Bear with me. Every time you hear a sound, your brain instantly
> attempts to extract a variety of information from it: where is it, what is
> it, is it moving...the brain assumes that there will be some acoustical cues
> to help it along, and can recognize when the acoustical properties of a
> sound aren't "valid". Such sounds (like a perfect, repeating sine wave, for
> example) sound artificial. Real-world sounds tend to be messier and more
> complex. Check this article
> http://unisci.com/stories/20001/0306006.htm
> for an example of the kind of information people can extract from sounds,
> beyond location.
> Now I'm not suggested that every artist sculpt their sounds until they sound
> like something produced by a real object. ep7 has a bunch of sounds that
> have been folded in on themselves so many times that they've got some really
> engaging acoustical properties, but they don't by any stretch of the
> imagination sound real. I just wish more producers thought about acoustics,
> instead of just sampling and filtering mindlessly (like jungle producers
> looking for a natural sound, and then time-stretching their drum samples all
> to hell.)
>
> Final thought for the day: people should play more games with their
> speakers.
>
> Lukas
>
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