Hmm, subjectivity... Hadn't thought of that

Joking aside, I totally agree that whatever aspects of music that we can measure scientifically fail to say anything about music's quality.

Let's say, hypothetically ( ) that those findings about loudness, timbral diversity and harmonic complexity are true.

Who is to say that those changes aren't making music better ?

Music is louder? Well, maybe that's the way it was always meant to be, we just didn't know how to do it proficiently.

Timbral diversity is lower? Maybe too much timbral diversity was just a byproduct of musicians being on drugs? Maybe there's a correlation between less timbral diversity and less lyrics with psychedelic imagery of wizards and elves fornicating on clouds of pink mushrooms??

Harmonic complexity is giving way for simpler chord progressions? Maybe all those chords, modulations etc. songwriters used to scram in 3 minutes were just a cover up for their inability to convey just as much emotions with a single chord?
Maybe the ultimate music is just a drone. Eternally resonating, a direct link to God, the one note that has always been and will always be.
Maybe everything about Western harmony is just a distraction from the Truth. Maybe it's just another futile attempt of Man trying to kill God.



I'm joking, of course.
But I'm also serious.

Each of those criteria are completely arbitrary, and to me they sound like just another way of pseudo-elites patting themselves on the back for seeing what we, the common people, the lower classes, the idiot masses, cannot see.
Not.

(btw, don't wanna open another can of worms, but just saying, similar arbitrary criteria were used to compare Western Classical music (you know, REAL music) with Rest of the World music, to conclude that they were all simpler, less sophisticated, and thus the people who made them were also less evolved than white folk).

Ok, I promise this is my last off-topic post on this thread.

So here's to Neurontape 1972, a plugin that looks very beautiful .
I almost exclusively mix with my eyes (literally, I use earplugs when I mix) so that's a huge plus for me.

 

Last edited: Aug 15, 2023

Yeah I know that analogy was a bit unfair to good ole Karlheinz
Was gonna say something like "Bob Moog and Don Buchla's illegitimate child after an acid fueled sex frenzy on the roof of IRCAM" but not only it's way too long as a sentence, there are several historical and biological inaccuracies with that statement.
So I went with my main man Stockhy because he was the first musician I discovered that made me realize "ok so timbre is music".

But yeah, I wish there was a plugin that made it possible to sound like him. Imagine how many marriages that would break LOL.

And while it's true that much hasn't changed in the basic structures of synths, the importance of the evolution of computational power cannot be understated. I can get a MicroFreak for around 250 bucks today, and it packs more power than Kraftwerk's entire studio. I can build a granular synth in 10 minutes using VCV Rack that'll be a million times more powerful than anything Xenakis did in his entire lifetime combined. Unfiltered Audio's Sandman Pro makes Varese sound like a choir boy, even if you don't know how to use it
And physical modeling has gotten so good (and will continue to get even better with exponential speed) that in the next decade, along with additive synthesis and AI driven FFT, sampling will become entirely obsolete -I'm talking about sampling real instruments for realism, not artistic and creative sampling.

But we'll still be seeing posts like "HOW CAN I GET THE SYNTH SOUND LIKE SKRILMAU5??!" and the answer will be "It's a wavetable synth with lfo modulation and several thousand OTTs between each bit of information dude". Or maybe people will stop asking on forums and just use ChatGPT-2000. Ah well.

 

Although I didn't view it as such at the time, it was a similar experience for me. I guess I was already switched on to aspects of timbrality via some Psychedelic, Krautrock and the Berlin scene but it was during an actual school music lesson that I first heard "Kontakte". The music teacher had brought in a selection of classical music and I guess was attempting to convey the variety that could be present in the genre(s) and convince pupils they would like it if only they gave it a chance. I'm certain it fell 110% on deaf ears with the other pupils but my ears immediately opened up to it and was transfixed. I spoke with the teacher after the lesson and somehow I ended up borrowing the album off her. I'll give my sincere apologies, and thanks, to the music teacher here; she never got the vinyl back and I still have it to this day.

They're incredible devices aren't they. I only wish they were in a better box..

I said similar in another thread regarding amp/cab modelling. A time will come where conventional sampling is old school (vintage ). Physical modelling is definitely where it's at now with certain instruments - Pianoteq, SWAM, MODO (though I still prefer sampled bass' and shock horror, a real bass guitar). Plus let's face it, FM has been around for a while now and that has always been more than capable of creating convincing "objects".

 

You know what makes me feel super uncomfortable?

When someone signs a message with "warm regards".

I feel like they are trying to put a blanket on me and I don't want it.

 

Lol, I was in high school when an older friend (who was studying music) turned me on to Stockhausen, Penderecki, Varese, Ligeti etc. I loved psych rock (Syd's Pink Floyd, Hendrix), prog rock/metal, experimental bands like Radiohead, Ozric Tentacles and so on, but never listened to them with an analytical ear. Only after Stockhausen and co. completely scrambled my preconceived notions about what music is that I started to hear things differently (once you hear Penderecki and Ligeti's influence on Radiohead you can't unhear it lol).


I didn't realize the impact it had on me at the time, but when I was in college and started to partake in drugs and improvisation, I instinctively went to noise/atonality/timbral experiments. I also discovered the Grateful Dead, which was probably one of the five most important things that ever happened to me ever. I loved their songs of course, but it was the spacey improvs that transformed my soul. Here was a band that wasn't shy of using feedback for ten minutes as a musical device (incidentally their bassist Phil Lesh studied under Luciano Berio).


Everything about my musical identity is built upon those bases of "non-musical music". That is not to say I reject anything melodic of course (I'm a huge pop fan too) but the path I took led me to conclude EVERYTHING (read : God) is music lol.

And I think Revolution 9 is one of the greatest Beatles songs

I actually like the layout, I would only change two things : a bigger matrix, and an option that prevents false notes (you know, when you press one but the side of your finger presses the adjacent key) from being played based on a velocity/contact area comparison -if one key has, let's say, more than 35% of the velocity and contact area than the next key being pressed, the second one is muted lol.

If you haven't already, I highly recommend you check out Benn Jordan's (aka The Flashbulb) youtube channel. He goes deep into this stuff (among many other, fascinating subjects). Easily the best music channel on the internet IMO.