IDM Mailing Archive

quoted 3 lines And hey, Brian Flanagan, how sad can you get? People discuss electronic

> And hey, Brian Flanagan, how sad can you get? People discuss electronic > musical instruments, sample cutting up techniques and so on on this > list, and this is just as important to making good music.

###SELF DEFENCE MODE ENGAGED### #identify...target.....# good music must be in key yes??? no stray notes or bizarre ornamentation??

quoted 2 lines I certainly

> I certainly > appreciate knowing whether a CD will have out of tune samples

hehehe....how utterly utterly snobbish....you ARE joe satriani!!!!!...one hand typing must be your forte as your other must be continually stroking your chin... so, for example "vodka" (a VERY out of tune track) by mike and rich is a bad track???...makes me laugh my ass off and scares me to death at the same time.....I'd class that as making it a good piece of music.. let's list a few more "skippable tracks" shall we? yes?? no??? ah why not... "nlogax" - boards of canada "aquabahn" - drexciya "trapped" - hellinterface - probably the best example I can think of @ present almost everything by ectomorph well, you've heard it now.....all reviews on IDM must now have notes on sample tuning... is this variable by degrees???....how out of tune is a musician allowed to be in your impeccably trained ears?? I thought a tune was either good, bad or average, obviously I neglected this factor... I must now burn all my I-F 12"s....as they seem to be not 100% in key.. I myself thought that what makes music good is... 1.attitude 2.feeling 3.soul I can just see it now....a dingy practice room in soho circa '77 john lydon : "SID YOU TWAT!!...NO!! I WILL NOT CONTINUE WITH THIS RENDITION OF GOD SAVE THE QUEEN IF YOU CONTINUE TO CLASH SO INHARMONICALLY WITH MY VOCAL TONES!" sid v.:"Shiiiit....sorry mate, I'm still fucked from last nights gig...hang on..where's my bass technician????"

quoted 1 line than much of the uninformative crap we usually read in CD reviews

> than much of the uninformative crap we usually read in CD reviews

as I say....good or bad is obviously not good enough for you...

quoted 1 line Anal? I don't think so. Perhaps you think so because you're tone deaf,

> Anal? I don't think so. Perhaps you think so because you're tone deaf,

so...basically, you mean"i can listen to music better than you??".

quoted 2 lines in which case it's like a colour blind person going "For god's sake,

> in which case it's like a colour blind person going "For god's sake, > stop all this anal babbling about red and green, who cares?"

terrible analogy.... we are all capable of listening to the music we love on this list, so obviously you DO think you can "listen" to music better than me.... Yeah, finished, I bet you're not....... ;) out of tune, out of touch, well in line.... Bri

I totally agree with Che about bass tuning - even the totally great Amon Tobin has absolutely horribly out of tune bass sometimes. What's more, sometimes a session musician will be brought in and will tune to the (out of tune) bass, and then end up on the final product being out of tune themselves - e.g. the flute part in Saint Etienne's "Mario's Cafe" (1st track on "So Tough") which drives not only me and my brother but a lot of other people utterly crazy because it's so pronouncedly flat. I noticed recently (I think...) that it's actually fairly in tune with the bass part - it's just that the keyboards and stuff are sharp, so when it's on radio or smaller speakers you don't hear the bass very much. I think it's not so much the flute player's fault as something in production like I described above. And hey, Brian Flanagan, how sad can you get? People discuss electronic musical instruments, sample cutting up techniques and so on on this list, and this is just as important to making good music. I certainly appreciate knowing whether a CD will have out of tune samples - rather than much of the uninformative crap we usually read in CD reviews, this tells me something about the music, and a thread about it seems completely appropriate to me. Anal? I don't think so. Perhaps you think so because you're tone deaf, in which case it's like a colour blind person going "For god's sake, stop all this anal babbling about red and green, who cares?" Yeah, finished, Peter. -- Peter Hollo raven@fourplay.com.au http://www.fourplay.com.au/me.html FourPlay - Eclectic Electric String Quartet http://www.fourplay.com.au "Of course, dance music can be a music where you lie on your back and your brain cells dance" -Michael Karoli of Can, quoted in Wire mag.

About this out-of-tune sample busy-ness: I've been putting together my first mix cd for the past month or so and have been spending *ages* pitch-shifting various tracks & various *sections* of tracks in Sound Forge & on my SP-808 simply so that, in the final mixdown, everything flows together nicely. I've found some interesting things out in the process: take, for example, a "fucking lush" track like Massive Attack's "Unfinished Sympathy." If any track could be expected to be completely in tune to the naked/casually listening ear, it would be this one -- but upon trying to mix it with another track in perfectly identical key, strange things happen -- discordances between the bassline, strings & piano in the track suddenly become excruciatingly evident. I've also been mastering & remixing tracks for a friend's band; local indie guitar-pop. The one track that the band wants to be its single has been a nightmare for me: during one phase of the song, the vocals are so out of key that no amount of fiddling in Cubase will help it. As the vox are on key for the other 2/3 of the song, this vivid difference presents quite a problem -- especially since vocal retakes are circumstantially out of the question. In short: worrying about whether a track or a mix is in tune is essentially not about being anal-compulsive, but rather about very practical questions such as: is it mixable? Will people hear this and feel their stomachs turn? I'm sure that even the most tone-deaf out there have had at least one bad experience with, for example, a child's first performance at a violin recital or simply hearing someone singing something so out-of-tune that they want to strangle that person. Have we become so accustomed to the monotone rantings of vocoded vox & MCs that it's now a matter of total indifference whether music, let alone vocals (which don't really belong in IDM, at least until Dot releases their 'Knights Who Sing Dot' comp. -- so, apologies to Teep) are on key? There's experimental unintended dissonance and then there's simple unintended dissonance, read bad musicianship: I think we all know the difference between these two things. It's enchanting if Sid Vicious, Edith Piaf or Richard James sings off-key, but nauseating if Jose Carreras or Dave Gahan does. It's all about context. One last question: Is it all relevant to IDM? Well, seeing as how this 'genre' essentially mixes classical and avant-garde motifs together, I would think that these questions/discussions do have a place here. I get confused when the purists get rowdy about the list's function. Is this list supposed to be dedicated *exclusively* to reviews, notices of shows, and auction/sale mentions, or is it not also supposed to be used as a forum for the vast variety of issues relevant to abstract electronic dance music? my 2 pesos sr -- sd

<LONG RANT WARNING> (Irene, enjoy!) Brian Flanagan wrote: <A whole lot of patronising misinterpretations and total rubbish not worth repeating snipped> Man, you have seriously not read a word of this discussion have you? Boards of Canada were in fact one of those groups suggested as using detuning in a very cool way. Mike & Rich too is a joke band and I'm sure the out-of-tunedness is deliberate, even though I don't listen to it much... For the record, the bit near the end of nlogax by BoC isn't out of tune at all, it's just weird harmonies over the bassline and stuff, and is exquisitely beautiful. And all the "out of tune" bits in Selected Ambient Works Vol II are clearly there for a purpose and make the tracks in question particularly effective. On the other hand, "Easy Muffin", track 2 from Bricolage by Amon Tobin, 10would be one of my favourite tracks if it weren't for the horn sample that comes in about 46 seconds into the track and is considerably flatter than the rest of the track. NO WAY was this meant to be like that for the effect - and I just can't listen to it without discomfort. Similarly there's an early track on "Dead Cities" by FSOL which has a synth line that's slightly out of tune with its surroundings and totally destroys the point of its being there. Samples are put there for a musical purpose, and if that purpose does not involve detuned-ness, then being out of tune may be a very big draw-back to a lot of people.

quoted 2 lines than much of the uninformative crap we usually read in CD reviews

> > than much of the uninformative crap we usually read in CD reviews > as I say....good or bad is obviously not good enough for you...

Well if you mean "The new CD by x is really good" should make me go and get it, that's just crap. A review should tell me something about how the CD sounds and whether it might be worth my listening to it in a shop or gambling on mail ordering it. [I suspect that's not what you meant; if so, I'm sorry.]

quoted 5 lines in which case it's like a colour blind person going "For god's sake,

> > in which case it's like a colour blind person going "For god's sake, > > stop all this anal babbling about red and green, who cares?" > terrible analogy.... we are all capable of listening to the music we > love on this list, so obviously you DO think you can "listen" to music > better than me....

I disagree, that's not what I was saying at all. I am suggesting that just because you don't care about it doesn't give you the right to deride those who do, or tell us we're doing something wrong. Basically, it's not what you're saying that matters to me - I don't care whether _you_ care about accidental out-of-tune music - but that you can't help being extremely offensive to those who do care. You say you're "well in line"... well I think you're way _out_ of line for telling those of us for whom sloppy out of tune sampling (ie where it's not MEANT to be there stylistically) is important are "sad" (in your first post) and now "utterly utterly snobbish". Go on Brian, tell me I'm a snob because I like classical music too. Tell me I'm a loser because I've studied music theory. You've already told me I like lame crap like Joe Satriani (what kind of stupid analogy is THAT?)... Maybe I don't like the Sex Pistols too hey? (try again) And I was saying "I can listen to music better than you" was I? I don't think so! It was me in "###SELF DEFENSE MODE###" but whilst you go into self defense mode when I reply to you, you clearly don't recognise that I might want to defend myself too. As I said above, I don't think I can listen to music better than you at all, but there's a very large cross-section of IDM listeners for whom being in tune matters (in those cases that I have outlined) and you've just told us we're sad snobs who are, I presume, LISTENING TO MUSIC FOR THE WRONG THINGS. Thanks for letting me know the right criteria for music listening Brian. Now I know I guess. Peter. P.S. Maybe not my last words on the matter, but I don't think this discussion is off-topic myself. I'll try and not be baited next time, or take it off-list! -- Peter Hollo raven@fourplay.com.au http://www.fourplay.com.au/me.html FourPlay - Eclectic Electric String Quartet http://www.fourplay.com.au "Of course, dance music can be a music where you lie on your back and your brain cells dance" -Michael Karoli of Can, quoted in Wire mag.