Sequencers C or D/

Nor can i and nor can i see how the tools can be responsible for repetitive beats and bad production. Anyone can do the same thing with a guitar...

Look at it this way: every instrument and every musical performance is constrained in some way(s). When we think of a "free" music--free jazz, for example--there are still limitations, mainly of a timbral nature. No matter how much Albert Ayler abandons conventional rhythm, melody, etc., he's still going to sound like a tenor saxophone player.

With electronic music based on sequencers, etc., the limitations have more to do with rhythm, but the range of tone colors that electronic music can achieve is much, much greater than that of a traditional acoustic instrument, no matter how "free" (in the traditional sense) it may be being played.

Clarke - not really. At the end of the day it still sounds like a fucking synth. (Maybe something to do with overtones, I don't know). Synth sounds date records faster than they're released.

Sorry 'bout posting the same subject matter twice...... Any way the problem I find with this technology is that it's too easy to doodle, and not get anything done I have about 10 half finished songs on my hard disk....So perhaps they give musicians abit too much freedom and maybe a few more limitations would do me some good...

Discipline must come from within as well, you can't expect the machines to do it for you.

Self discipline, I wish! but I accept that you're probably right also having some idea or goal when you're making music can help methinks...better get back to Logic I s'pose......

[repeat thread posting deleted: quis custodiet ipsos custodes, eh?]

[or shd that be custardes hoho chiz chiz]

[sorry richard it's not you it's been a silly week]

Mark, I object to this censorship of --

Oh, that's not what I meant to say. Actually I've just finished a recording project in which, for the first time in about 12 years, I didn't use any MIDI or sequencing. Instead me and Emi Necozawa, the artist I was co-writing with and producing, just heaped a pile of primitive wooden instruments on the floor and picked them up and made sounds with them. Then I took the good bits and cut and pasted them around directly on a hard disk recorder. Or I took some optigan samples from the internet (from the Optiganally Yours site) and chopped them up in SoundEdit 16. It was fun. The results are kind of handmade, but I really think handmade is the way to go. I hate shiny shiny synthy music with boring quantised beats. I'd rather hear someone beating out of time on a dustbin lid, frankly.

Hey Momus not to get too geeky....but have you used stuff like Acid Pro and other loop construction software as an alternative to midi sequencing? I personally find them abit limiting, but I luv your idea of just recording shit loads of stuff and cutting it up :-)

Haven't seen AcidPro, but normally I leaven my MIDI with lots of sample loops from an Akai S2800.

But these little hard disk recorders, confound it, they're getting smarter all the time. They can now do all on their own what you used to need a computer and a sampler and an effects unit and a mixer to do.

Momus - what about rhythms that are quantised to be weird?

I know what you mean about hard disk recorders, quite amazing really. All I use these days is software really, top combo in my opinion is Logic and the EXS24 softsampler combined with judicious use of Recycle = messed up loops and much fun. I agree with Tim about quantization of rythms you can get some really interesting results by applying entirely inappropriate templates to say a 2step or house loop....

I actually planned to rip off Scratch Pet Land, my favourite current groop, on this latest project. But, aside from using some of the same instruments as them (jaw's harps, kalimbas) I ended up making something that sounds completely different. I just can't wean myself off song structure, you see. So that limits how much I can generally cut up the tracks (SPL really chop things up radically, but they're not making songs, just endless experiments).

I tend to use sequencers as a way of composing melodies rather than for rhythm loops. I like being able to work very closely on composition onscreen. I like my sequencers ultra-simple. I use EZVision. It's a braindead sequencer for children, so old it freezes any computer made since about 1995. I've had to buy several antique Mac LEs to run it. But it allows me not to think about sequencing, and to concentrate on composing. Then I can do the formalist editing stuff in separate audio programs like SoundEdit 16. (Again, not really a pro music program, but one I know my way around.)

I have a deep fear of the 'complete software package'. I hate anything which requires OMS, for example, or anything with a tiresome and elaborate copy protection system, or anything which can log onto the internet and look for updates. I like software that knows its station; humble, cheap and useable.

Hey Momus, that's not fair. I've been to the Optigan/Optiganally Yours website and ripped off Optigan noises to sample.

You've never even heard my stuff and you're stealing my ideas...

*humph*

(noting, of course, that Momus will probably actually do something constructive with the damn idea, and I probably never will)

Personally sequencers are no more c or d than guitars or drums or anything else. It's just a tool and I think the secret is that you don't have to just use a sequencer all the time. Anyway i rate Acid Pro2 especially when you get it break by stretching a sample oddly. Can't stand Cubase I hate apps that eat CPU power, ie every Cubase plug-in. I hate Reactor as well. I think most free ware and shareware stuff is just as good and like Momus says it knows its place.