On Wednesday 21 December 2005 12:32, John Anderson wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-12-21 at 11:01 -0500, Greg Wilder wrote:
> > Generally speaking, the majority of commercially available music software
> > is designed for the quick and easy production of popular music. By
> > definition this means that the software is created in such a way that
> > important musical decisions have been pre-made for the user. Most of the
> > time, the user isn't even aware that this is happening - if the option is
> > never presented to you how can you miss it?
>
> I'm curious about this. What kind of musical decisions are pre-made by
> commercial software for the user?
John,
Generally speaking, most commercially available software is designed to do a
few specific tasks quickly and easily.
For example, using a software sampler I can dial up a flute patch and create a
beautiful (and possibly quite believable) flute passage, but what if I wanted
the flute line to morph into an oboe and then into a baby's laughter. I
would most likely need to look outside the typical set of commercially
available tools for that kind of power.
In other words, if the sampler doesn't have a "morph" button, then it has
removed a potentially valuable musical option. If I'm limited to the options
presented by commercially available software packages, then I may never know
the potential value of a tool like granular synthesis.
Applications like csound and PD don't inherently force this sort of
limitation. Not only are they designed for maximum choice availability, but
users can extend these applications to meet their specific needs.
Of course, most music created for commercial purposes does not require these
options - which is why the apps generally don't offer them.
Best,
Greg
www.steeprockmedia.com
Received on Thu Dec 22 00:15:07 2005
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