How good can it be if it's "fake"?

What is 'natural sound' anyway? The instruments and production of now are just as natural as Bach's well-tempered clavier, Miles Davis' trumpet, Jimmy Page's guitar, Kraftwerk's synths, but simply more diverse and in my opinion exciting than those aforementioned. Music is heading towards the light, and this is entirely because of its vastly increased tonal possibilities, and the people open-minded enough to put them into practise.

well-tempering is not a natural system of tuning -- it's a clever mathematical compromise to allow modulation (which is in a way an artefact of keyboard layout)

instrument derives from instruere, to instruct -- so you could say that any instrument contains its own implied systems of learning as a similar artefact)

i would not worry about this as a distinction

well, i haven't really heard much Radiohead. I pretty much only know The Bends and the first one. and at the time, i felt like The Bends' keyboards were cheap - it seemed like the fill bucket in a paint application. Woosh, and there's the meat of the song. that's just how i felt.

i dunno, i do think it's an important distinction. i agree that "natural" and "technological" may simply be different points on the same scale, but I believe it's a very different thing to pluck a series of notes on a guitar than to hold down four keys and birth a song.

xpost - yeah, too harsh, but it rubs me up the wrong way.

wtf, get thee to a record store

p.s. I don't go on about radiohead very much, and it is almost to my annoyance that they're so good, because they're also extremely popular. they simply coast above any (of my) criticism, however, and they've been amazing throughout their career (first album excepted, not a big fan of The Bends either). anyone who denies this is a contrarian fuckard. naaaah. ;-)

oh, and joe, it's worth it though, isn't it?

as opposed to technological.

What's interesting is how novel acoustic sounds can come over when you've been listening to electronically amplified music for so long. At a noise festival I attended recently, a band came on and played acoustic "noise" improv, bowing cymbals and so on, and it sounded absolutely fantastic after all the analog synth scree. There is a complexity and unpredictability to nature that can be a lot of fun.

I agree, Mark - I've been listening to so many keyboards lately that the other day, I flipped at the sound of an acoustic guitar.

this is exactly what all electronic sounds that i've heard radiohead use sound like. it's nothing to do with electronic sounds themselves, it's to do with the fact that radiohead are rather ham-fisted with them.

i'm still not sure exactly what distinction you're drawing. words like digital and electronic are even more nebulous - what do you mean here, the microphone a singer sings into? an electric guitar? the technology used to master & produce even the most barebones acoustic album you own? there's nothing superior about so-called 'real' instruments, though i would really hope you weren't arguing this in the first place.

i mean, maybe you did have a preference for certain sounds, and maybe this has changed, but you can't extrapolate any hard-and-fast rules out of individual tastes which are by definition permanently in flux.

personally i only like listening to 'real' instruments when i'm hungover.

xpost

and as for this famed distinction i'm trying to make, let me put it to you straight and simple. i write a lot of songs. a lot of songs i've written are chock full o' notes on a piano, notes that i sing or chords that i strum on a guitar. recently, a lot of stuff i've put together is very different - effects pedals, keyboard pads and computerized harmonies.

to me, that's a distinction. no i really am going to buy some vodka.

i think it's hard to come up with questions with hard and fast answers. sometimes taste is all we have, IMO.

=P

hyperbolize much? i mean it's not like anyone making music at the tail end of 2006 is seriously restricted by those concepts anyway unless it's by choice.

Can you tell us about some of the recordings in which you love the sound of Pro-Tools, Louis?

are two of my very favourite records of all time, and both freely admit to using pro-tools. they wouldn't be the same albums without it. of course, when something better and more versatile than pro-tools pops up (as i'm sure it already has), i'd fully endorse it as well.

i'm pretty sure there are others in my collection who've used pro-tools, but just aren't big enough to admit it.

i'd just like to reinforce the point i made earlier about 'possible sounds'. this is something i regard as extremely important, and the search for the best 'possible sound' is i think going to be the great musical revolution of the '00s, as we learn to blend conventional instruments with outright electronic experimentation.

I'll also say that the problem with Radiohead using electronics is that they still mix and master their records like a rock band, meaning that all that detail, texture and deliberate, analytical purpose is essentially just an aesthetic conceit rather than an ends in itself, because the edges get shaved off. I much prefer Ebo's "treated" instruments to Radiohead's replaced instruments.

i can't wait to get pro-tools. like, one day. what is it like $400?

yes, all the time

and i have to say, i went to Borders and found it, and the cover was so ugly, i really couldn't hold it for more than two minutes. i ended up getting that 2005 Throwing Muses album instead, which i was sure would be an infinitely more satisfying purchase for me. i do love it.

-- occasional mongrel (pool...), November 20th, 2006.

This is getting pretty trivial, isn't it? My prior argument stands, Pro Tools or no Pro Tools.

Yet Björk, unlike so many before her, doesn’t demonize the artificial and assign innocence to the natural. Instead, she keeps refining her more comfortably developed view, a vision that’s neither tormented by machines nor too squished-up by hippie dogma. She senses cutting-edge sophistication in trees and hears a lovably daft awkwardness in drum machines.
--SPIN, Oct. 1997

"For me, techno and nature is the same thing. It’s just a question of the future and the past. You take a log cabin in the mountains. Ten thousand years ago, monkey-humans would have thought, that’s fucking techno. Now in 1997 you see a log cabin and go, Oh, that’s nature. There is fear of techno because it’s the unknown. I think it is a very organic thing, like electricity."

To Björk, the charge that techno is inherently cold and soulless –- the typically rockist, typically American criticism formerly known as “disco sucks” –- is patently absurd. There is no soul in a guitar, she points out; someone has to play it soulfully.
--SPIN, Dec. 1997

all the modern things
like cars and such
have always existed
they've just been waiting in a mountain

for the right moment
listening to the irritating noises
of dinosaurs and people
dabbling outside

all the modern things
have always existed
they've just been waiting

to come out
and multiply
and take over

it's their turn now...

i think that's my new ish.

their problem isn't that it's "fake" but that it doesn't sound the same. If you're playing a synth-horn patch for it's wonderful synth-horniness, great, but if you think it replaces a real horn, sorry. Likewise, while many of these virtual synths emulate the processing structures and sounds of real analog synths, they often miss a few marks and generally don't quite sound as good. Feel free to use and enjoy them and even find ways to make them work for you, maybe you'll even convince everyone you're actually using an Arp or Moog, but it's not the same.

this thread is mostly pretty ridiculous.

A LOT of pop metal and pop punk producers/engineers.

Don't fold, Louis! Fight the haters!

The DX7 was already based on pre-existing sampled sounds though. I prefer a truly analog synth myself.

But at least they do still work, unlike those old vintage synths whose oscillators have usually gone rather sour by this time. I have a Korg Poly 61 from 1985 at home, however it has lost all sense of contact with the actual pitch of the keyboard, meaning it can only be used for siren-like sound-effects by now.

Pro-Tools was never a major constituent of my argument, just an example given within a sequence of representative sound-altering devices. The 'fuck the haters' bit was a reference to the albums I love which feature such a recording device, and the fact that there clearly are haters. Can we get back to the central thrust of the argument, now?

A LOT of pop metal and pop punk producers/engineers.

Really? Like guitar leads? Seems pointless to me. You can't pitch correct guitar chords as far as I know.

Say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

Wow, weird. Aside from those sort of synth pickups though, you'd be out of luck for chords, wouldn't you? And it still seems like it'd take much less time to tune the guitar properly than to go and pitch-correct everything after the fact.

-- Geir Hongro (geirhong@

No it wasn't! The DX7 creates sound through FM synthesis, IE audio-rate frequency modulation of digitally-generated sinewaves by other digitally-generatet sinewaves in various combinations. No samples involved whatsoever.

But at least they do still work, unlike those old vintage synths whose oscillators have usually gone rather sour by this time. I have a Korg Poly 61 from 1985 at home, however it has lost all sense of contact with the actual pitch of the keyboard, meaning it can only be used for siren-like sound-effects by now.

-- Geir Hongro (geirhong@on

Get the bloody thing fixed then! There are plenty of people who can fix analog synthesisers. My Fender/Rhodes Chroma predates the Poly 61 by a few years, and is a lot more complex, it's only playing 5 out of 8 voices at the moment, and has a bunch of other faults, I have it booked in @ a repair place for March next year. I don't think there's any analog synth out there that can't be fixed.

The DX7 was already based on pre-existing sampled sounds though. I prefer a truly analog synth myself.

The DX7 is a 6 operator FM synthesizer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_modulation_synthesis

6 completely digital oscillators beating against each other in various set-ups defined by a chosen algorhythm, as either audible "operators" or inaudible "modulators". (Think Oscilator vs. LFO, but the LFO can be an audible frequency, it's just affecting the "operator" as a control voltage).

FM synthesis is completely digital and has nothing to do with sampled sounds whatsover. If it ever sounds more "realistic" then analog synths when it comes to recreating certain acoustic sounds, that's credit due to programmers who could figure out how the fuck to get sounds like that out of such a relatively complicated style of programming.

Plenty of old vintage synths work, you just have to fix them. And for the record, the Korg Poly 61 is a digital synthesizer, who's oscilators are digital, no different then a DX-7. It's called a "hybrid" synth because it has analog filters, which can make it sound "fatter".

bernard snowy wins the cookie, though.

As well as being completely, pointlessly trivial, the program is monstrously bloated, so I'll only post an excerpt:

void MakeAcousticWAV()
{
    int[100000] leftChannel;
    int[100000] rightChannel;

    leftChannel[0] = 0;
    leftChannel[1] = 100;
    leftChannel[2] = 212;
(...)
    leftChannel[76854] = 15325;
(...)
    leftChannel[99999] = 0;

    rightChannel[0] = 0;
    rightChannel[1] = 91;
    rightChannel[2] = 203;
(...)
    rightChannel[16457] = 9123;
(...)
    rightChannel[99999] = 0;

    SaveAsWAVFile(&leftChannel, &rightChannel, "AcousticGuitar.wav");
}

The 200000 numbers, btw, were taken from a .wav file I had lying around. This was just for convenience, of course -- in principle, I could just have tweaked them manually until I had what I wanted. "Fake" or "real"? ;)

but when you play those synths with an acoustic guitar, wow! The chasm!

although it would take more than just an acoustic guitar to create a truly inescapable crevasse. perhaps a distorted piccolo as well?

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B0000019LV.01._SS400_SCLZZZZZZZ_V1115928925_.jpg

been told i should

also, there are the kinds of songs you make allowances for - i make allowances for a lot of pop songs because of their melodies or whatever (if i were to like the tune Stronger by Britney, which i don't, i'd have to make allowances for those ridiculous synths in it).

and then there are the kinds of songs that really NEED the synths, as in they wouldn't sound as good without them. i don't know if any song really NEEDS fake strings, though, when the real ones sound so good.

Yes, although did you hear the recent Jeff Mills album Blue Potential, recorded with an orchestra? The effect of hearing real strings in a Detroit techno arrangement is quite... unworldly.

There's the Tobias Thomas/Superpitcher Perfect Lovers mix that starts with two minutes sampled straight from Mahler's 4th symphony; which even though it reminds you of its sampled and artifical nature with its pops and crackles and subsequent looping, is still incredibly moving, and makes me want to say that the quality unique to synthetic strings is a kind of safety, or control, that you know they're not going to surge and swell and tear your heart out. But that gets dangerously close to the idea that electronic music is cold and unemotional, which is wrong wrong wrong.

i think everything synth is rather monotone - i love contrasting mediums. bjork does that a lot, organic combined with synthetic

i think it makes each medium more interesting.

if you situate classical strings in a groove at once synthetic and grounded, it could be amazing. I keep thinking of Bjork's Homogenic, a beautiful fusion of synth and earthiness

No no, I think synth strings are good! Safety/control (if my vague extemporising was even accurate) isn't necessarily a bad thing. And yes, juxtaposition can be good, but so can having agreement in all your themes/sounds/media.

WILLIAM ORBIT TO THREAD!

Yes, although did you hear the recent Jeff Mills album Blue Potential, recorded with an orchestra? The effect of hearing real strings in a Detroit techno arrangement is quite... unworldly.

i) i want to hear this like WOAH
ii) with the more melodic pieces of minimal house, i sometimes have these bizarre fantasies of hearing those melodies played as if they were baroque piano fantasias, with loads of ornamentation, played by a girl in a concert dress at the barbican or something

exactly... even if most of the piece is synthetic, i'd still prefer real strings

surely it depends what kind of music the piece is? i mean, if you're making a house or a techno record, or an r&b one, synth strings will mostly be preferable.

Just kidding (i think/hope).

and i guess you're somwhere in between - i am too, but probably a little further down the juxtaposition end of the scale. but yeah agreement throughout your media is a good way to go as well. it really depends, i s'pose

maybe this sounds loony but i think a 60 piece orchestra would be beautiful in a house song

i think it can be more edgy to challenge a medium with elements beyond its natural scope

i think it can be more edgy to challenge a medium with elements beyond its natural scope

yeah, but sometimes you just want the undiluted medium itself! take, i dunno, 'washing up' by tomas andersson. why would you ever want a big orchestra smacked over the top?

but that's not what i've been trying to do - all i'm doing is drawing a distinction. and there is one. i never said one medium was better, i never said it wasn't all about preference. it is. but it's still a worthwhile distinction to discuss.

i also don't think that preferring the sound of real strings to synthetic ones is setting them up against each other. it's just a preference. like you said, there are no hard and fast rules, only preferences. and i prefer the sound of real strings in most arenas - even house, for ex.

that is a very clear distinction. and i'm not setting one way of doing it up against the other. it's just a difference, an interesting one, and one that is open to a lot of variation.

i don't think i'm stuck in one genre of music because i like the sound of the organic mixed in with the sound of the electronic. you can make SO many different sorts of music out of that combination, not just bjork-like music.