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Instrumachines and the Evolution of Electronic Music Performance

bryank.im

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Re: Instrumachines and the Evolution of Electronic Music Performance

#41

Post by TylerE »

tb303 wrote: post #38
TylerE wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jungle at its peak twisted the mind with intricate rhythms that really blew minds. You can't just throw something like that out there and not make recommendations ;) I gotta admit, I can't stand about 98% of EDM, but some small amount of it actually is really good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT9wUifJ-hQ > You can't just throw something like that out there and not make recommendations ;) here's a podcast full of hive, tech itch, etc. http://www.mixcloud.com/lars-mion/unashamedly-nostalgic/ This stuff was all done with intricate editing before izotope, audio damage, etc. had one-button tricks to stutter and mangle. Noisia, Phace, Rockwell, etc. are leading the new charge on d…

Ok, I have to admit that didn't really do much for me. I need a little bit of melody... think more along the lines of like Massive Attack or vintage Jamaican Dub.

Re: Instrumachines and the Evolution of Electronic Music Performance

#42

Post by aphexpusher »

dylanhassinger wrote: post #19

Controllerism has been around for awhile. I discovered it via Moldover - http://www.youtube.com/user/moldover Before him, it was called "live pa"

thanks for clearing that up. Controllerism does not seem to be all that new to me.

Re: Instrumachines and the Evolution of Electronic Music Performance

#43

Post by freshbreakfast »

tb303 wrote: post #35
freshbreakfast wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying the earlier gen synths, controllers and laptops are any less legit than newer gen stuff. I'm thinking strictly from the fan's perspective, the non-musician's perspective, the concert-goer's perspective. That is, how visually obvious is your live performance gifts from the floor? To a digital musician, it might sound reductive. But live performance is it's own beast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqXayqIrAYE =D this goes back way before "the earlier gen synths, controllers, and laptops" see my other comment. it's awesome you have come to this realization, but what i am trying to help you understand is that this is cyclical. it is not a revolution, it is how instruments evolve and has been for ages.

gotcha. yeah this vid is pretty crazy, down to the "Playing it by ear" bit.

Re: Instrumachines and the Evolution of Electronic Music Performance

#44

Post by tunesmith »

freshbreakfast wrote: post #2

Hey guys, I wrote this thing. And I know there must be disagreements with the arguments here. Bring it on!

I'd like to see more examples of people using these tools to control acoustic-seeming sounds. The tech intrigues the geek part of me, but the sounds don't agree with me (I mostly have a piano/classical/jazz background).

Re: Instrumachines and the Evolution of Electronic Music Performance

#45

Post by adamnemecek »

jetti wrote: post #23
adamnemecek wrote: post #4

I've actually had a very similar thought recently. I also feel like it is somewhat easier to master electronic music production (I know that it's still hard but compare how much one knows after playing piano for 6 months with learning Ableton for 6 months). I think that this is awesome since people will be able to concentrate on making interesting music as opposed to learning the instrument.

"I also feel like it is somewhat easier to master electronic music production (I know that it's still hard but compare how much one knows after playing piano for 6 months with learning Ableton for 6 months). I think that this is awesome since people will be able to concentrate on making interesting music as opposed to learning the instrument." The thing is that Ableton isn't your instrument, it is just a way to arran…

Correct, but Ableton includes a bunch of instruments out of the box so when I said learning Ableton, I meant those as well. Furthermore, all the VSTs are not that conceptually different. Like yeah Massive and Sylenth1 are different but they still have an oscillator, envelope, LFO, filter and effects. And if you understand how synthesis works and know one well picking up the other is not that hard compared with say if you know how to play piano and want to learn to play the guitar.

For me, not having frequencies overlap falls under mastering which I consider to be kind of separate but related issue. If you wanted to be in a traditional (as in, a band with 'real' instruments), you'd still have to learn that to make your music sound good in addition to learning the instrument. And I still think that learning Ableton (+VSTs) is easier than learning to play a 'real' instrument. Minus maybe the bass guitar :-). It's definitely more fun which is why I might think that it's easier. But it is true that in electronic music, mastering is probably more important.

For anyone who's interested in this I can recommend this free book http://noisesculpture.com/how-to-make-a-noise-a-comprehensiv... (they ask for your email).

Re: Instrumachines and the Evolution of Electronic Music Performance

#46

Post by aphexpusher »

freshbreakfast wrote: post #32
tb303 wrote: post #30

Wait, this is saying that a genre that was created through instrumachines — people playing a bunch of old roland x0xes, then later the sp-12s/1200s, then later MPCs, live — will somehow be revolutionized by the newer forms of the same instrumachines? I think essentially the argument is that "laptops are not any fun to play live with" and really, that was just a short phase of electronic music. We all did that for a f…

I'm not saying the earlier gen synths, controllers and laptops are any less legit than newer gen stuff. I'm thinking strictly from the fan's perspective, the non-musician's perspective, the concert-goer's perspective. That is, how visually obvious is your live performance gifts from the floor? To a digital musician, it might sound reductive. But live performance is it's own beast.

Live performance is easily electronic music's biggest obstacle. A light show/projector is at the very least a needed default. Because a single man behind a controller/lappy is not that interesting.

Re: Instrumachines and the Evolution of Electronic Music Performance

#47

Post by stevenameyer »

mnicole wrote: post #40
stevenameyer wrote: post #29

There are big EDM artists that have really been pushing the envelop on what you can do in live performance for a while now. Deadmau5 specifically has a real obsession about trying to do everything live and it's obvious that this requires a large amount of musical and technical knowledge and talent. Here is a video with him talking about his live set set up from 2010 and is a really interesting watch: http://www.youtu…

I saw him play at Sasquatch in 2010 while walking back from the main stage not even intending to see his set (totally respect his talent and really enjoy the pieces he writes musically, but his genre just makes it unlistenable to me), and it was probably one of the most brilliant/memorable performances I've ever seen. I'm generally not impressed by random lighting setups because they're impersonal to the performance.…

He is uncompromising when it comes to the quality of his live shows. It's clear he cares a lot about them and is trying to master what he does. And wether or not you like his style of music I think that people need to respect that.

Re: Instrumachines and the Evolution of Electronic Music Performance

#48

Post by whiddershins »

The grandfather of this exploration is Moldover and for the purposes of this discussion ignore his current tendecy to involve an electric guitar in his sets ... a recent development.

http://moldover.com/

http://vimeo.com/moldover/live-at-future-everything-excerpts

He ended up designing and building his own controllers using arcade buttons.

Since this is hacker news I'll point out the whole investigation is largely a technology issue. Many studies have shown that expressiveness of great instrumentalists rests on incredibly small timing variations, which ARE NOT random. Because of latency and more especially jitter in the hardware/software interface true virtuosity is either very hard or impossible to develop using most currently available tools. What the actual acceptable level of machine induced random variations are is a much debated point. This is why I pushed Lippold Haken so hard to increase the sampling rate of the continuum fingerboard to its current sub-millisecond levels. The underlying technology of the madrona soundplane can be implemented at audio rate, which, by definition, should be fast enough to obviate this need.

Re: Instrumachines and the Evolution of Electronic Music Performance

#49

Post by freshbreakfast »

aphexpusher wrote: post #46
freshbreakfast wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying the earlier gen synths, controllers and laptops are any less legit than newer gen stuff. I'm thinking strictly from the fan's perspective, the non-musician's perspective, the concert-goer's perspective. That is, how visually obvious is your live performance gifts from the floor? To a digital musician, it might sound reductive. But live performance is it's own beast.

Live performance is easily electronic music's biggest obstacle. A light show/projector is at the very least a needed default. Because a single man behind a controller/lappy is not that interesting.

^^ this summarizes what I;m trying to say probably better than anything I actually wrote.

Re: Instrumachines and the Evolution of Electronic Music Performance

#50

Post by mnicole »

stevenameyer wrote: post #47
mnicole wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw him play at Sasquatch in 2010 while walking back from the main stage not even intending to see his set (totally respect his talent and really enjoy the pieces he writes musically, but his genre just makes it unlistenable to me), and it was probably one of the most brilliant/memorable performances I've ever seen. I'm generally not impressed by random lighting setups because they're impersonal to the performance.…

He is uncompromising when it comes to the quality of his live shows. It's clear he cares a lot about them and is trying to master what he does. And wether or not you like his style of music I think that people need to respect that.

Absolutely. I would highly recommend everyone go to one of his performances at least once in your life, even if you think you'll need to put some earplugs in. I was way in the back and at 5'2 I can hardly see through a crowd, but standing on my tip-toes for an extra hour was beyond worth it.
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