The Dissensus Hardcore Poll Is Now Open

B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Corpsey said:
You're right, but then the question is why DON'T they? I guess cos most people, justifiably enough, want things to sound as good as possible. I'm sure a lot of people see old skool hardcore as being 'lacking' in terms of sonics.
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Give someone a high-tech toy to use in the process of creating art, and it's arguably human nature that they will insist upon using it (maybe because people cleave towards being seen as 'professionals' and not clueless amateurs - could be a status thing?). But the opposite idea of restricting possibilities in order to create good art has been around for aeons in all fields.
 
S

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
Just letting everyone know I'm away with no internet for a couple of weeks.

If anything comes up, I'll respond when I get back.
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
baboon2004 said:
Give someone a high-tech toy to use in the process of creating art, and it's arguably human nature that they will insist upon using it (maybe because people cleave towards being seen as 'professionals' and not clueless amateurs - could be a status thing?). But the opposite idea of restricting possibilities in order to create good art has been around for aeons in all fields.
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I dunno, this still seems pat and reductionist to me. It's not enough just to have some producers getting carried away with the fact that they can now afford a Virus or a JV-1080 and a whole rack full of EQ and compression, you also need DJs to play their stuff and, ultimately, audiences to respond to it. You need a whole scene full of people saying "yeah, great tune mate, sounds brutal, really futuristic, so much better than all that cheesy breaks and samples shit that people used to do." You've got to have a massive contingent of people who actually prefer stuff this way.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
i dont entirely agree with you slothrop. yes you need an audience but to have a scene you need uniformity. you need a largish group of musicians making music that sounds exactly the same. djs dont have total freedom. they can only play whats there and whats there needs to be easily replicable by a large group of people.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
the fact is you can hear the grid and the grid is imposed by software. that's not a figment of anyone's imagination.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Slothrop said:
I dunno, this still seems pat and reductionist to me. It's not enough just to have some producers getting carried away with the fact that they can now afford a Virus or a JV-1080 and a whole rack full of EQ and compression, you also need DJs to play their stuff and, ultimately, audiences to respond to it. You need a whole scene full of people saying "yeah, great tune mate, sounds brutal, really futuristic, so much better than all that cheesy breaks and samples shit that people used to do." You've got to have a massive contingent of people who actually prefer stuff this way.
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Audiences tend to follow the lead of artists and DJs, sooner or later. You don't need a massive contingent of people who prefer stuff that way in the beginning, just a small hardcore who are evangelising about it. I think you're underestimating how much audiences are obsessed with music that sounds up to date and 'modern', but also that the process of turning from the 'old' to the 'new' is usually gradual. At a certain stage you get the tipping point where ardkore stopping sounding like the cutting edge to the majority of its audience, and that was directly connected to the new and innovative ways in which artists making jungle were using technology. eg once timestretching started being used extensively, helium vocals went out of fashion/seemed passe to many people.

(Presumably ardkore's point of least credibility coincided with the peak of popularity for 'serious' drum n bass. Then years afterwards it got 'rehabilitated')
 
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droid

droid

Well-known member
luka said:
the fact is you can hear the grid and the grid is imposed by software. that's not a figment of anyone's imagination.
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Technology had a lot to do with changes in the music, but 'the grid' is not the culprit. The vast majority of producers were using grids in Cubase 2.0 on the Atari ST and sequencing software has been (more or less) unchanged ever since.

 
droid

droid

Well-known member
The exception was the likes of Aphrodite who used tracker software on the Amiga - Octamed, which looked like this, but he was in the minority:

 
luka

luka

Well-known member
i just know that first time i saw playstation and then fruity software i was like, oh, thats why grime sounds thats way
 
droid

droid

Well-known member
So basically, the grid has been around since day one. Cubase 2.0 came out in 1990 There was never a mythical 'non-grid' era in UK dance music. If you had an atari or a mac you used cubase, if you had an amiga you used Octamed and the trackers lost the battle early.
 
droid

droid

Well-known member
Grime is 'griddy' because it was explicitly built around 8 bar loops... probably fairer to say its 'loopy'. Software had an influence, but the demands of MC's a much greater one.
 
droid

droid

Well-known member
Jungle went down the tubes because producers became obsessed with production rather than content, there is a feedback loop between DJ's, ravers, punters and producers, and, all things being equal, its easier to get a tune with 4 or 5 noises and one or 2 breaks sounding good than it is to get a tunes with 5 breaks and a dozen samples sounding good.

Things get simplified, speed increases a bit, rinse and repeat.

The essence of consolidation.
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
droid said:
Grime is 'griddy' because it was explicitly built around 8 bar loops... probably fairer to say its 'loopy'. Software had an influence, but the demands of MC's a much greater one.
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Also, I'm not that much of a grime scholar, but a lot of it seems to deliberately use short, clipped sounds and jerky stop-start rhythms to emphasize the griddyness of the sequencer. Presumably at least partly to make the tunes sound weird and alien next to the live keys and soulful vocals that were all over "proper" house and garage.

Again, the technology has an impact, but people have a choice of whether to work against the limitations of the technology or to make a virtue of them.
 
firefinga

firefinga

Well-known member
droid said:
Jungle went down the tubes because producers became obsessed with production rather than content, there is a feedback loop between DJ's, ravers, punters and producers, and, all things being equal, its easier to get a tune with 4 or 5 noises and one or 2 breaks sounding good than it is to get a tunes with 5 breaks and a dozen samples sounding good.

Things get simplified, speed increases a bit, rinse and repeat.

The essence of consolidation.
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Certain Blogs and Forums were discussing the reasons/explanations why mainstream DnB began to sound a certain way to great lengths between 2003 and 2007 and Droid condensed that quite well. Add to the given facts some of the original junglists got older and either left/changed their musical direction. The younger producers might indeed have had a narrower musical background.

Some of the prime movers wanted (or were forced to) stay in the scene/rave circus and followed the sure things rather than taking risks. By the time, sampling of cheesy/catchy melodies from sales-charts hits (as typical for uk Hardcore) became a risky business also.
 
droid

droid

Well-known member
firefinga said:
Certain Blogs and Forums were discussing the reasons/explanations why mainstream DnB began to sound a certain way to great lengths between 2003 and 2007 and Droid condensed that quite well. Add to the given facts some of the original junglists got older and either left/changed their musical direction. The younger producers might indeed have had a narrower musical background.

Some of the prime movers wanted (or were forced to) stay in the scene/rave circus and followed the sure things rather than taking risks. By the time, sampling of cheesy/catchy melodies from sales-charts hits (as typical for uk Hardcore) became a risky business also.
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Condensed is an understatement! Slothrop and myself participated in many of those discussions alongside many other disillusioned junglists and it is, of course, more complex, but as a brief guide to the role technology played I think its at least partially accurate.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I suppose arguably DNB adapted with MCs in mind too. By the late 90s a lot of tunes were essentially as loopy as hip hop beats, and perfect for Skiba Shabba et al to bibbidy bibbidy over.

Also you can't underestimate the appeal of faster, straighter beats to ravers. A lot of people love that continuous flow of 2+4 snare beats. It's 170bpm techno with more bass.

I think the beats got faster and faster to outmatch the ravers' tolerance for fast beats, the basslines got gnarlier and gnarlier, the MCs got shoutier, the DJs double dropped tunes, triple dropped tunes, teased tunes in, mixed with three decks, etc. And LO! PENDULUM!
 
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