Wow, this place REALLY doesn't get the traffic it used to anymore...

[wwwjd]

 

Originally Posted by XorAxAx

I used to post here, but became disillusioned with electronic music for a number of reasons: a mismatch of talent, the toy-like quality of today's gear, the non-immediacy of programming/sequencing, the lack of emphasis on performable music, the plague of DJs, etc. There are more rewarding hobbies out there.

 

Buy, I hear ya. I used to compete with the best of them talentwise.... now any idiot with a laptop can "make beatz" and they are generic and suck and the world eats it up. I download free ACID once, dragged some presets onto track, saved and sent to friends.... they LOVED it! Thought it was great. I did nothing than a lucky monkey could have done. ZERO talent utilized. So, I'm dissillusioned as well... for a lil while. But, I'm stocking up on positive attitude, dumping MIDI and getting back to writting. I think it can be fun again.

[wesg]

I took up organ playing fairly recently, and I really love it. I love how between two organs I only have one transistor, and no chips. No programming other than the switches and drawbars.

It really IS freeing.

My day job is programming, I am a pretty good programmer. I bet xor ax,ax is too, based on his nick. Either that or he's a real zero, LOL. Anyhow. I have to tell you, I get a lot of ideas for writing software to do cool things with my gear, coming up with complex sequences, blah blah blah de blah blah. And I get bummed out, because coding that stuff just isn't any fun any more. I have an Akai MPC loop-making doodad thingamabob, haven't even learned how to use it, same problem, I just don't want anything electronicky in my music life anymore.

God I wish I could gig with a real piano, like I can with a tube-amped tonewheel organ. Maybe I should buy a Wurly or a Rhodes..

The observation that there isn't a lot of performance-oriented stuff in electronic-land may be part of this. The last time I wrote any code for performance-oriented work was ... let's see, 15 years ago, I was in school and took Electro-acoustic Composition in the music department. I used Opcode's MAX software to write a program designed to let me manipulate the ADSR envelope and operator frequency ratios of a TX7 synthesizer during a live performance. I had my right hand on a MIDI keyboard, and my left hand worked the controls, which were actually the buttons and sliders of a Yamaha DMP-10 MIDI-fied mixer. (I intercepted and decoded sysex messages on the PC, changing them into sysex messages and program changes for the TX7, while passing CC messages etc from a keyboard through)

I had never even heard of an organ drawbar at the time. I find it really ironic that my most- and least-techy instruments use the same fundamental controls and basic idea. What I really don't get is why the prof never filled me in. Organs are additive synths, after all... Wierd, man.

[John F]

I come in and check it out once a month.

So here I am... still the same... nothing new...

see you next month.

[ElectricPuppy]

You need to post fresh pics of your rig, XorAxAx. I know you did once before, but I think some of the newbies would like to see.

[RetroVintageOld]

"I used to post here, but became disillusioned with electronic music for a number of reasons: a mismatch of talent, the toy-like quality of today's gear, the non-immediacy of programming/sequencing, the lack of emphasis on performable music, the plague of DJs, etc. There are more rewarding hobbies out there."

I think you're onto something here. I would not demean the talent level of electronic musicians, but we must at least recognize that there are two camps when it comes to keys. 1 live performers who favor more traditional sounds, and 2 those more oriented towards programming and sequencing.

Just like there is overlap between acoustic and electric guitarist there is overlap between the keyboardist groups. But there are vast areas of disinterest as well. A more traditional player doesn't really care about beats and arpegiaters. While a more electronic oriented player probably cares less how authentic an organ sim is.

My point is that whichever camp you fall into you probably find half of the threads here uninteresting. Maybe the keys forum should be split up. Afterall look how many guitar forums there are here and only one for keys...

[zoink]

As far as disillusionment with electronic music in general....

I think there are a lot more people today who flirt with keyboard playing and synthesis than there used to be. No doubt this is something that companies like Casio, Roland, and Yamaha love to hear, but it also means there are more people who buy a synth or workstation and never develop the ability to actually play the thing. They're drawn to sequencing, preset combi playing, and phrase sampling as ways to "make music" without learning to play keys. I also see a STRONG aversion to learning anything about theory. Just lay down a thumping (always derivative) rhythm, a simple bass line, and throw heavily effected phrase samples over top of it and you're rolling. And I'm not just talking about hip hop anymore. The disease has spread.

And it all makes me wonder. How far can you go in this direction before we can all agree you're not really making music?

Recently, about a month ago, I bought a Little Phatty stage 2 from a guy on Craigslist. He seemed nice enough. Guitar player in a band, in his early 20s. He said he dabbled in keys, and bought the LP from a band mate a while back. So I'm testing it out, tweaking parameters while playing simple leads and bass lines. He kept walking over and looking over my shoulder and asking what I just did to make it sound like that. Nothing I did was anything special. I was just putting the synth through its paces to see if I liked the way it sounded. But over and over again, he'd say that. "What did you do there?" So I'd explain. Finally, he goes, "Man, if I knew I could've made that synth sound like that, I might have kept it."

I see that a lot when I answer ads for used gear. When I bought my EX5 a while back, for example, it was some rich doctor who had NO IDEA what the EX5 does. Same with the Z1, which was just a couple of months ago. They all had similar comments. "Man, I didn't know it could do THAT."

My impression was that they bought it because they thought it would be easy, or that they would be willing to put in the time to learn it, be confused, get frustrated at times, but work their way through it. But they're not willing to do that. What they really wanted was a box with a lot of flashing lights and one button marked "GO."

[Klondo]

Hello everyone in this thread! I feel very good right now.

[BonsoWonderDog]

Yeah, bring back ChasIII, that'll attrack the crowds again. :|

[ChristianRock]

Mostly, the forum extended downtimes and the failed upgrades are to blame.

But also, I think most hardware-oriented forums are having a decline, because people are moving to software and forums like KVR and Native Instruments forums are really blooming. So it will be hard to regain the audience that was lost. But whatever, I still like to hang out here

[NuSkoolTone]

 

Originally Posted by wwwjd

Buy, I hear ya. I used to compete with the best of them talentwise.... now any idiot with a laptop can "make beatz" and they are generic and suck and the world eats it up. I download free ACID once, dragged some presets onto track, saved and sent to friends.... they LOVED it! Thought it was great. I did nothing than a lucky monkey could have done. ZERO talent utilized. So, I'm dissillusioned as well... for a lil while. But, I'm stocking up on positive attitude, dumping MIDI and getting back to writing. I think it can be fun again.

 

Ha!@ Acid! I just started mixing down a goof I did in Acid years ago (like in 2005) just to play with the program. What an AWFUL program I must say, at least in 2012. Granted I'm using an older version of Acid (6?), but it's rough. I'm archiving things off hard drive to DVDs and figured I'd mix what I did and render it before the archive. I hate leaving things unfinished.

[Mega Jon]

What I don't see anymore are the daily posts of, "I have $50, what keyboard should I buy?" that degnigrated into Korg V Roland V Yahmaha ranting once everyone had a good laugh about $50 not being nearly enough and someone else saying we should all be nice to the OP. BTW - I alphabetized the brand list, please don't flame me...

Those led to lively discussions and lots of posts but rarely any fresh content. It did keep the membership engaged though and led to such great experiements as the day someone - was it you Wizzard? - posted a brilliant piano riff that was later posted as midi and we had 35-50 variations to compare piano patches from various hard/soft synth engines.

It IS much quieter, very easy to keep up with. Fewer extroverted personalities driving the content. The content is still on topic, I still enjoy keeping up by reading it, and the "old timers" that offered the more mature posts years ago when I joined are still here making sure the plumbing works so I haven't felt the need to hunt down an alternative.

[Gribs]

This place is what we, the members, make of it. I try to make constructive posts and keep quiet if I don't know any answers or have nothing to say.

[Purity_Control]

Maybe someone should invite ADSR back?

[soundwave106]

Originally Posted by zoink

I think there are a lot more people today who flirt with keyboard playing and synthesis than there used to be. No doubt this is something that companies like Casio, Roland, and Yamaha love to hear,

Not really, because the market has moved so much to software. Synthesizers are more prevalent in music than ever -- how many guitar oriented songs are in the charts vs. synth ones? But it's all DAW related stuff.

I think ChristianRock is right that this is perceived more of as a player-oriented hardware forum. The more traditional keyboard hardware that does comes out (your Kronos and Jupiter 80s) and some of the analogs (Minibrute etc.) do tend to get threads here. But very little is said on VST stuff, I have to lurk in KVR to get the latest and greatest news on that. Not much on modular either, you have to go to Muffwiggler for that. Modular and VSTs have been most of my focus of late.

I also see a STRONG aversion to learning anything about theory. Just lay down a thumping (always derivative) rhythm, a simple bass line, and throw heavily effected phrase samples over top of it and you're rolling. And I'm not just talking about hip hop anymore. The disease has spread.

That is one of my stronger complaints about today's pop market, too many songs are underdeveloped from a melodic / songwriting perspective. Four chords at best in a constant loop (Verse-chorus? Middle 8? Bridges? No one cares anymore), 4 on the floor rhythm, add singer with generic lyrics, done. But, I like my garage rocks and punk rocks and bar band rock that can often do a lot of 4 chord repeating too, so what do I know?

[droolmaster0]

I just don't think that it's true that the more interesting people who used to frequent this place, and now have left, did so because they are now into software. I also have to laugh at this notion that the quality of electronic music is suffering. I am amazed almost every single day by the quality of stuff that I find on soundcloud....what seems to be missing here (for the most part) anymore is an appreciation for non melodic/harmonic music. It's really a very conservative forum now. that's not necessarily a bad thing, if y'all want it.

[zoink]

Originally Posted by droolmaster0

I just don't think that it's true that the more interesting people who used to frequent this place, and now have left, did so because they are now into software.

Yeah, I don't buy it either. It was obvious to anyone who was here that the drop in traffic to this forum came during the downtime associated with the 'upgrade.' It wasn't that half of the members adopted software and left.

That said, I think the quality of the threads and posts here is better than it used to be. It's just unfortunate that the volume of posts took such a hit.

Originally Posted by droolmaster0

I also have to laugh at this notion that the quality of electronic music is suffering. I am amazed almost every single day by the quality of stuff that I find on soundcloud.

What I'm seeing are more ways to make bad electronic music, and to do it easily.

There's still plenty of good electronic music being made -- perhaps more than ever.

But I also see a lot of push button solutions to making electronic music, for club kids to play with in their bedrooms. People can now get collections of pre-made drum rhythms, sampled phrases of bass lines, pads, and leads, and drop them into a mix and call it an original composition. Blame the MPC and Fruity Loops.

It used to take ingenuity to make electronic music that sounded good. The irony is that now you CAN make electronic music that sounds "good" to a lot of people with pre-made "pour and stir" type software.

It'll just sound tired and derivative -- not that most listeners will care.

[selfinflikted]

Originally Posted by zoink

What I'm seeing are more ways to make bad electronic music, and to do it easily.

There's still plenty of good electronic music being made -- perhaps more than ever.

But I also see a lot of push button solutions to making electronic music, for club kids to play with in their bedrooms. People can now get collections of pre-made drum rhythms, sampled phrases of bass lines, pads, and leads, and drop them into a mix and call it an original composition. Blame the MPC and Fruity Loops.

It used to take ingenuity to make electronic music that sounded good. The irony is that now you CAN make electronic music that sounds "good" to a lot of people with pre-made "pour and stir" type software.

It'll just sound tired and derivative -- not that most listeners will care.

Don't blame the people making the "bad" music, blame the consumers. If there weren't a demand for it, they wouldn't be making it. Personally, when I write music, I normally don't do it with a "target audience" in mind - I usually just write what *I* want, and if other people like it, great! If the don't, screw 'em.

[droolmaster0]

Originally Posted by zoink

What I'm seeing are more ways to make bad electronic music, and to do it easily.

There's still plenty of good electronic music being made -- perhaps more than ever.

But I also see a lot of push button solutions to making electronic music, for club kids to play with in their bedrooms. People can now get collections of pre-made drum rhythms, sampled phrases of bass lines, pads, and leads, and drop them into a mix and call it an original composition. Blame the MPC and Fruity Loops.

It used to take ingenuity to make electronic music that sounded good. The irony is that now you CAN make electronic music that sounds "good" to a lot of people with pre-made "pour and stir" type software.

It'll just sound tired and derivative -- not that most listeners will care.

There has always been bad music. The great thing about the democratization that technology has brought is that people with talent, who formerly might not have had a chance to make their music public, can now do so. I'm not talking about 'beats'. I'm talking about interesting timbral based music - some made with modular synths, some made with softsynths, and some made with a variety of other things. It is so easy to dismiss it all, and it's one reason why I rarely frequent this forum anymore. There are few people here who are into this stuff. It's too bad. There used to be more of us. Your view is the prevalent view here.

[zoink]

Originally Posted by selfinflikted

Don't blame the people making the "bad" music, blame the consumers. If there weren't a demand for it, they wouldn't be making it. Personally, when I write music, I normally don't do it with a "target audience" in mind - I usually just write what *I* want, and if other people like it, great! If the don't, screw 'em.

Well, the people making bad electronic music have themselves fueled a demand for easier ways to create it. And both software and hardware producers have undertaken to meet that demand.

As far as I can tell, nobody listens to the crap that 19 year olds make in their bedrooms with Fruity Loops. But the internet is still flooded with it.

So I too tend to blame the demand side of the equation. And we're smack dab in the middle of a "You TOO can be an electronica artist" consumer revolution. But again, the so-called 'artist' is the consumer in this story.

[zoink]

 

Originally Posted by selfinflikted

Don't blame the people making the "bad" music, blame the consumers. If there weren't a demand for it, they wouldn't be making it.

 

I maintain that they WOULD be making it even without listeners -- as evidenced by the fact that they are.

[BonsoWonderDog]

 

Originally Posted by Gribs

This place is what we, the members, make of it. I try to make constructive posts and keep quiet if I don't know any answers or have nothing to say.

 

Oh for goodness' sake. There you go again, being so.....so.....reasonable. And sensible.

[Klondo]

you guys sure do type a lot.

[soundwave106]

Originally Posted by zoink

As far as I can tell, nobody listens to the crap that 19 year olds make in their bedrooms with Fruity Loops. But the internet is still flooded with it.

No, actually, people do listen to the "crap" that 19 year olds make in their bedroom. At least, I get the impression that a lot of those that start in more "street" oriented genres (drum and bass / dubstep, hip-hop) start out with mix tapes or tracks created on their computer. I'm sure many of them "network" too in that they are big fans of the scenes they are creating stuff for.

Yes, the market is flooded. Everyone wants to be the Next Big Thing. Always has been.

I dunno, what music are you considering "bad"? One thing about this forum is that it's a bit older, and I've noticed as people get older some people start dismissing anything new in music. There are people I know who dismiss all of today's indie rock as hipster bull{censored}, yet constantly post 80s and 90s alternative rock nostalgia on Facebook. I'm like, what's the difference, really? There's some, but it's not so much that all modern indie music sucks and the 1980s / 1990s was a glorious time in alternative music history.

Likewise with electronic dance. What I've actually noticed is that, as the tools get more accessible and affordable, the production has become denser and slicker even for the kids with no experience. A lot of electronic dance in the rave era used to be very raw because everything was hardware (expensive) and you didn't have all those nice DAW conveniences. Both a good thing and a bad thing I suppose.

Pop music for the teenage crowd in general has almost always had some section which was pretty democratic in that you really didn't need a huge amount of skills to play it.

[zoink]

Originally Posted by soundwave106

No, actually, people do listen to the "crap" that 19 year olds make in their bedroom. At least, I get the impression that a lot of those that start in more "street" oriented genres (drum and bass / dubstep, hip-hop) start out with mix tapes or tracks created on their computer. I'm sure many of them "network" too in that they are big fans of the scenes they are creating stuff for.

Well, we'll just have to disagree on that one. I encounter a LOT of people who dabble in making electronic music that no one wants to hear. And in the case that someone does want to hear it, as you already mentioned, it's usually just to impress their friends with their ability to sound 'just like' someone famous.

With the technology available today, it's no longer a great feat to do this. And musically -- at least to me -- it means nothing.

Originally Posted by soundwave106

I dunno, what music are you considering "bad"? One thing about this forum is that it's a bit older, and I've noticed as people get older some people start dismissing anything new in music.

I'm not against "new" at all. I'm fine with new. New is another way of saying 'original.'

But if you're the 500th copier of "new" then you're not original. At that point it's just a tired repetition. This is a problem with the whole process of technological democratization. For every original artist who makes good original music, you have 500 people who try to sound JUST LIKE the guy that had a recent hit. You might say this has always been true of rock and roll and other musical styles as well, but with rock at least you had to be able to PLAY a guitar to mimic someone famous. It was at least organic and crafted in that sense.

In electronic music it's different. If all you care about is the end result, there are a LOT of ways to sidestep the whole musical skill obstacle.

And interestingly, one thing that hip hop and teen pop have in common now is that they've co-opted many conventions of composition from electronic music. It would not be difficult to write and record 20 original 'Katy Perry songs' that Katy Perry never sang, and have 20 different teenage girls sing them. They could even sound "good" in the Katy Perry sense, which is to say, positively awful.

[zoink]

Originally Posted by droolmaster0

There has always been bad music. The great thing about the democratization that technology has brought is that people with talent, who formerly might not have had a chance to make their music public, can now do so.

You're definitely right. And on its face, that's a really good thing. I've often said that this is a great time to be young and interested in music, since you can now do things with a medium priced laptop and affordable software that simply weren't possible 20 years ago with $100,000 worth of studio equipment.

But the inevitable consequence is that you'll open the floodgates to many who just aren't musically talented and have no discipline to learn it as a ground-up endeavor. Yet they too want to 'make music,' since after all it's natural to want to emulate your idols.

It's sort of like decreeing out of the blue that everybody can go to college. Well, it turns out that some people just aren't college material. If you're going to ignore this fact and let them in anyway, then inevitably you'll have to reduce or eliminate standards.