Alcofribas

what i'm focused on here is spiral's claim, with which you agreed, that getting into modular/hardware is "the death of creativity." i mean, i think it's really obvious that people make extremely beautiful and creative music with hardware so i don't think that claim has any merit whatsoever. sure, there are people who get walls of modular and make absolutely shit music but this is infinitely more true for people making music with their computers. i'd like to talk a bit about this idea that "all you need" is a computer and a daw and max or something like that. obviously, that's a powerful set up and if that's what you specifically are into that's lush and i don't wish to criticize that for you. there's something quite attractive about that to me, even. but i think generally speaking the computer makes us talk like this. it makes us think we need it, and it is all we need. it's both the bare minimum and the maximum. people always refer to their computer and smartphone as something they need. it's as though you're cut out of life itself without this bare minimum of a few thousand dollars of devices (and you absolutely will have to continue to spend lots of money on these over time). and there is a kind of hostility here toward other ways of doing things. it makes us think in terms of "i don't need to do something else if i can do it on my computer with ease." i think, for one thing, if we are talking about creativity this attitude is a form of laziness. since when is music making all about doing what is easiest? doing things the "hard way" is often very rewarding work. i don't use modular gear but i can imagine there is a special kind of joy in patching something up. the way it inherently makes you slow down could really help put you into a nice state for opening yourself up to music. the way you can just patch randomly and find totally unexpected sounds could really create some amazing surprises and bring the music in for you. all the tactile sensations happening, the colors, maybe even odors involved, all these can talk to your imagination. so to me it's unintuitive to say that it's "annoying" to do this or the "death of creativity" when you could more "easily" do this on a computer. especially since the computer is almost all visual, and since we use it for so many things it lacks the kind of specificity of instruments. i also think that this insistence on how the computer can replace everything overestimates the "ease" this technology brings to our lives. there are many angles to criticize this. for instance, specifically i think typing on a text screen is legit rubbish technology; imo autocorrect isn't correcting your mistakes it's correcting for a bad interface that makes you use your thumbs to press a visual cue the size of an apple seed on a flat piece of glass. is it truly easier to use a mouse to change a value than using a knob? is it easier to open up a softsynth than to have an actual synth in front of you? i think this stuff adds up, especially when you see how this technology encroaches on our lives so insidiously - everything must be done with the computer. so i think when we evaluate "ease" we would also want to take into account the accumulative effect of mediating so much in our life with one single technology. there's a lot of burn out here, depression, fatigue, just from constantly staring at a flat screen alone. earlier spiral directed his ire at the #analog and what is that? it's a computer phenomenon! even when you are using analog or going dawless you are compelled to represent it on social media. it's not real until it's online and be can scrolled through on a phone. so i see this tendency to regard computers as this fundamental necessity in our lives that we basically never question. we might even have an ironic stance toward them - lots of memes for instance about phone addiction, binging on social media, stuff like that - but we never part ways with it. and with this is an antagonism to other technologies, other approaches to doing things a computer supposedly can do. and it's this kind of thing that i'm aiming my sights on. obviously, computers are an awesome technology (i am typing on one presently) and not only do i not hate computer music but i actually love what it can do (the autechre brothers are divine entities imo). but i very much encourage efforts to shut off the screen and do things "the hard way." not for you, specifically of course. but generally speaking.

For sure. But it def has cool moments

*eyes emoji* Naqoyqatsi has a whole crash test dummies segment with dummies crashing in slow motion

also just want to make a comment on the idea that hardware is a huge pain to maintain. this may be true but i believe it is overstated. i also believe that it is another instance where people are not being realistic about computers. i have, for instance, several pieces of gear in my studio that are 30+ years old. some even more. some of these have never been worked on at all. they can be wonky and not work properly, but to me this is ok. that's life. and sometimes when things don't work, that's actually interesting and makes you try things differently. however, some of these work more or less exactly as intended after several decades. the ones i have had serviced basically are good as new and the cost of doing this was a totally reasonable investment imo. on the other hand, my computer is always being annoying as fuck. it does weird shit all the time. there is almost no chance whatsoever a computer will last as long as my old synths or outboard gear. and once it's done, it's just completely fucking done. i have an emagic amt8 i've had since 2002 i think. it's worked flawlessly the entire time i had it. however, somehow my mac updated its OS (even though i have auto-updates turned off...hmmm...cool!) and now the amt8 needs to be powered on and off multiple times before the computer decides to recognize it. this is bc of a software "update." computers are constantly moving toward obsolecsence. they can render your studio less and less useful and unlike an old synth it's pretty unlikely you can open up a mac and do anything about this. there are plenty of proprietary formats that are basically unusable now, whereas all the cassettes i've recorded on since the 90s are perfectly useable. this is all to say that if we want to really understand this issue we would have to look at what the computer is actually doing and not always take it for granted that it's the flawless machine that houses the holy spirit of software

this is an interesting reply, thank you. there are a couple of things here. i definitely agree that there is a kind of "car guy"/ "hardware guy" thing out there. no denying it. probably like 80% of gearspace is this guy. i also think that there is a definite trend on social media to valorize hardware and "dawless" or whatever. but i think even here we are running into some difficulties parsing out the boundaries here. i think you are describing niche phenomena, whereas almost definitely the vast majority of music being made (in the "west" perhaps) is computer music. i think a trend on social media is a real thing, but social media is already also part of this problem i see, where more and more every facet of our lives is being mediated by one single technology: a computer, a touch scree, a mouse, a keyboard. so the way we make music is the same as the way we write a resume, consume news and political events, hail a cab, mediate our love lives. this, to me, is extraordinarily far from a "blank sheet of paper;" it's indeed an ever-encompassing environment where we live more and more of our lives. i would even push back against this idea of a blank slate. not because it's an invalid way to approach making art (it isn't) but because it's a very specific idea about what creativity means. personally, i'm not interested in blank slates. i like to tinker, to mess about, to play. and one plays with what's at hand. with hardware, this activity is literal, physical. to me, it's the play that leads to the freedom, not some sense of a completely blank slate where you can do anything. i like hardware bc it's so different from the world we live in now. the computer is a chore, a mesmerizing piece of glass shining light on my face beckoning me to more more more. i can operate the majority of things in my studio with my eyes closed. many things have big knobs and switches and buttons i can press without even having to "think" really. with a computer i am always looking. i'm beholden to the screen. everything is there. click click click click. i think the computer is an inelegant interface. the touchscreen, the mouse, the keyboard - i genuinely believe these don't hold a candle to throwing a slider or ever so gently tweaking a knob. i am by no means saying making computer music is bad or anything like that. but i do think there is a real "fish will be the last to know water" thing going on here.

this is available as a google chrome extension

i would argue that a computer and software qualify as "gear" and are the main equipment used to make music in the 21st century. i personally think this is a kind of "gear lust." something like the notion that you can "do more," everything is "more efficient" or whatever with a computer is the dominant ideology of music-making in our time. to me, characterizing having an interest in non-computer technology as a kind of corrupting "gear lust" is really ignoring how beholden we are to computers. this is a something of a bugbear of mine, not meant with hostility toward you

lmao i love when he cracks himself up it always gets me

i'm keeping my eye on people here calling stuff "weird" this is concerning

i need this post as an actual poster i can frame and hang in my living room

exactly

brother, we all know you like this bc kanye is on it be serious

i do think the irony here is that you two are in hyper granpa mode with this one valorizing a trap album that is filled to the brim with nothing but genre conventions as indicative of what is "weird in hip-hop" is absolutely bed pan levels of the octogenarian

lol. lmao. this record debuted at number 1 on the billboard 200 and has received superlative judgement in mainstream press. this is a factual observation, not a cliche. I know you’re aware of this. i just think it’s cringe to portray the fact that this didn’t get a lot of hype on watmm as an indication that it’s too “weird” for the olds. it’s a mainstream hip hop album. there’s absolutely nothing innovative about it, it’s 808 samples playing some of the most done to death beats in an extremely tired genre with very mid rapping. take a listen to 5 seconds of the ae live shit that just got released and then tell me playboi cardi is too weird for watmm. come on man. I absolutely do not care if music is mainstream, I love plenty of mainstream shit and I don’t begrudge anybody for liking popular music at all. I’m pushing back against the implication that people on this forum are too closed-minded to appreciate something like this, bc frankly this is very simplistic music that is quite easy to ignore among the mass of music that it sounds identical to. this shit is the sound coming out of every single smartphone or car speaker in the last decade. it’s also played (literally in the case of carti) in hip restaurants with hard to pronounce asian names. which I know bc I work in the same building as one of these lol

don’t be daft m9 like what you like, I’m just pushing back at a common kind of music snobbery where people claim that others are too old or closed minded to understand the music you like…especially if it’s an extremely mainstream hip hop album with (imo) very tired lyrics and played out trap beats that are like a decade past their prime.

the album is basically entirely composed of cliche, is massively popular, and has received acclaim by basically every mainstream outlet. watmm isn't advanced enough to get this legit weird masterpiece...ok man

this was a bit annoying bc martyn just never stfu and i feel like jack never really gets a chance to open up. but it's cool to hear two legends chatting and some nice tidbits. i don't think i knew there were originally 7 mbm tunes in the matrix, that's wild!

Oh wow cool this is unexpected. The first one is one of the best records on line imo

so far i've listened through Helsinki and London B twice. these are fucking incredible what the fuck. sometimes the London goes into Coil territory for me - BLD and WTG in particular - in terms of some of the crusty metallic tones and just the unsettling but chill vibe.

yeah, I find these very soft and textural in a really new way for ae. it’s very…frothy and lush

aye brother. to me this section really shows ae in master mode, some truly gorgeous craftsmanship here.

sean walks across the stage to the table. applause. rob follows behind. again, applause (maybe this is continued applause, the crowd applauds this whole time for both brothers equally). the laptops are ready. sean presses the space bar and both screens light up. the system is activated. the rig is running. not much can be seen on stage, just the glow of two faces. british. but not "chavs." rob is drinking stella and soon is throwing up into a water bottle. sean is agitated as he had just been wrestling off stage. the beats are skipping all around. formant synthesis. the kick sounds like it has a .0000000001 millisecond delay on it which gives it that classic "ae sound." it kinda sounds like metal tubes are falling down a stairwell. occasionally the crowd hears liquid tones, more organic. rob seems to be doing not much at all but then we get a signature ae pad for approximately 80 seconds. there's so much emotion in this pad the crowd seems to be tearing up. i imagine myself in the crowd. the pad evokes memories of my grandma, a beach where the water meets the horizon at an ambiguous point, various blurred memories. i am disgruntled bc this feels too "boc." what's next, a sesame street sample? the sound of a child's laughter. sean seems to detect my exact feeling bc he presses a series of keys (i'm thinking F > Return > 5 > ^ > Return) and the beat becomes completely "fucked" and probably around 400bpm. everything is so fast it sounds like a ferrari (aka "lambo") going top speed underwater. there's a surreal atmosphere. i believe this is reverb. these guys must be using custom fx. the reverb makes it sound like there is a separate ae concert happening in the distance somewhere. you can't quite hear it but it's there, like a barely perceptible memory trying to break through. sean gets mad bc he hears someone in the audience saying "this is generative" so the set is cut short. rob seems confused and keeps typing on the keyboard. but sean has powered down the system. nothing can be heard. the lights turn back on. everyone looks around kinda like "woah wild mental wtf." the crowd shuffles out. rob is still clacking away at the keyboard. one wonders if he's trying to boot up the rig or if he's typing to his family back in the "uk."

autechre - the sets 2022 by the brothers. you can tell they're using their "rig" or "the system" for these live sessions. very computer. max. msp. kenton controllers. mackie mixer. live.

lots of Excellent Pads on this album ofc: https://artofvengeance.bandcamp.com/track/ottil