[sdiy] presets on a modular

[Blandon Ray]

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 10:00:15 -0700, Scott Gravenhorst
<music.maker at gte.net> wrote:
> 
> The real problem here is that people, in general, do not discriminate much
> between what is good and bad, real and fake.  Most people hearing a digital
> rompler piano will say it sounds like a piano, not "piano like".  It is their
> "deafness" that creates these market conditions, not that corporations are
> somehow evil or subversive.  Yes, they do it on purpose, but not to screw
> musicians, rather they do it to survive.  We are lucky to have any commercially
> produced instruments at all because if musical talent ruled, we'd have very very
> little.  We can thank free markets for the fact that we have at least
> functionally crappy synths that we can afford.
> 
> And this is why SDIY is necessary.

True. Particularly the last part, because we (the demanding users and
DIY types) do not want to be at the mercy of a market where nothing
gets made unless it will move 10,000 units. Again, as you say, not a
function of good vs. evil so much as economies of scale, but those
same forces often drive big companies to buy smaller ones and allow
them to wither and die (remember when Gibson bought Opcode? Or
Oberheim?).

To keep this somewhat on-topic to DIY, I know that for what I am
working on now (a compact rack of modules for effects processing), the
normalized-modular concept makes the most sense. When I daydream about
what I would want to have in my little rack I always gravitate back to
a small selection of the most useful sound processing widgets, rather
than everything and the kitchen sink. In musical applications,
constraints often produce more pleasing results than complete freedom.

Blandon