[sdiy] Re: [AH] JH - An example why digital audio ROCKS

[Peter Grenader]

How did this get on Analog Heaven?  I wrote this letter to SDIY!?!?!

Anyway, first off while I appreciate the historic impact of Williams Mix,
I've always had serious problems with it in terms of musicality and Cage's
somewhat arrogant statement that he would not need to write another piece of
music ever after this because it's possibilities were endless - a statement
he actually contradicted many times with music he wrote after saying that!

Secondly. It's artificial to what? The 'instruments' heard here are a
product of analog sound design - there are no natural sounds available to
make that comparison.

I see what you're saying, but seriously -we're talking about 40 sound bytes
here that come together in an 8 second phrase in which 4 of those seconds
being basically rests! Every one of them would have required second or third
generations of contouring via envelope generators to get the final shapes I
got with automation in about 15 minutes for all of them.  On top of that, 40
pieces of tape laying around the house which would all need to be tagged,
identified, put into the correct order, rerecorded multiple times and
bounced like a basketball to get to the final point they are in this sample.
There would be no room for error. If I did something a few generations back
that turned out to be slightly off cue, my option would be to start over
form that point or live with what I had

I short, I don't think I've lost anything.  But I've gained a lot.  A lot a
lot, actually.,  Because my time was spent composing, and not thinking and
rethinking the technical side of assembling the phrase I wanted and for what
- to say that I've adhered to the way of the old masters for the sake of
prosperity? A technique that the ones who are still around that actually did
this back then have all discarded without regret?  Mort Subotnick, who's
first three pieces for Nonesuch (Silver Apples, WIld Bull and Touch) are
littered with tape splices is one of the biggest proponents of digital audio
out there, citing the ease in which to perform this splice-like phrasing as
the major paradigm leap for precisely the same reason I mentioned - it
allows the composer to focus on the music and not the techniques of putting
that music together.

Just my opinion.

- P




hichakhok wrote:

> ..But it doesn't sound as good as the 'williams mix'.
> (musical content aside.)
> Less crunchy, more artificial, more smooth, to me less interesting.
> It would have taken you days, but would have sounded completely
> different. What have you lost?
> 
> 
> 
> best leonm
> On 27 Dec 2004, at 14:28, Peter Grenader wrote:
> 
>> This is an example of why digital audio cannot be ignored:
>> 
>> Listen to the following sound sample:
>> 
http://www.buzzclick-music.com/zip_bang.mp3
>> 
>> This little phrase consists of 40 different sound files, thrown
>> together in
>> time precisely as I wanted them.  This would have required easily two
>> to
>> three days work had I done it with a razor blade and splicing block
>> and  a
>> ton of generations from track bouncing.
>> 
>> This is a screen shot of this segment in Digital Performer. The area
>> inside
>> the gray'd out frame is what you're hearing
>> 
http://www.buzzclick-music.com/as_a_graphic.jpg

http://www.buzzclick-music.com/automation.jpg
>> 
>> Each one of those little segments is a soundbyte, each at 24 bit, 44.1.
>> They can be moved around in time by a simple click and drag. Each has
>> major
>> automation, which actually created most of the finished envelopes, all
>> of
>> which utilized a parabolic curve tool available in Digital Performer -
>> adn
>> you'll notice how these phrases fade in at a ice exponential attack as
>> a
>> result.
>> 
>> enjoy (or not!),
>> 
>> - P
>> 
>> 
>