Re: [LAD] A small article about tools for electronic musicians

Hi Louigi :)

> Hey Ralf!
>
> Thanks a lot for your feedback, it is very valuable.
>
> I am writing dub and ambient music, as can be seen from my site. For 7
> months I tried to do music the Linux way, having no more possibility
> to use Windows. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, it did not
> work. Perhaps, you did not work in electronic genres - they are very
> different from hardrock and jazz in exactly the way I described in the
> article. In electronic music you have to use lots of effects,
> especially in ambient. If you want to seriously transform sound, a
> LADSPA chorus and LADSPA flanger will not work - unfortunately. And I
> tried a lot. It is not a matter of audio engineering - effects in
> electronic music help you to construct sound, it is not a matter of
> mastering. By effects that "construct" sound I mean filter sweeps and
> vocoders and phasers and filter sequencers and such stuff. So perhaps
> you just misunderstood me.

No, I do understand you. Btw. are you able to mix dub bass sounds by
using Linux? And if so, please give me some hints. I don't care much
about the quality of chorus and flangers, but a lot regarding to the
quality of EQs, especially when mixing basses for dub.

> In fact, this is very important. I know that many people in Linux
> Audio do not know very well electronic music that is strictly sound
> manipulation rather than putting together notes, since, as I've stated
> in the article, my observations show that atm most people on linux are
> the "acoustic" type. This is a generalization that may be incorrect, I
> am not holding to it, but I doubt I am mistaken.

You are mistaken I'm an "acoustic" type, but I'm also an "electronic"
type and there were a lot of people asking for the same as you do. Most
developers ignore our needs regarding to "electronic" music. Anyway, a
lot of "electronic" musicians are mistaken regarding to the usage of FX.
An example, you don't need any compressor, if you know how to use EQs.

> As for hardware, I did not understand what you are trying to say. 19"
> rack equipment was more expensive? Okay. Maybe. But it doesn't take
> away the fact that buying hardware is expensive. And "cheap" synths
> back in the days were rare. In the 90s the amount of cheap affordable
> synths has increased. Also, cheap in terms of music hardware is still
> pretty expensive, to be honest.

You can use MIDIfied Casio home organs, a second hand Roland MT-32 or
Yamaha FB-01 etc., just having one expensive synth could be enough,
because most sounds needs to be decent for the backing.

> But this is really not the point. I know for a fact that many popular
> electronic musicians of the 90s have used a limited amount of hardware
> per studio. It is bewildering to a modern composer who uses 12 various
> soft synths in one production that Squarepusher used TB-303, a
> drummachine and one more micro synth for his first two albums.

I'm 43 years old now and started as an professional video and audio
engineer at the age of 16 at the university of Essen, so when I started
making music some years before, it was the time when MIDI was introduced
to the market.

Today there aren't any virtual synth and FX that use algorithms that are
able to hold a candle to this old hardware synth and FX. A good
calibrated 4-track recorder with a frequency response around 40Hz to
14KHz nearly does reach the sound quality of modern hard disk recorders
and for some aspects the sound is better even for a 4-track analog
recorder, not to mention better analog equipment.

You can't compare this to ways of doing music productions.

+2 cents,
Ralf
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Received on Wed Apr 28 16:15:03 2010