Music software = bad

[tatarsky]

I've heard this argument from alot of people who, funnily enough, were making music before the software revolution and who, I think, begrudge their now non-mythical status as magis of sound, and Eno is just an arse, an arse who can make 77 million paintings and not one good one out of the lot. The sooner he kills himself the better.

Yes, it is slightly rich of Eno to bang on about the importance of ideas, when he himself has just recycled the same one for twenty years.

'Yes Brian, i see what you've done here - it can go on forever and never repeat - how exciting! That's just dandy. I've just got one problem though, and you'll have to forgive me for obviously failing to recognise your genius here, but it would seem that right now, it appears to be really fucking boring'.

 

[Slothrop]

I've heard this argument from alot of people who, funnily enough, were making music before the software revolution and who, I think, begrudge their now non-mythical status as magis of sound, and Eno is just an arse, an arse who can make 77 million paintings and not one good one out of the lot. The sooner he kills himself the better.

He seems to me to have turned into a classic case of the progressive side of Reynolds' progressive / hardcore dichotomy. He's forever (or at least, whenever I hear him) harping on about how he doesn't like to use computers in the studio because they kill the vibe / don't give him a positive experience of making music and how using computers takes away a lot of the artistry and exploration of making music and how sequencers constrict you to a rhythmic grid and don't let you have elements getting out of time with each other and so on. But while he was messing about patching together bits of funk, dub studio trickery and world music with real musicianship and respected collaborators and interesting ideas, the kids with computers were coming up with jungle.

That said, he's got some interesting ideas (I mean, at the worst he makes you think about why you disagree with him) and has made some cracking music over the years...

 

[tatarsky]

I honestly can't tell the difference between ProTools, Logic, Nuendo or Sonar, but there are a lot of experts that claim that there are distinct differences in the summing - I don't think they are full of it.

But if you can't tell the difference, why does it matter?

 

[Precious Cuts]

But if you can't tell the difference, why does it matter?

It doesn't matter to me at all. I would use any program out of PT, Logic , sonar or Nuendo/Cubase because they all sound good. I only pointed it out to disprove slothrops argument that all DAWs have the exact same summing characteristics, which is something I don't think I've seen asserted anywhere.

also, my ears are shit in the grand scheme of things. I went to a lot of loud raves. professional engineers have protected and trained their ears for years to pick out minute sounds. they simply have better ears - that's why you pay them to master recordings

 

[Precious Cuts]

My point is that if you can't do something that at least catches peoples' attention in something like Reason (fuck it, even with music 2000 on the Playstation one) no matter how inferior you think those programs are, then having a huge rack of modular synths and vintage gear or the latest top-spec software isn't going to do you much good either. Anyone with ideas and talent is going to be able to bend and work within the limitations of their gear to do something good. They might not be able to exactly recreate the sound in their head, but some spark of talent will shine through.

It's just an excuse isn't it? "Well, I am a genius, I just haven't got the latest gear in this month's Future Music yet."

True. I think the chances of making bad or good music are equal regardless of what gear you use. I'd rather make good music on good gear than good music on bad gear though. The way I see it theres nothing to lose by using good gear. It doesn't mean you have to wank around, and if you actually make something good, it will sound banging.

 

[swears]

...That said, he's got some interesting ideas (I mean, at the worst he makes you think about why you disagree with him) and has made some cracking music over the years...

He was ahead of his time of course, it's just that everybody else caught up (and even in some cases surpassed him) years ago. We need more ideas-driven people like him in popular music now.

 

[Slothrop]

wave cancellation is a notoriously deficient indicator of when two things actually sound the same.. example: the Waves SSL 4000 plugs.. ultra-high wave cancellation between the original and the plugins that should mean exact same sound, but there are clear differences in sound (according to basically everyone in the world).

Wave cancellation is a bad indicator in the same way that ABX is a bad way of testing whether there's a difference between £5000 a metre speaker cables and the regular variety, or double blinded placebo controlled tests are a bad way of checking whether a homeopathic preparation is more effective than tapwater. We're into the realm of audiophile voodoo.

If two waves cancel, they are the same. If two waves cancel to less than about -110dB then they will sound the same unless you crank it up until you're in physical pain. So if a waves plugin and an appropriately set up other plugin produce sounds which when rendered to wave files cancel to less than -110dB, then those wave files will sound identical. And unless somethings wrong with your rendering, this is because the plugins sound identical.

Certainly there are differences in sound between Waves and other plugins, but when the plugins are producing different sounds, the waves won't cancel.

 

[Precious Cuts]

Wave cancellation is a bad indicator in the same way that ABX is a bad way of testing whether there's a difference between £5000 a metre speaker cables and the regular variety, or double blinded placebo controlled tests are a bad way of checking whether a homeopathic preparation is more effective than tapwater. We're into the realm of audiophile voodoo.

If two waves cancel, they are the same. If two waves cancel to less than about -110dB then they will sound the same unless you crank it up until you're in physical pain. So if a waves plugin and an appropriately set up other plugin produce sounds which when rendered to wave files cancel to less than -110dB, then those wave files will sound identical. And unless somethings wrong with your rendering, this is because the plugins sound identical.

Certainly there are differences in sound between Waves and other plugins, but when the plugins are producing different sounds, the waves won't cancel.

I'm talking about the Waves SSL 4000 plugins vs. the $500,000 SSL 4000 analogue console.

In all the wave cancellation tests you might notice that nothing ever reaches absolute cancellation. They reach down to a certain number of negative dB, but don't absolutely cancel. That's because there are different. The waves plugins only acheive -35dB cancellation and that is a lot.

Eric Persing on wave cancellation:
"I'm all for tests and empirical data, etc, but IMHO, we are nowhere near the ability to
measure such differences in sound quality with something as simple as a
phase reversal test. The best tools we have today, are still very one dimensional.....I'm sure it
will get better and better in the future. I remember having this same old argument with my
high-school electronics teacher, who said that since our measurements of the sawtooth
wave of the Moog and the Arp sawtooth looked the same on our cheap oscilloscope, there was
obviously no difference in the sound! (Sounds pretty silly now right...well, at the timethat was the best measurement we had). "Empirical" data will always only tell part of the story"

 

[Slothrop]

I'm talking about the Waves SSL 4000 plugins vs. the $500,000 SSL 4000 analogue console.

In all the wave cancellation tests you might notice that nothing ever reaches absolute cancellation. They reach down to a certain number of negative dB, but don't absolutely cancel. That's because there are different. The waves plugins only acheive -35dB cancellation and that is a lot.

In that case they don't cancel, so yes, they do sound different. But this doesn't really prove anything. For DAW's, the information that is captured by the rendering is precisely the information that goes to your DAC's, so if the rendered waves have negligable difference, the sound from the DAW's has negligable difference.

Every time I've seen this tested, provided people have avoided traps like clipping, freerunning oscillators in plugins, differences of panning law and so forth, the results have cancelled to zero. And pretty much every time this comes up on an audio forum the response tends to be along the lines of 'not this shit again.'

 

[Precious Cuts]

In that case they don't cancel, so yes, they do sound different. But this doesn't really prove anything. For DAW's, the information that is captured by the rendering is precisely the information that goes to your DAC's, so if the rendered waves have negligable difference, the sound from the DAW's has negligable difference.

Every time I've seen this tested, provided people have avoided traps like clipping, freerunning oscillators in plugins, differences of panning law and so forth, the results have cancelled to zero. And pretty much every time this comes up on an audio forum the response tends to be along the lines of 'not this shit again.'

If you are processing more that one single sound in DAW, then the information you will be testing is not how one sound is processed but how multiple sounds are added together. the daw takes two files of information coming from the DACs (which would be the same in any program) and combines them into a single summed file. To my knowledge every DAW uses a different set of algorhythms to carry this out. It follows that they will have a unique sound.

 

[bassnation]

In terms of democratization, Im all for it, even if it means more garbage music on the whole. I just don't like recordings that sound like shit.

not specifically referring to software, but i love a lot of music that was recorded on ghetto (but admittedly mostly analog) setups - dancemania house for example. raw and shitty production but give me that over polished & shiny any day.

abletons compression is pretty shite, its true. particularly the time-stretching if you use the warp facility. but its easily good enough for mixing and prototyping of ideas (something that cubase, for instance, does really badly imo). ideally its good to use it in combination with a more heavy-weight sequencer. apparently r6, just out, is a massive improvement but i'll believe that when i hear it.

most of the software-only musicians i know (and these are people who run labels and have more than a few releases under their belts) take mastering very seriously. its a black art though and not an easy a skill to pick up. even so, its still possible to hook up with a sound engineer to get this done.

 

[swears]

This is all getting a bit techy....my basic point in making this thread is that musicians should be trying to strive for the essential. If you can realize that with a toy keyboard and a dictaphone, then so be it.

 

[borderpolice]

He's right. Have you heard a moog in action?

i sold my moog prodigy and my korg MS-20, as soon as i had the money to buy logic pro and a powerbook. one of the best decisions of my life. DAWs are so much more powerful as musical instruments. sure, individually, a prodigy can sound beautifully, but in good music, the individual voice is not as important as how that various sounds ... harmonise ... with each other. and DAWs give you some many more options, while at the same time taking the painful bits away.

Music software = good.

 

[swears]

Hmmmm....title of this thread should have been "Music Software = bad?"

 

[Precious Cuts]

i sold my moog prodigy and my korg MS-20, as soon as i had the money to buy logic pro and a powerbook. one of the best decisions of my life. DAWs are so much more powerful as musical instruments. sure, individually, a prodigy can sound beautifully, but in good music, the individual voice is not as important as how that various sounds ... harmonise ... with each other. and DAWs give you some many more options, while at the same time taking the painful bits away.

Music software = good.

For sure. I'm not trying to say music software is bad. If you're limited by money to get just hardware or just software, then software is obviously the way to go. I like a combination of both, usually hardware for the bass and drums; software for sequencing, mixing, eqing, compression and virtual instruments. At the end of the day the best bass plugin I've heard (trilogy) doesn't sound as deep and full as a moog or SE1 so I'd rather have the hardware to take care of basses. hardware integrates really easily with DAWs so it's not like you can't have both.

 

[MankyFiver]

if i could come at it from a slightly different musical angle, namely the noise scene (dont groan) the 90's suddenly had the rise of the laptops and the subsequent software, which im totally ignorant about (software) and it did have that wonderful power of force and then recently you have had that retreat to an "analogue", hand worked noise thing obviously exemplified by wof eyes and the sort. So it seems to be just a move as always against the prevalent sound

so software seemed to have/has this idea that you need to really know it to make a noise
circles

but im actually listening to macho - im a man at the mo and if only wolf eyes et al could make me slither like this then id have their poster on the wall

 

[mistersloane]

but im actually listening to macho - im a man at the mo and if only wolf eyes et al could make me slither like this then id have their poster on the wall

I don't suppose you can up that can you? I'd kill to hear the 17 minute version.

 

[MankyFiver]

even though it just repeats the first seven minutes you still have to lay down for the horns

 

[MankyFiver]

I don't suppose you can up that can you? I'd kill to hear the 17 minute version.

sorry i aint got the tech at the moment, pc etc went rub
brother round at weekend so if you can wait you too can have a hairy chest

if only i could work out how to put up the image you would be a fag

 

[mistersloane]

sorry i aint got the tech at the moment, pc etc went rub
brother round at weekend so if you can wait you too can have a hairy chest

if only i could work out how to put up the image you would be a fag

all of the above please!

Go to www.photobucket.com
register
click on upload
copy the IMG tag into here and

People might not believe it but deep inside me there's a 6 foot hirsute bisexual Harley rider just screaming to get out