in regards to this whole kyma / max / autechre / r. devine etc etc...
argument, i think it comes down to the issue of the validity or the
'quality' of the content.
a good bunch of my friends are graphic designers (i, however, can't draw
worth a shit...) and constantly struggle with the 'gee wow' appeal of
something vs. the actual material being presented. it seems at first,
when you land your graphic design job, you want to smother everything
with photoshop filters, have really 'cool' fucked up fonts, and make
everything look 'artsy.' (and this is AFTER they've been through four or
five years of college / art school) however, what they soon realize is
that it's MUCH harder to design a nice layout for a book cover, or a
preface with the idea that your job is to convey information. have you
noticed how many magazines have relatively decent articles, but you
can't read them because the entire page has been filtered, tweaked,
rotated, and smeared? i hate that! you can't read a damn thing. i
used to get a kick out of that sort of stuff. my friend josh finally
convinced me that 'less is more.' and for the most part, it's true.
he'll spend endless hours (or days) laying out a single page (print, not
web) so that the reader can 'access' whatever information is being
presented, in a logical and meaningful way. no distractions. no
'noise.' that's design. all the other stuff is just piling on noise.
and if that's the purpose / point of a book or a webpage, that's
perfectly acceptable. if you're displaying information about a group /
band, do you really need all this shit moving around on the page? does
it 'enhance' your reading pleasure? do you gain more insight about the
group? i don't.
so what does this have to do with music? well, with electronic music in
particular, one is tempted to do the exact same thing. sure, programs
like kyma, max / msp, supercollider, reaktor, or whatever your favorite
program is... are all programs which allow a great deal of 'freedom.'
but it's very tempting to pile on filtering algorithms, time stretch
(for the sake of time stretching), bit reduce, granulate, and mangle
your sound to death. yeah, it's pretty neat at first. and it actually
sounds pretty neat. but what are you trying to convey? and maybe this
is why IDM is quite emotionless. (at least i think it is. and that's
actually one of the reasons i enjoy it...) you're listening to a
concept. a process. a method. a lot of time sitting in front of a
computer and trying to make something sound 'musical' but not in the
traditional sense. (you can interpret that however you'd like...) the
end result is a 'gee wow' kinda reaction. and i buy straight into
this. and i'm trying my best to kick that habit. and to not repeat the
same thing myself. yes, i love the sound of digital artifacts. but at
some point, i have to ask myself what i'm listening to. what is the
content? what am i getting out of this 'music?' certainly not
emotion. at least in my case. i suppose i like the 'logic' of the
music. i like figuring things out. i like to program. i like
methods. maybe that's my attraction to IDM. but it's getting old. the
logic is the same. the methods are similar. there's no more
'challenge.' just layers and layers of shit on top of shit. i've
programmed lots of shit. and luckily i realize that. my nifty neato
autechre patch for drum machines. it's neat. it makes a 'gee wow' type
of sound. you could probably make an entire album with this one patch.
and that's really pathetic. (i'm NOT saying this is what autechre does.
they definitely do they're on thing. good or bad, they came up with a
pretty original concept... or at least found the software to do it with
first outside of academics.) so i'm gonna go think about all this. i'm
glad this topic came up. because this is what's been stopping me from
recording and distributing anything i make. when my friends say 'hey,
you should send that in. it sounds just as good as the stuff you listen
to.' that needs to stop. and i need to stop paying 17 bucks for 40
minutes of skipping samples and background noise. then again, i might
change my mind about all this come tomorrow.
bonus stuff.
the tweaky beat patch for SuperCollider. run a drum machine through
your soundcard. (the pattern is irrelevant. a simple 4/4 bass snare
combo will do just fine) start moving the mouse around. and if you
want that 'gee wow' effect, move the mouse in the lower right hand
corner of the screen and quickly move it back to the upper left hand
corner. have a blast. and yeah, it's a very simple patch. (works for
lame synth melodies as well...)
quoted 22 lines (> (
> {
> var input, output;
>
> w = GUIWindow.new("panel", Rect.newBy(7, 41, 1135, 816))
> .backColor_(rgb(129,84,209));
> StringView.new( w, Rect.newBy(433, 348, 235, 58), "M o u s e X - Y S u r f a c e");
>
> input = AudioIn.ar([1,2]);
>
> output = CombA.ar(
> in: input,
> maxdelaytime: 0.05,
> delaytime: MouseX.kr(0.0, 0.05, 'linear'),
> decaytime: LFSaw.kr((MouseY.kr(10, 2000, 'linear'))));
>
> output
>
> }.play;
> w.close;
> )
>
cheers,
christian