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a feeling : no really new music can be recorded any more.
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stray
stray
2057 posts

Edited Aug 30, 2008, 03:07
Re: It's all in the machines
Aug 30, 2008, 02:33
Dog 3000 wrote:
The "means of production" has changed due to the tech, but I don't really think the "palette of sounds" the computer opens up is necessarily broader. And samplers don't really expand the palette at all, since it's just recycling pre-existing sounds.


Hmm.. I'm not sure how I feel about the "palette of sounds' not being broader tbh. I play with a lot of synths, I'm seriously into the Rapture wavetable like synth. Not wishing to get technical about its circuit path but its pretty flexible. I can think of a sound that I want in my head, then set about building it, then I get it. Now. Are the sounds I make in my head a result of what I know I can make, or more accurately, what I know I can do with the software easily. Or compositionally 'what do I need ?' What frequency range should it cover, its spatial content, it's emotional content. I need a BZZTshhhooo...hummmmMMMM then. Anyroad, from a purely technical standpoint, yes, the palette is a shitload broader. It is perfectly possible to create any sound you want now with reasonable equipment. I also dabble with Reaktor which allows you to build a synth from a virtual circuit board up. Mad little toy, I've built synths with that just for one track. The other thing is, its pretty much impossible now for people to identify how much of a composition is coming from a single track, or even how many synths. Its possible to build a pad on a single synth with four or more seperate voices and patterns extremely easily, each voice and pattern sounding and acting completely independantly, even in different time signatures.

However, what sounds can you think of ? Thats the limitation. Production, placement, mixing, thats a place where its a lot easier to discover new things, and to experiment. Likewise, composition too feels a lot er.. more free.

What you say about samplers... hmmm.. there was a serious move away from sampling a few years ago. Now its back with a vengeance in the form of 'field recordings'. Basically samples of urban settings etc. Processed to fuck though. Thats the thing samplers are less about playing back (recycling) a sound now than they've ever been. Its more about getting some raw ingrediant you can mutate into something else (cos you cant be arsed to dick about with a synth for a few hours). Also, sample players like Kontakt etc have taken virtual acoustic instruments to a different level. Garritans Stradivarius Violin and Cello are probably the best examples around now.

Anyway, I'm digressing. Yes, there is a sameness in experimental electronica, but its a really fucking odd sameness. There are the touchstones such as 'glitch', 'noise' ohh theres a 'field recording' oh theres a bit of jazz in that etc, etc. BUT every recording is wholly different (apart from those artists obviously ripping off Oval, Autechre etc, oh, and the Ableton Live junkies). Every electronica artist has a wholly individual working method, and the good ones change it every track. But, theres still an odd sameness. Fucked if I know how to explain it.

Good Examples here...
http://testtube.monocromatica.com/releases/tube136.htm
http://testtube.monocromatica.com/releases/tube121.htm
http://testtube.monocromatica.com/releases/tube133.htm 'Phragma' is some clever shit.
http://testtube.monocromatica.com/releases/tube123.htm
http://www.zymogen.net/releases/zym016/
http://www.zymogen.net/releases/zym017/
http://www.last.fm/music/Wouter+van+Veldhoven/four+simple+songs+for+five+dead+bumblebees
http://www.last.fm/music/noosign/Waiting+room - me, see, I've got that samey too.

not so freely available.
Phonophani - Oak or Rock. Espen Sommer Eide.
Kim Hiorthoy - My last day.
Skyphone - Avellaneda.

Just picked recent examples off the top of my head that are different enough from each other, but still er... samey.

Edit : And no the sameness isnt a result of computers or digital, puhleeze get a grip luddites and listen properly ;)
handofdave
handofdave
3515 posts

Re: a feeling : no really new music can be recorded any more.
Aug 30, 2008, 04:05
As long as there are ears that haven't heard it all, there is always new music.

And as long as there are new people, there will be new music.

To state that it's all been done speaks more of a lapse in imagination than anything. There is always potential for unique new sounds.

The evidence mostly does support you tho... there is indeed a great deal of borrowed style passing for independent music out there.
Margaret_Thatcher
Margaret_Thatcher
48 posts

Re: a feeling : no really new music can be recorded any more.
Aug 30, 2008, 04:21
Seek and ye shall find.
Lawrence
9547 posts

Edited Aug 30, 2008, 04:33
Re: a feeling : no really new music can be recorded any more.
Aug 30, 2008, 04:32
What the fuck does a contard like you know about music, Maggie? Oh, nevermind. It's probably this: http://www.conservativepunk.com -- of course I think it's all sell-out garbage, like you...
Lawrence
9547 posts

Re: It's all in the machines
Aug 30, 2008, 04:36
I hate how today's techno has become so predictable, especially when the beats fade out in the middle of the track. (Sorry, but that's getting rather cliche...)
laresident
laresident
861 posts

Re: a feeling : no really new music can be recorded any more.
Aug 30, 2008, 07:14
Now, now, Maggie made her points elsewhere without directly having a go at anyone. (I think) I read them and may not go for them, that's my choice. Nevertheless, as with anybody, I'm curious as to what turns her on musically.
PMM
PMM
3155 posts

Re: a feeling : no really new music can be recorded any more.
Aug 30, 2008, 09:15
Progress is not only due to aesthetic considerations. There is also technological breakthroughs to take into account.

For example, until the piano was invented, nobody was writing piano concertos.

Who knows what the next few years will bring in terms of technology? What kind of music, for example, would a device harnessing brainwaves and converting them into sound, make?

There are 12 notes in the Western scale. 2 notes have 12 possible intervals. 3 notes have 144 possible combinations of interals. 4 notes have 1728 combinations. 5 notes have 20736. 6 notes - 248832. 7 notes - 2,985,984 8 notes - Almost 36 million different combinations. That vast majority of which would be pretty shite, but there you go.
stray
stray
2057 posts

Edited Aug 30, 2008, 12:51
Re: It's all in the machines
Aug 30, 2008, 12:39
But techno/house has always done that pretty much, breakdown, its the DJs friend. Mind you, I can't say for sure because what I used to describe as good Techno has these days seems to have been renamed 'bleep', so I cant actually say for sure what Techno is anymore. ;)

Modern house music though, christ, what happened, did people forget how to make it ? *grumpy old man mode*
Hunter T Wolfe
Hunter T Wolfe
1701 posts

Re: a feeling : no really new music can be recorded any more.
Aug 30, 2008, 14:10
A different angle on this is that even if the musical structure of a song isn't exactly revolutionary, the lyrics can still be saying something new, whether offering a uniquely personal perspective or commenting on something topical. Julian's recent songs are an excellent example- musically you could say they could have been recorded anytime in the last 40 years, but lyrically they definitely belong to the 21st Century.

I'm a big fan of The Song myself, although it seems that a lot of people here aren't particularly; preferring 'soundscapes' and wotnot, and that many prefer instrumental music or just blank out the words on the grounds that most rock n' rollers don't know what they're talking about and so should shut up/be ignored.

But for me a new song is worthwhile and new and worth hearing and even pushing things forward if it says something new, or even says something old in a new way, or has a particularly witty, pleasing or thought-provoking turn of phrase. For me a song is 50% music and 50% lyrics, and if it's well-written, but not hackneyed, then it's valid.

Folk music has survived for hundreds of years on the same basic tunes and just lyrics being updated and given a new twist; to a lesser extent, and over a shorter period of time, so has reggae, with set rhythms being recycled beneath new words.

Personally I think that more people are listening to, and getting deeply involved with, a wider range of music than ever before. But lyrics seem to have really been devalued. There are exceptions that prove there's a demand for new songs with something to say, though: Alex Turner of The Arctic Monkeys is pretty second-rate in my opinion, but it's encouraging that people have latched onto him as a lyricist and storyteller, because it shows they crave that element. Likewise the surge in mainstream popularity for the great Leonard Cohen. And of course rap music has always emphasised lyrical content, although depressingly it's the lazier writers who seem to gain the most popularity these days, while some dazzling lyricists with new things to say about contemporary life remain underground.
Beautiful Day
Beautiful Day
779 posts

Edited Aug 30, 2008, 14:41
Re: a feeling : no really new music can be recorded any more.
Aug 30, 2008, 14:38
laresident wrote:
Nevertheless, as with anybody, I'm curious as to what turns her on musically.


I remember reading somewhere Telstar by the Tornados was one of her favourite pieces of music
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