--- In
Mellotronists@yahoogroups.com, Donald Tillman <don@...> wrote:
>
>
> Dickson's post is far too incomprehensible and rude to address as
> such. But this part is interesting...
>
> > From: Mike Dickson <mike.dickson@...>
> > Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 22:28:19 +0100
> >
> > I'm much in favour of old stuff if it sounds better, but your
> > personal form of Luddism is strange to my ears and even
harder to
> > justify.
>
> Actually no; my band's album was the first to feature a physical
> modeling synthesizer, and I was the first to present a design for a
> well-behaved thru-zero quadrature synth VCO. And I have much more
in
> the works. I am keenly interested in advancing the state of the
art
> of electronic musical instruments.
>
> But it is true that I am not fond of the current crop of modern
> digital synths. Why? Because after 25 to 40 years of digital
music
> development (depending on how you count it) the best they can do
is to
> make bad copies of great instruments that are no longer in
production.
> This is with all the research, all the funding, all the
technological
> advances trickled down from the computer and other high tech
> industries, including Moore's law.
>
> That, my friend, is the real Luddism. And a total lack of
creativity
> and imagination.
>
> Although it's not as bad as guitar players. The three most popular
> guitar models (the Stratocaster, the Les Paul and the Telecaster)
were
> introduced between from 1948 and 1953, and haven't changed
> significantly since. And then they plug that into a vacuum tube
amp.
>
> -- Don
>
> --
>
Allright Don, you seem to be in the know of electronic instruments,
and I agree that there is very little in new keyboards that is
exciting. If you viewed my assortment in the photo section, there
is only one fairly new piece there. For my tastes, the "old stuff"
each has it's own unique quality. Yet after all these years since,
nothing comes close to these originals, yet we are bombarded with,
and I'm sorry if this offends, shitty samples. When I got my E4
sampler, it came with a cd of EMU classics, some from the EII
library, yet the funky ol EII 8bit sounds are more alive than
playing the same sample through the E4. From a novice point of view
it seems that once these instruments are in the sample domain, they
lose whatever expression the host instrument was capable of. That
little Pro Soloist is a very expressive instrument, no MIDI, no mod
wheel, yet you can get a lot out of it, and how would a clone sample
replicate that? So what has "state of the art" become? Dazed and
sometimes confused.... Doug