SV: Re: [sdiy] Korg MS20 good deal?

[megaohm]

  I saw a show today on PBS. It was about cooking and organic products and
the like. He (the host) began to talk about breadmaking and brought up this
point: All of the developments in breadmaking technique have been aimed at
making it more convient to produce a loaf of bread...not in IMPROVING the
QUALITY of the bread.
  Later in the show he cooked 50lbs.(!) of tomato sauce in a huge black
cauldron on a wood burning fire in a HUGE fireplace. He preferred it to be
physical and labor intensive (...umm...anyone thinking modular synth?).

There are a bunch of comments in the original messege below:

On 4/14/06, Michael Bacich <weareas1 at earthlink.net> wrote:

>
> That certainly depends on your definition of "fun".  Some people's
> definition includes "making hit records", "scoring major motion pictures and
> television programs", and "playing live on major tours in front of thousands
> and thousands of people".  So I'd say, yeah, they are having a lot of fun
> with soft synths.
>


Out of all those things, the only one I have done is play a softsynth. The
fun to pointless ratio has been 50/50. I have a couple friends working in a
commercial studio. I did some wiring work for them that lasted a couple
nights. I heard a lot of different material (assignments) from a DJ mix for
the R Kelly dancers to songs written for Jos Stone(?) and other pop
"artists". They were churning out product so they could get paid (nothing
wrong with that...seems like a good job). Even though the studio was full of
great hardware (UA pres, Harmonizer,...too many to list), everything was
being done with software in the computer! This was done puely for convience,
not sound quality. By far the best thing I heard there was when this guy
came in at 1AM to lay some tracks. He came up with a cool bassy, analog
sounding track made with a softsynth. His next step made me smile. He
DELETED the softsynth, took the track's MIDI out to a MIDI to CV convertor,
hooked that to a Moog Taurus, and plugged that into an Ampeg full stack!
Words can't describe how great it sounded. Though I initially thought the
softsynth sounded good, the real thing blew it away even before he decided
to run it through the amp and mic it. It was FUN to hear.




>  Putting it another way:  I own a lot of samplers.  Akai S6000, S5000,
> S3000xl, S2000, Roland S760 and S750, Kurzweil K2500, two Sequential Prophet
> 2002's, and even a few others.  Since I got the MOTU Mach Five software
> sampler, I haven't used a single one of them.  It replaced them all, sounds
> just as good, consolidates my huge mass of sample CD's and personal samples
> into one easy to access library -- and it is totally integrated into my
> primary recording environment (MOTU Digital Performer).
>


I agree completely. I don't feel too much difference between hard or soft
samplers. Though, I find software samplers to be much easier to work with
and much better in the creative features department. I'm sure you already
know this, but you can still put your samplers to great use. Hook them up
through MIDI and save some of your computer's resources. Think of them as
seperate mini computers hosting just one software sampler (not far from the
truth).





>  Admittedly, I don't make "electronic" music. per se.  More often than
> not, I'm playing piano, Rhodes, Hammond, strings, brass, bass, drums, and
> those kinds of standard sounds.  I do own a Minimoog, two MKS-80's, a Moog
> Source, a Prophet 600, an EX-8000, three Pro Ones, three SEM's, an SH-101,
> and two ARP Axxes.  They're lots of fun to play with and to admire, but they
> don't really help me make music -- in fact, because of their finickyness and
> difficulty to set up and integrate into my system, they actually hinder the
> making of music.  I do know what sounds good and what doesn't, and I get all
> the great synth textures I need out of several modern ROMplers and from my
> Roland JP-8080, all of which are awesome.  I fully expect these digital
> hardware pieces to gradually disappear from my setup over the next few
> years, too.
>


You could also sell a couple Pro Ones, an ARP Axxe, MKS-80,...hell, even the
Minimoog and buy a quality modular synthesizer. Totally inconvient, bulky,
finicky, and tough to wrap your head around...but totally worth it!
  I got into building a hardware modular through Reaktor! I built clones (to
the best of my ability) of commercially produced modules: MOTM, Synth.com,
Buchla, etc. I still use Reaktor for sample and sequenced based instrument
construction but never as a virtual analog to simulate the real deal. I also
prefer violins to string patches, by the way.




>  My story (and attitude) may be anathema to the Analog Heaven crowd,...
>

Probably a good thing!



>  but is certainly not unique among professional musicians.  Indeed, it is
> people like me whose desires and needs are driving the marketing and R&D
> decisions of the major manufacturers -- like it or not.
>


I think the major manufacturers will begin to not like some things. Such as,
you can build a quality recording setup with FREEWARE trackers, effects,
instruments, etc. Check KVR website. Though it may not seem like it from
this post, I really do love a lot of my software. I just don't think the
technology is advanced enough to replace high quality pieces of hardware.





>  Fortunately, if you don't like it, you can always fight back with your
> soldering iron!
>

True dat ! (say with Chicago accent)



   Getting back to guy with the 50lb. cauldron of tomato sauce...You could
tell it was a lot of labor to produce. Could have been done more effeciently
and most people wouldn't have known the difference. This relates directly to
"music" or "audio" or whatever we care to label the artform. It's not just
about the product, it's also about the PROCESS you take to get there.


Rambled Out,
peng
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://synth-diy.org/pipermail/synth-diy/attachments/20060415/5d67f02d/attachment.htm>