[sdiy] playing a synth

[BR]

You mean the page long email you wrote beginning with
"The short answer is..." wasn't your answer?  I'd been
meaning to respond to that one myself.  I'm in the
last week of a course called Sound Design for the
Electronic Musician (from Berklee College of Music
online), so I know a thing or two now about the world
of sound synthesis.. and the various options in the
use of synthesizers.  So, you don't need to "school
me" on what a synthesizer does.
The idea of "playing" that I was talking about was
meant to refer to active performance - human gestures
manipulating sound in real time.  Yes, us humans are
limited in our gestural capabilities, but to me that's
what makes a musician versus a composer/programmer,
and that's personally more impressive and exciting to
witness.  If you're not interested in human gestures
or human "soul" being involved in the music, then
that's fine, of course.  I'm also into Aphex Twin and
other forms of headphone music that can't really be
performed live.  Theres certainly room for that kind
of music.. but I wouldn't say "machine music" is more
advanced or superior to limited, manmade music.  

--- dj hohum <djhohum at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> BTW: I've been meaning to answer your post about
> sequencers, it was
> just longer than I intended and I lost steam. What
> sort of music do
> you play?
> 
> On 6/28/07, BR <phonotron at yahoo.com> wrote:

--- dj hohum <djhohum at gmail.com> wrote:

> The short answer is yes, I sequence them. But
> there's really quite a
> bit more to it than that, not in terms of complexity
> or skill, that
> isn't what I'm saying, I mean in terms of the
> purpose of keyboards and
> synthesizers.
> 
> Synthesizers make sounds. They are one choice in the
> studio, Other
> choices are acoustic instruments, samplers, the dog,
> etc.
> 
> Keyboards translate human physical motion into a
> note values and
> timing using a standard method. They are but one
> choice in the studio.
> Other choices include drum pads, acoustic
> instruments, non-standard
> controllers, sequencers, chains of sequencers, etc.
> 
> You ask, how do you "play" your synthesizers? And I
> ask you the same
> thing. How can one possible play synthesizers with
> one or both hands
> on the keyboards? To play a synthesizer requires
> changing the sound in
> more than one domain. The time and pitch domain are
> often controlled
> by a keyboard in some way, but the timbre domain is
> controlled by
> knobs, jacks, switches, etc (yes, also the
> keyboard). To create
> interesting timbres in real time one cannot, IMNSHO,
> rely alone on
> preset modulation sources.
> 
> I have a few keyboards in my studio. But they are
> typically used as
> input devices to a sequencer only. Having one on
> each synth just means
> that they get in the way and force an unnatural form
> factor on the
> synthesizer.
> 
> I do use keyboards live. But, I like them for both
> impromptu sequence
> recording as well as soloing. Hence, it makes more
> sense to me to
> think of a keyboard as simply an input device to a
> sequencer. It is a
> simple matter to have the sequencer route the data
> through if I wish
> to use a particular synthesizer as a solo
> instrument.
> 
> That said, I find keyboards are limiting in the same
> way that every
> mechanism designed to extract pitch and timing
> information from two
> human hands is limiting. It is a challenge to play
> guitar riffs on a
> keyboard and keyboard riffs on a guitar (with
> appropriate midi
> converter and sound module). The interfaces
> themselves enforces
> certain limitations imposed by physics.
> 
> While one can argue that the timbre of a piano has
> vast variation,
> nonetheless, it pretty much always sounds like a
> piano. One has to try
> very hard to get a vastly different sound out of
> such an instrument.
> This is not true with the synthesizer. Yet, because
> of the legacy of
> the keyboard/piano interface we typically modify
> timbre mechanically
> while controlling pitch and timing manually.
> 
> This is but one choice. Sequencers turn this
> equation around. They
> modify pitch and timing mechanically freeing our
> hands to be divided
> equally among pitch/timbre/timing as we see fit.
> 
> Basically, I see keyboards as merely a notation
> input device and they
> have little or nothing to do with synthesis. In
> practice I'm far more
> interested in complex dynamic timbre than complex
> dynamic
> pitch/timging and so a keyboard is a physical
> handicap for playing
> simple riffs whose timbre changes dramatically over
> time.
> 
> If I may paraphrase Kraftwerk, I don't want music
> with human feel, I
> want music that sounds like it was made by machines.
> 
> To put things in perspective, my desert island
> record, as it were,
> would have to be Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works
> part 2.
> 
> 
> On 6/27/07, BR <phonotron at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > This is interesting.. so how do you play your
> > synthesizers?  as just sequenced midi-controlled
> sound
> > modules?  I have a bit of a hard time getting used
> to
> > this idea.  I'm learning to play the keyboard now,
> > with all the music theory involved, because I'm
> used
> > to thinking of playing the instrument in terms of
> > playing a piano.  New types of control are needed,
> and
> > Im always interested to hear of developments in
> the
> > field, but as yet I know of no better way to
> > physically interface with the machine...
> >
> >
>
__________________________________________________________
> >
> > Well, I certainly can't speak for others, but, I
> find
> > the most
> > irritating thing about many of my synths is that
> they
> > have keyboards
> > attached. :)
> >
> > Seriously though, I can't imagine what the value
> of
> > building a CV
> > keyboard is? Perhaps someone can enlighten me. I
> think
> > a midi keyboard
> > plus midi2cv converter is the most common method
> of
> > connecting a
> > keyboard to a diy synth.
> >
> > Many modern monosynths don't even use a CV
> keyboard.
> > Rather, they use
> > a micro and a scanned board along with a DAC to
> > generate the CV for
> > the synth.
> >
> >
> >      
> > > Synth-diy mailing list
> > Synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> >
> http://dropmix.xs4all.nl/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy
> >
> 




       
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