[sdiy] Good read

[Machinerygod]

Tuesday, August 06, 2002, 12:51:52 AM, you wrote:

PG> It discusses a shortage of innovation in modern-day electronic music
PG> instrument design, opting more for imitation of gizmo's from the past
PG> masters, from the dust of the dinos so to speak.  I will admit, it's
PG> something I agree with to a certain extent.   While these basic tools are
PG> important and should be part of every synthesist's bag of tricks - there is
PG> also a need for new ideas, new tools and new paradigms.


I'm a little bit weird in this respect (but I doubt I'm the only
"weirdo" on this list... : )) but I don't use any of the traditional
electronic instruments in my current work. I find watching people who sit
behind grooveboxes on stage in a passive manner rather boring most of
the time. I perform mainly with power
tools, large household appliances and scrap metal. This is kind of like plain old percussion in a
way, but even the speed control on an electric drill can be viewed as
a sort of VCO..the oscillations producing the actual sound just happen to be mechanical.

There are plenty of alternative gizmos available, either commercially
or conceptually(ie: you want one you build it yourself from a
schematic) They just haven't reached the mainstream for the most part,
or aren't as easy to package to sell commercially due to their special
purpose nature. A couple examples are Doug Tymofichuk's (I'm SURE I just
fvcked the spelling of that up) actuator controlled spring reverbs or
VFD-based ring modulator. Also that think called a Drum Buddy that was
posted here some time ago and nobody ever heard of again. Most budding
electronic musicians seem to want a box that does everything, hence
the immense popularity of grooveboxes..A lot of those customers are
the same ones who want their old 303/808/909 sounds to play with and
rehash again for whatever reason. As long as that's where the demand
is, that's what will be be carried by major manufacturers.

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