MOTM

> So has EM really advanced? It has been *usurped*.
> 
> From what I hear, a lot of so-called modern electronic music is 
little more
> than in-your-face production techniques. It really doesn't affect 
the roots
> of the composition, the "music," but just adds some "I wonder how 
they did
> that" gloss to a bed of the same-old-thing. 

while i think this to be your most salient point, i still disagree.  
i would agree that to a large degree that production techniques have 
largely eclipsed advancement, there are idividuals who are pushing 
the definition of music just as much as any carlos composition.  take 
for example oval's earlier albums, or the most exciting of the 
current breed for me, ryoji ikeda.  ikeda's conceptions of how to 
fill a space with sound are completely in line with what have gone 
before him, but have pushed that into realms not seen before.  

> However, I think that decades of music, music that would have been 
much
> different from what we actually got, were lost because digital 
electronics
> were so fast in coming.

this is very true, and sad really.

but to address bleep's point about what you can and cannot do with 
modulars, i'd venture to say that there seems to be little one 
*cannot* do with modulars.  modern tech just makes it easier.  if 
there's something you can think of, please post.  it's certainly not 
off topic.

the one exception being samplers of course.  i'm still waiting for 
the day when a modular company sees fit to incorporate a REAL sampler 
module instead of this doepfer 8-bit shit.  people combined tape 
loops and synthesis, why not VC'ed samplers?

alex