Programming vs. Playing and what is Felt

music either hits you in the gut or doesn't, and all of it is subjective to the pair of ears listening.

for me, peter hook (of new order) can play three notes on a bass and elicit more of an emotional reaction out of me than les claypool (of primus) can by playing 800 notes.

who is more technically skilled? that's a matter of opinion. does les hit someone else on a more emotive level? probably.

do our arguments ever lead anywhere but to more arguments? usually not.

shut up. make music. do what you love and love what you do.

whatever happens, happens. the only objective truth about any of it is that someone somewhere will argue about it. ;)

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Originally Posted by djshiva

shut up. make music. do what you love and love what you do.

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Or

Shut the **** up and dance

[quote="tocsin"]

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. I'm not talking about the compositional aspects so much as the engineering aspect.

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dont forget man, that engineering itself is another MASSIVE subject.. good engineers are highly sought after people, and i have to say, from what i hear there arent many of them in techno if you judge by world standards. Again, with engineers youve got that 1% who really are a cut above all the rest of the engineers out there, and generally its taken them a long time to get there and a bloody lot of hard work.
So Instrumentalist, composer or engineer, you can take all these things just as far as you want to and someone thats good at what they do will still be striving to learn untill the end

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Originally Posted by dirty_bass

A computer doesn`t create for you.

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Fek it... thats where Ive been going wrong.... ;)

Nope I disagree! Those tracks suck no way! I'm pretty open-minded about abstract music but that takes an ape's kkunnt!
[
personally i try not to get to heated about technique , as someone said before some squarepusher tracks and indeed some aphex tracks sound pretty bad , but that doesn't stop them from being great.

I agree with what dirtybass has been saying! It takes knowledge of art and creativity upon the artist to make great music thats all! Fukk all this nonsense about who makes the most difficult music, go fukkin play a harp, then tell your grandma! :love:

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Originally Posted by db

but comapring the technical skill of say, playing stairway to heaven on the sitar, with making a techno track, is
just bizarre.

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I never said it wasn't bizarre or anything short of stupid. Apparently, you just haven't been exposed to that chinstroker element. I have. Nobody is going to argue that programming a 4/4 trance track into a sequencer is anymore dificult than programming a 4/4 hard techno track into a sequencer. Skill/effort wise, it's the same. What makes the track good is subjective. Chinstrokers recognize this and get tired of the fact that they can be blown off with a "you like what you like and I like what I like" statement. So, they introduce the mastering/engineering aspect and say that's what makes a track better. Better produced? Maybe. But better? No. Not for me at least. But, that is not an acceptable answer. So, in the end, it feels the same to me as a conversation I'd have with a rocker who talks about how one band sucks and another makes "better" music because it is more technically dificult to play. The similarity lies in the mindset. But, with access to the best technology and a crash course in
audio engineering techniques, one can turn out a recording that sounds good production wise. Someone cannot go buy the most expensive violin, take a 3 month city course, and be doing anything phenomenal. That's why I can humor points from some people, but not others. It's more dick waving than anything else.

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Originally Posted by divide

P.S who says techno is better than this music, that music?

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You're kidding, right? You can see it right here and many other places. Go anonymously into some forum with a good amount of hard techno fans and talk about your love for epic trance or happy hardcore.

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Originally Posted by jimfish

dont forget man, that engineering itself is another MASSIVE subject.. good engineers are highly sought after people,
and i have to say, from what i hear there arent many of them in techno if you judge by world standards.

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And why is that? As of right now, it has more to do with the fact that learning how to become an audio engineer and acquiring the gear to do it was an unbelievably expensive pursuit. For a little over a decade, the affordability gap has been closed to a very strong degree. Moreso than people in the industry probably expected. Ten years ago, the recording industry was not going to have to worry about home users being able to pirate software that pretty much did their jobs. Hell, you should have heard some of the NYC engineers histeria about the Freefilter plugin in the Steinberg Mastering Edition plugin pack. Before seeing how it actually worked, a couple I talked to honestly thought it would make them entirely useless since people would be able to "steal" their settings from the tracks they mastered available on disc. While hardly a perfect tool, just that plugin can do some amazing shit. Take that into consideration with all the other software that a number of you probably have in your possession
here and haven't paid a dime for or paid an unbelievably low price. Say you have the Waves Bundle. Before software was accessable to the masses that did the same thing, how much would it have costed you to get the hardware simulated in that software alone? I seriously believe that you are going to see a steady decline in demand for audio engineers as more people take it up themselves since, unlike just over a decade ago, you can get professional results out of one computer. Now, don't think I'm trying to downplay the engineering side of track production. I do think it's important. But, I also believe that it is something that most people can do if they have the time and access. So, when dealing with a chinstroker who tells me how much the music I enjoy is just dancey crap, and that the music that they like which is at the same tempo, same time sig, uses the same drum machine, etc. is "better" or superior because of something as silly as EQ and compression, I really just don't care or agree. It's a
non-sequitur attack to pretend that there is some heirarchy of taste that has true merit. Good mastering of a track that doesn't speak to me is not going to make it good for me. Nor will the idea that because either the producer, or the person who mastered the track, understood the basics of engineering enough to produce a slightly better sounding record than some teenager in his bedroom going to be something that really impresses me. Add all the sugar you want to what you think is a bad cup of coffee and it's still going to taste bad.

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Originally Posted by davethedrummer

you seem to be completely objective and sitting in neither camp
i think you are just saying that you like what you like regardless of how
"clever" it is.
and if that's what you are saying then i agree.

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Thank you. That's exactly what I was trying to say. The part that seems to have confused people is where I stated that I'm less tolerant of the "cleverness" arguments with programmed music where the focus is the engineering than I am with the mastering of live instruments. I'm not even saying that isn't subjective on my part either.

What's a "Chinstroker"?

Sorry. A "chin stroker" is a term for someone who is usually very into one style of music, doesn't dance ato it, and will get snobby in telling you why their preferred style is so superior and anything that you listen to which is remotely different is shit. It's the kind of person that will actually get hung up over something as silly as whether someone used Fruity Loops or Abelton as if it has some importance to the listener appreciation, and not just ability of a producer to do what they want.

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Originally Posted by crime

What's a "Chinstroker"?

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folk that analise shit to see how good it is, not the average punter who just likes it if he like it but listing to see how well it was made .......

like my mate just drinks anything that gets him pissed......chin strokers would be the folk sipping wine...

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Originally Posted by crime

What's a "Chinstroker"?

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aka snot! pouncey git!

this thread got me thinking......

it would be cool to see a live techno set but with folk playing with electroinc intruments.

someone on an electric drum kit...one playing sths live, maybe on jamming the fx....some live vocoded vocals....think it would be sweet.

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Originally Posted by gumpy green

this thread got me thinking......

it would be cool to see a live techno set but with folk playing with electroinc intruments.

someone on an electric drum kit...one playing sths live, maybe on jamming the fx....some live vocoded vocals....think it would be sweet.

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timeline? :lol:

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Originally Posted by gumpy green

this thread got me thinking......

it would be cool to see a live techno set but with folk playing with electroinc intruments.

someone on an electric drum kit...one playing sths live, maybe on jamming the fx....some live vocoded vocals....think it would be sweet.

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Yes thats what I meant about needing more live stuff going on before! It will defiently shake things up abit! Instead of just djing out of your prod, you have to work at it. Plus this would bring you to a bigger audience, but thats not the point. It will certainly brake a cycle!

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Originally Posted by gumpy green

this thread got me thinking......

it would be cool to see a live techno set but with folk playing with electroinc intruments.

someone on an electric drum kit...one playing sths live, maybe on jamming the fx....some live vocoded vocals....think it would be sweet.

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been done, just not so well...

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Originally Posted by tocsin

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Originally Posted by divide

P.S who says techno is better than this music, that music?

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You're kidding, right? You can see it right here and many other places. Go anonymously into some forum with a good amount of hard techno fans and talk about your love for epic trance or happy hardcore.

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I thought tiwe based this disscussion around the differences between the " live musician" and the studio arst?

I said music

Happy hardcore is not music (digs own grave) :lol:

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Originally Posted by gumpy green

this thread got me thinking......

it would be cool to see a live techno set but with folk playing with electroinc intruments.

someone on an electric drum kit...one playing sths live, maybe on jamming the fx....some live vocoded vocals....think it would be sweet.

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Well, it`s very difficult.
Certain stuff you can program is just too hard to play on a synth.
A combination of the two is cool though.
I believe they were called Underworld.

yes underworld are excellent live :cool:

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Originally Posted by dirty_bass

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Originally Posted by gumpy green

this thread got me thinking......

it would be cool to see a live techno set but with folk playing with electroinc intruments.

someone on an electric drum kit...one playing sths live, maybe on jamming the fx....some live vocoded vocals....think it would be sweet.

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Well, it`s very difficult.
Certain stuff you can program is just too hard to play on a synth.
A combination of the two is cool though.
I believe they were called Underworld.

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yeh id imagine very difficult but defo do-able....i would like to see it done(live not comination) but done well......

never checked underworld in terms of kit used, i always just assumed they programmed it...now i know,

suppose some stuff programmed would be too hard on synth as you say, but ther are amazing pianists that could play stuff very hard to program...

got me thinking if someone could program up some "bach" or that piano tracks(not sure if tracks is the correct term). With enuf knowlege im sure you could recreate it with technology, but would real time playing it have a slightly different feel t it becuase of the slight differences in timin?

Seriously fukk the pianist, the guatirist and the shoe tapper your mom knows! Fukk all this nonsense! Yes I want live but the spirit, yes I want this! The whole point is the spirit! I do think live can be done though and new things can be done :rambo:

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Originally Posted by tocsin

And why is that? As of right now, it has more to do with the fact that learning how to become an audio engineer and acquiring the gear to do it was an unbelievably expensive pursuit. For a little over a decade, the affordability gap has been closed to a very strong degree. Moreso than people in the industry probably expected.

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well theres a bit more to it than that, but yeah, i hear where your coming from now.. bit of a pointless load of typing there really, but i suppose at least our finger muscles are a bit more buff.. allways handy ;)