Wiardgroup

Mike Peake wrote:

>Eliminating long patchcords and providing exceptional functional
density might be argued as being efficient. This is why Doug 
was able to bring his Wiard to the Hayward gathering and you had to 
leave The Beast at your apartment ;-)<

Hahahahaha!  Touche!

(That one is going to cost you, bud...)


>>It is quite another matter, however, to paint like Tissot 
 or Ingres. It takes a great deal of talent, skill and time to create 
a painting of a person that looks like a person, and any defects 
in such a painting will be immediately apparent to all eyes, 
trained or untrained, because we all know what a person is supposed 
to 
look like.<<

>That is a result-driven argument. I create for the process which
pleases myself the most.<

See my paragraph on aesthetic masturbation.

>Most especially, music is one of the more abstract arts.<

If that were true, there would be no need for a 1V/Oct reference.
 
>Beginning with the goal of pleasing the most peoples' recognition of
validity is a bad way to approach abstract arts.<

This argument has filled museums with piles of rocks from Home Depot, 
crushed beer cans, and other mediocrities from 
poseurs.  "Recognition" is what art is all about.  If you have to be 
told what a dead fly on squirrel's head means, then the art piece 
failed to communicate.

>And you are incorrect to submit that photo-realism is more 
important than another form of expression such as bauhaus.<

I was not speaking of photo-realism, which is parroting what a camera 
does (in most cases, "photo-real" paintings begin as tracings of 
photographs.  What's the point of that?).  And Bauhaus isn't a form 
of expression, but a validation of expediency.  Oh, what lovely 
buildings the 1960s produced!  Yes, I'm being sarcastic.

>It's simply a difference in tastes.<

I have never bought that argument.  There are universal constants of 
beauty that are built into the species.  A rose is as lovely and 
smells as sweet in the USA as in China.  A plate of dog poo would 
likely garner a negative reaction in both locales.

>What pleases and drives YOU?<

This isn't the forum for that question.  :-)

>THAT is art. If another person cannot identify it, it does not
reduce its validity to you.<

Then why even bother to create it?  If only you can understand and 
appreciate something you create, why bother making it real?  Why not 
just leave it as a thought in your own mind? 

>Imitative synthesis is one aspect of the many...but not the sole
aspect. <

True!  But it does demonstrate the skill of the synthesist and the 
merit of his chosen synthesizer.  WHERE IS THE WENDY OF THE WIARD? 
That's what I want to know. 
Ken Elhardt's demos give me an idea of what he as a synthesist can 
do, and what the MOTM synthesizer can do [calm down, Mike.  :-) ]  
The banga-banga-banga stuff can be done on any synth, including PAIA 
(long may it play!).  Can a Wiard produce a predictable, recognizable 
outcome?  I don't know--and I want to know.

Mind you, this isn't to say that traditional music is the ONLY metric 
for quality.  If somebody could sound like Subotnick on a Wiard---
well then, that would sell me.

>> Now, say you wanted to evaluate the sound of a new grand 
piano on the  market. From which could you discern more: sequences of 
random  banging, or a Chopin etude? The former has no frame of 
reference,  the latter does. <<

>That depends entirely upon whether you enjoy sequences of
random banging or not (or if they are indeed random).<

So get a cheap honky-tonk piano to bang on and reserve the 
Boesendorpher, if that's how you spell it, for the real deal.

>That's a good question; how good is the Wiard for music which
requires oscillators which track? Smoo has a record almost due
out, and some soundbites in the Files section which 
demonstrate that the Wiard is indeed capable of tonal music.<

I do not know what Smoo is, but will check out the files section.

>You have to admit that we didn't have enough time on Doug's
Wiard to be able to know the functions of all of the LEDs, and
from that, to determine whether, _for us_, any were superflous
or not. It did seem like information overload at first, but with
a closer glance, it became evident that each had importance.<

To mating nudibranchs, perhaps.  Now, take my Arrick (don't you 
DARE!).  You can look at the LED on the ADSR or the oscillator and 
tell exactly what is going on (well, almost--Synthesizers.com LEDs on 
the oscillators are 180 degrees out of phase with the output, but I 
digress).  But what does a row of tri-colored LEDs signify?  A 
pulsing red LED is more than enough to tell you what you need to 
know.  A tri-colored LED is a lightshow.  Again, buy having a single 
format that dictates LEDs *must* be present, you are locked into a 
system in which some of those LEDs are guaranteed to be no more than 
glorified power indicators.

BTW, if Doug wants to bring his Wiard to my pad and change my mind, 
he is more than welcome!  I'm open to it.

JM