anybody want to start a topic about music production feels or philosophy rather than tech

[Entorwellian]

 

 

youtube tutotials on how to IDM

 

yeah could never do it, sometimes I listened to BLOK videos on youtube to see what other people have done and I don't think there are any proper tutorials anyway. Maybe you guys detect an element in my music, of never properly learned to make some kind of HEAVY ASS bassline, possibly out of that fear, that I would only know how to make the specific bassline in the tutorial kind of thing/situation? Sometimes I have made some really good, psuedo drum break sort of noise generator stuff, but I swear I've gone backward at times because I was never gonna write notes to self even on how I achieved the weird psuedo break. If we could get total amnesia on how to music with each and every new song would human creativity advance 4000000 years, lol

 

I dunno if youtube is the final boss of the internet you're making it out to be but I was never one of the tutorial guys either. I just like the fucking around type videos (I mean dumb humor not fucking around with synths)

 

I'm worried I could get self-indulgent by saying this, but I hope I've kept the spirit of idumz alive in some way. Keep the mystery in it I hope, just releases random stuff intermittently on bandcamp, mostly chronological but any given album could be from a completely arbitrary time period, arcane time signatures at times but no fan forum to document that stuff. There was a rumor one time that DJ Saint-Hubert was actually a collective of different artists, and it just became a rumor without any effort on my part/propagandizing. In some ways, for people to think I'm actually a collective is like the BEST COMPLIMENT EVER lol

 

ughhh I have one of those halfway good sony voice recorders but I don't know where it is. Fuck algorithms for now, weird inhuman samples/abusing the right to sample things as the true spirit of IDM lol

 

Edit: my last album, compilation of old stuff but definitely curated to some extent, stuff I wanted to put out there that somehow never got properly released. Classic IDM technique, pretending to release material casually but actually being highly curated, see portreath harbour. I dunno if the u-ziq lost albums are as curated as he makes them out to be, though

 

You are literally the most IDM person on here. After hearing your albums and seeing your programs I don't think anyone is going to challenge you at this point. :)

[Ragnar]

 

You are literally the most IDM person on here. After hearing your albums and seeing your programs I don't think anyone is going to challenge you at this point. :)

 

lol thanks, I think it should be more democratic what makes something 'idm' but thank you I guess

[Entorwellian]

It's a good topic. I wish there were more people participating.

 

As for track titles, usually its a play on words, a clue to how I made the track or a pun because what else can you call a track with no lyrics really? "Bleeps_from_2002_01_30_0407AM.wav"

 

Almost all of my tracknames have double or triple meanings because it's both enjoyable in a clever sense to create. One name I had was both the command to run a python script that coincidentally shared the same phonetic name as the street I grew up on when you included the file extension. I thought it was kind of funny, removed the period before the file extension name, and had a clever track title.

 

If its an overly emotional piece i'll give it a proper name that gives a visual to mind.

[TubularCorporation]

If I can't think of a name for a track I usually just look around the room and name it after the first thing or text that I see that sounds good.

 

It's also good to informally keep lists of names for things to use later.

[Ragnar]

It's also good to informally keep lists of names for things to use later.

 

I'm not sure what this means exactly haha, but I thought 'thinks bourne identity movies were cool as a teenager, never told anyone but liked to scan the room for possible hip improvised self-defense weapons'

 

3d printed shiv hardfast rev 2

 

Edit: oh, 'use later' as in use for a song title later. I read it as like HMMMM a coffee mug, that could be useful for drinking coffee... later

[TubularCorporation]

 

It's also good to informally keep lists of names for things to use later.

 

I'm not sure what this means exactly haha, but I thought 'thinks bourne identity movies were cool as a teenager, never told anyone but liked to scan the room for possible hip improvised self-defense weapons'

 

3d printed shiv hardfast rev 2

 

Edit: oh, 'use later' as in use for a song title later. I read it as like HMMMM a coffee mug, that could be useful for drinking coffee... later

 

Song title, album title, image to base a track around, whatever.  Just write shit down and discover it again next year.

 

EDIT: I don't do this nearly enough anymore, myself.

[Ragnar]

there was a period in my life where I was scouring goodwills and like looking for rando CDs got kind of old, and I was totally out of it but like also FRUSTRATION with the act of sampling in music. I wanted to like sample this china set, and I don't even mean make sounds with it, I wanted to sample THE IDEA of the china set, the PLATONIC IDEAL of 'what does this china set mean'. Like not a serious thought or delusion but like a reaction to/frustrated with the limits of sampling haha

 

I hope that sounds more like something deeply metaphorical and not batshit insane

 

I had that one album called "RCA EP" and I literally based the songs on the different rca cables. It was probably like synesthesia moment but in the moment it was like, i had this preconceived notion of the rca cables in my head haha

 

entorwellian: you can do whatever you want with track titles but I kinda dislike the current aphex track titling convention of the date the track was made etc. at times it feels like it TAKES ON MEANING although generic data, but I thought SAW 85-92 with the random college textbook stuff was charming

[Leon Sumbitches]

This thread is a most IDM 2018 contender for sure

 

I think a lot of the 'classic' period '90s IDM came from people like Autechre and Aphex going super-deep with quite limited gear; maybe ironically, the internet has made this harder for a few reasons:

 

1. With free VSTs and the like, there's an infinite selection of potential instruments, but this means that it's harder to go deep with any one piece of gear, whereas back in the day if all you had was a Casio CZ (for example), you had no choice but to absolutely rinse it and get frustrated with its limitations and force it into doing shit it was never really meant to do, with golden results.

 

2. Same thing applies with easy access to hardware via eBay etc. eBay's like the GAS-enabler, which again makes it harder to go deep with any one bit of kit.

 

3. YouTube tutorials are a great resource but they maybe have a bit of a homogenising effect, teaching you how to make a Hoover sound or a dubstep bass or whatever tha kidz are into these days; this means, perhaps, that instead of people developing unique flavours that are unmistakably their own, people become very competent at contributing to an existing genre.

 

4. Same thing goes for internet access in general; people are less isolated, and this makes it easy to start contributing to an existing genre rather than developing something really far off the map. It's easy to discover vaporwave or lo-fi hipster house or whatever and say, 'Hey, I want to do that' whereas if you were more musically isolated, so to speak, you might start cooking up unknown flavours of your own. A good metaphor might be how a century or two ago, different places had powerfully distinct cultures whereas today everywhere is moving towards variations on a theme of corporate neoliberalism (oversimplistic, I know, but I digress).

 

5. The sheer amount of instant entertainment made possible by the internet no doubt plays a role too; there are distractions everywhere, and the allure of Netflix, and so on. Whereas if you were stuck in Cornwall in the early '90s, say, there were fewer post-spliff entertainment options so you might as well go deep with synths and drummos

 

So I kind of agree with Entorwellian when he says that the future of IDM (and, imo, interesting music in general) might be more offline in nature.

[Entorwellian]

This thread is a most IDM 2018 contender for sure

 

I think a lot of the 'classic' period '90s IDM came from people like Autechre and Aphex going super-deep with quite limited gear; maybe ironically, the internet has made this harder for a few reasons:

 

1. With free VSTs and the like, there's an infinite selection of potential instruments, but this means that it's harder to go deep with any one piece of gear, whereas back in the day if all you had was a Casio CZ (for example), you had no choice but to absolutely rinse it and get frustrated with its limitations and force it into doing shit it was never really meant to do, with golden results.

 

2. Same thing applies with easy access to hardware via eBay etc. eBay's like the GAS-enabler, which again makes it harder to go deep with any one bit of kit.

 

3. YouTube tutorials are a great resource but they maybe have a bit of a homogenising effect, teaching you how to make a Hoover sound or a dubstep bass or whatever tha kidz are into these days; this means, perhaps, that instead of people developing unique flavours that are unmistakably their own, people become very competent at contributing to an existing genre.

 

4. Same thing goes for internet access in general; people are less isolated, and this makes it easy to start contributing to an existing genre rather than developing something really far off the map. It's easy to discover vaporwave or lo-fi hipster house or whatever and say, 'Hey, I want to do that' whereas if you were more musically isolated, so to speak, you might start cooking up unknown flavours of your own. A good metaphor might be how a century or two ago, different places had powerfully distinct cultures whereas today everywhere is moving towards variations on a theme of corporate neoliberalism (oversimplistic, I know, but I digress).

 

5. The sheer amount of instant entertainment made possible by the internet no doubt plays a role too; there are distractions everywhere, and the allure of Netflix, and so on. Whereas if you were stuck in Cornwall in the early '90s, say, there were fewer post-spliff entertainment options so you might as well go deep with synths and drummos

 

So I kind of agree with Entorwellian when he says that the future of IDM (and, imo, interesting music in general) might be more offline in nature.

I agree with all of these points. Especially with the need for instant gratification for the user and the ever-moving conveyor of vst/hardware impulsivity. The thing is too I am completely guilty of all of those things above-listed and it's something that I have been putting lots of thought into and I don't have any real alternatives that don't come off as gimmicky or coming back to relying on social media. The internet has changed complete from the 90's and has become more about exploitation than free information. I thought of something like a meshnet community, but even a meshnet needs to have an ISP and you'd have to find passionate likeminded people beforehand if you were going down that route.

 

Stepping back from it and discussing it openly seems like a better alternative than becoming a IDM luddite.

[Ragnar]

for the record I virtually only use this

 

http://www2.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/software/blok-modular/

 

and a sampler, and then if it's not sample-based kind of music I'm only using BLOK

 

oh I also was using ReaJS VST for the MIDI stuff and it was a homebrew script

 

the idea that aphex built his own synths and stuff was total legend probably but a GOOD legend and probably inspired me. I mean I think the true story was, he did hardware mods but not ground-up synths. Or he might've said they were basically 'noisemakers'

 

there is also like, implied in SAW 85-92 he took engineering stuff in college and he at least understood synth stuff from an engineering perspective? AUDIO PRODUCTION courses always sounded shit, had a chance in college as a side thing, majored in computer science though, would never major in some music production thing ever. Plus I didn't get passionate about music until like halfway thru college. I was a dork, I was only motivated by wanting to make a vidyagame while I was actually IN college and it only came later I applied it to some music stuff. If I did SOCIAL COMMENTARY on a rando thing/became famous and had a platform, I bullshit a lot but I've got some conviction that 'only wanting to make a rando videogame' is an ethics issue in computer science. Like as far as it's not a very global view of what computerz can do/are capable of, and there is the occasional indie game that excites me but most seem to be trying to capture a woebegone (sp?) aesthetic. The compsci professor should be a little accountable if they don't make the more high or low-level stuff INSPIRING I guess, like if videogames are all you're still thinking of upon graduation something went wrong somewhere. I try to be analytical about 90's nostalgia stuff, people get fixated on 'the sprite art wuz so good' but also it was constant paradigm shift back then. Nintendo starts with SQUARE WAVE TRIANGLE WAVE, most basic possible way to synthesize sound, by Genesis it was FM stuff already quasi yamaha synth concept and Super Nintendo had this insane sampler tech. And then 3D happens and it's like 'is this drugs' moment. But even besides 3D stuff was constantly changing, even game by game there was the cartridge format and random chips and components could be added on and extend the capabilities. There was this one Nintendo, actually Famicom game that almost sounded like sega genesis music but closer to an MSX computer or something. Which makes sense historically, it's some Konami game and Metal Gear was an MSX game. By the PS4 game being on a blu-ray or whatever, it's always gonna be stuff the PS4 was capable of on its inception, it just boils down to programmers understanding the hardware better and more informed coding of games.

 

A nice thing about the pc indie games is you could code it in some weird ass coding language too that's like not even MEANT for games but that's just an idea. I don't think these indie game people though, usually look into the history of how games were CODED that much. They get preoccupied with the style/aesthetic stuff and think that was where all the 'charm' was. A mystery to me was, that N64 game Perfect Dark, all the Rare games were delayed to some extent but they were obsessed with FEATURES they wanted to put in. Not saying Perfect Dark was an effective sequel but there's a vibe of like some serious coding hurdles in the game maybe. There was an option in some N64 emulator suggesting there is SELF MODIFYING CODE as a feature on the N64 and I think it has to be enabled for Perfect Dark? The AI wasn't really great but was there self modifying code going on with that, for example? This invisible paradigm shift with the jump to N64 probably, I think the self-modifying code wasn't there in a game system until then

 

kind of blurring the line between technical talk and musical process talk I guess, sorry

 

and yeah I think a lot of creativity in IDM was that they weren't the in group, sincerely tried to make some random rave music but too autistic to make HITZ so just declared it futile and did weird mutant commentaries on actual rave music except aphex who had some crossover appeal but he was always considered like the DARKSIDE of that scene as far as I know. Aphex facez, doppleganger of status quo ravey music. Not sure if Come to Daddy/Windowlicker was a good thing, was it just trying to not be autistic and get in the top 40 and that would PROVE IT. It's not super bad and some of the b-sides are great but there's an element of Aphex becoming a parody of himself in that period

 

I think aphex sort of shot idm in the foot with the uber doppleganger imagery tbh. It wasn't gonna feel like COTTAGE INDUSTRY anymore, he's tried to go back to the MYSTERIOUS ANONYMOUS TECHNODUDE (who is rumored to have done every drug ever and invented new ones only he is in possession of in his backwoods shack bunker studio in east bumfuck cornwall. mew is under the truck, aphex's drugs are in the tank) aesthetic but the aesthetic kind of feels forced this time. Analord still felt like the real dank shit, released clandestinely on rephlex etc. and it's this wealth of good music/tunez but also obtuse as fuck with the format

[Ragnar]

to be fair syrobonkers interview and the aspect of 'mysterious technodude REVEALS ALL' is kind of fun

 

Edit: did i mention there was kind of the illusory hype of IDM not being CURATED, I'm pretty sure all aphex is pretty curated, Drukqs comes across as completely random scattered tracks at first listen but there's a consensus that it's more curated than it seems (and the tapes worth of Drukqs-y tracks/outtakes probably don't exist imo. There was like midi rave post plague mix but that's just ONE TRACK)

 

Edit: soundcloud tracks were definitely biased towards the earlier 'afx turns on a drum machine and does stuff' type tracks

[TubularCorporation]

This thread is a most IDM 2018 contender for sure

 

I think a lot of the 'classic' period '90s IDM came from people like Autechre and Aphex going super-deep with quite limited gear; maybe ironically, the internet has made this harder for a few reasons:

 

1. With free VSTs and the like, there's an infinite selection of potential instruments, but this means that it's harder to go deep with any one piece of gear, whereas back in the day if all you had was a Casio CZ (for example), you had no choice but to absolutely rinse it and get frustrated with its limitations and force it into doing shit it was never really meant to do, with golden results.

 

2. Same thing applies with easy access to hardware via eBay etc. eBay's like the GAS-enabler, which again makes it harder to go deep with any one bit of kit.

 

3. YouTube tutorials are a great resource but they maybe have a bit of a homogenising effect, teaching you how to make a Hoover sound or a dubstep bass or whatever tha kidz are into these days; this means, perhaps, that instead of people developing unique flavours that are unmistakably their own, people become very competent at contributing to an existing genre.

 

4. Same thing goes for internet access in general; people are less isolated, and this makes it easy to start contributing to an existing genre rather than developing something really far off the map. It's easy to discover vaporwave or lo-fi hipster house or whatever and say, 'Hey, I want to do that' whereas if you were more musically isolated, so to speak, you might start cooking up unknown flavours of your own. A good metaphor might be how a century or two ago, different places had powerfully distinct cultures whereas today everywhere is moving towards variations on a theme of corporate neoliberalism (oversimplistic, I know, but I digress).

 

5. The sheer amount of instant entertainment made possible by the internet no doubt plays a role too; there are distractions everywhere, and the allure of Netflix, and so on. Whereas if you were stuck in Cornwall in the early '90s, say, there were fewer post-spliff entertainment options so you might as well go deep with synths and drummos

 

So I kind of agree with Entorwellian when he says that the future of IDM (and, imo, interesting music in general) might be more offline in nature.

 

I 100% agree with all of this.

 

 

No social media since 2015 here. Haven't quit Youtube yet but it would probably be good to do.

[KovalainenFanBoy]

Can we please get back on topic and discuss whether or not anybody wants to start a topic about music production feels or philosophy rather than tech

[Ragnar]

music production feels philosophy

 

touch yourself while producing IDM, produce better tracks

[joshuatxuk]

I dunno I've had an overwhelming desire to be ARTICULATE about this shit recently so here goes

 

anybody else get a weird effect from listening to their own music, like "indeterminate time capsule" effect I'd call it? Like I have some tracks that could be considered 'old', dating back to 2006. And it's all at least mp3 straight from a computer so it's nothing to do with analog deterioration. I'm talking about more like when you go for this abstract kind of music and in bulk too, it's easier to get the feeling like you didn't actually write it? And then there's all this stuff I made that's weird time signature experiments but I didn't document it very much, haha. So anybody else get vibes like this from old music they wrote?

 

I was gonna write more, how my early experience of electronic music, I'm worried a lot of these guys it's all videogame soundtracks as their influence, but mine was at least partially this confused mixture of videogame music and some actual rave music hearing it secondhand from my brother? And I heard the proper IDM guys later, but there was definitely enough time for this confused idea of rave music, built up from a few songs heard secondhand, to gestate into my idea of what rave music was supposed to even be? Which is I'm assuming is how a bunch of IDM music happened in the 90s when it was brand new?

 

What you guy do for song title? I know there is definitely a lot of Autechre-y random string of letters and numbers type titles. if you do this is there any meaning or inside jokes or references? I know some Autechre stuff, even like '1 1 is' might be a Max/MSP command or something? I went for the Venetian Snares word salad-y song titles, although I hope a lot of Snares titles are inside jokes because mine tend to be (Last Step - Horse Lasagne Woman? Is this a joke about people who idolize cowboy movies, real version of the old west, your wife has to cook your horse and make it into lasagna? I hope) A lot of my song titles are google-able though. Baxandall_gammatone, is two types of filters (I think baxandall is just an old timey tone control). dr acid 92 is just an inside joke, my idea of MOST RAVEY sounding track title ever, also a little bit of that Simpsons episode "take 3 of these and call me in the morning oh I'm not a doctor" I dunno. Also some tracks titles are feints/tactical misdirection to make people think I'm on a lot of drugs, Son of Facemelting Hamburger Helper Guy. "some say he just kept driving till the Lazarus ran out" is more or less a direct line from The Adventures of Pete and Pete. "kid whose actual name is Stryker" is total inside joke, somebody on another site posts this youtube of kids wearing Heelies in some random parking garage, random dumb energ techno playing that clips/compresses randomly, kids are only known as HUNTER and KABLE

 

oh god it still exists

 

 

this stuff inspires my brand of idm more than any actual blade runner or terminator movies ever did. haha like I said there is another site/forum I lurk and we post random crap and sometimes it gets annoying, just a bunch of retro video game posts but sometimes we come across total mundane and/or insane stuff in real life

 

this is good non videogame thing but some guy shouts out it reminds him of daytona usa or something

 

 

 

 

ugh I hope I didn't get off topic

 

nowadays, like I joke about 'war on psytrance' but I do worry a lot about PLACEBO in music especially tekno music. It's hard to explain, it's an avoidance of 'good vibez' but not in a nihilistic way either I hope? It's definitely a reaction to people who think 'meditation' is like zoning out or gettin high. Maybe it's just an aversion to music I think would be boring as heck if converted to MIDI, even. Or when I don't detect inside jokes or possible humor in the music it irks me? I definitely worry with the shamanic themes of some tekno that it's semi-seriously meant as 'prayer' or whatever other name you want to give it. Or maybe it's just corny music. But I think maybe when you intentionally set out to make something mystical you avoid an immediacy in the music I guess that can truly feel mind-blowing?

 

 

I guess that's it for now, if I think of more I'll reply to the topic

 

this looks like a transcription of my mind in the middle of a conversation with a fellow music lover at a party at 2:00 a.m. after a 6 pack or two of cheap beer

 

def bookmarking this too read later when I'm up bottle feeding my newborn

[Ragnar]

 

def bookmarking this too read later when I'm up bottle feeding my newborn

 

Winnipeg as Mandatory Babby Feed

 

make an IDM opera about fever dreams of babies crawling inside a modular and having to post a modular forum for halp

[Ragnar]

https://djsaint-hubert.bandcamp.com/album/selected-ambient-cubes-92-92

 

 

DJ SAINT HUBERT ALBUM SECTRECT REVEALED

 

no deepness 2 album, secret message of album is 'ice cube is a complete mystery to me' but there is a theme of that can be MORE EXCITING than the actual music. Almost refuses to look up Ice Cube to try and preserve nostalgic adolescent mythmaking feelings

 

but yeah like, when men and women are involved 'complete mystery' is valid and people can be perfectly happy but when it's platonic people don't want to be of that attitude

 

also 8th song title is a comment on the health food industry

[Ragnar]

also 'my the thing 72 while eating' is internet misinformation, no snacking was actually done in the production process

[Ragnar]

Cypress Hill actually is from Cyprus and collabed with the music community in America, they are wearing disguises on stage

 

I'm predisposed to make jokes though when you have a STEALTH CONDITION and if you're a halfway decent person you're gonna feel bad

 

and then when you make a faux pas and the veil lifts and assumptions and judgements are made

[joshuatxuk]

there was a period in my life where I was scouring goodwills and like looking for rando CDs got kind of old, and I was totally out of it but like also FRUSTRATION with the act of sampling in music. I wanted to like sample this china set, and I don't even mean make sounds with it, I wanted to sample THE IDEA of the china set, the PLATONIC IDEAL of 'what does this china set mean'. Like not a serious thought or delusion but like a reaction to/frustrated with the limits of sampling haha

 

I hope that sounds more like something deeply metaphorical and not batshit insane

 

no I get that, it's something is hard to define but 'you know it when you see it' and others can share that - but man is it harder and harder to explore online, people rather go for things with immediate recognition, tags, markers, etc. to engage with to feel like they are a part of something

 

this is why I get so disillusioned by things like vaporwave, you get this vague but nonetheless understandable ethos and aesthetic established for a community to engage in - this unconscious nostalgia - and then that canon of ideas is diluted and redefined to the same fucking pink and cyan photoshop edits of stereotypical 80s bullshit and music that is just as trite to match

[TubularCorporation]

 

there was a period in my life where I was scouring goodwills and like looking for rando CDs got kind of old, and I was totally out of it but like also FRUSTRATION with the act of sampling in music. I wanted to like sample this china set, and I don't even mean make sounds with it, I wanted to sample THE IDEA of the china set, the PLATONIC IDEAL of 'what does this china set mean'. Like not a serious thought or delusion but like a reaction to/frustrated with the limits of sampling haha

 

I hope that sounds more like something deeply metaphorical and not batshit insane

 

no I get that, it's something is hard to define but 'you know it when you see it' and others can share that - but man is it harder and harder to explore online, people rather go for things with immediate recognition, tags, markers, etc. to engage with to feel like they are a part of something

 

this is why I get so disillusioned by things like vaporwave, you get this vague but nonetheless understandable ethos and aesthetic established for a community to engage in - this unconscious nostalgia - and then that canon of ideas is diluted and redefined to the same fucking pink and cyan photoshop edits of stereotypical 80s bullshit and music that is just as trite to match

 

 

 

Relevant:

 

https://www.racked.com/2018/4/17/17219166/fashion-style-algorithm-amazon-echo-look

[joshuatxuk]

^ good read

 

Spotify is getting weird too, making up genres

[TubularCorporation]

The article lost me a bit right near the end, at "Fashion is always one step ahead, though."

 

Because yeah... no.  Fashion is on the cutting edge of appropriating street fashion and superficial identifiers of countercultures but it is never, ever "one step ahead." Fashion is the thing that eats expression and shits out product.

 

But I guess if someone writing for  fashion site is going to have  blind spot, they're going to have a blind spot about fashion.

 

 

Also the fashion industry has the 4th or 5th highest environmental impact of any industry, it's just awful on so many levels.

[Ragnar]

^ good read

 

Spotify is getting weird too, making up genres

 

see to DJ Saint-Hubert this is what SHOULD happen. A neural network genre generator where people just ponder for a long time "What would "Escape Room" even sound like whoa??? Is it just the Jodie Foster Panic Room OST with beats over it? And the atmosphere is all claustrophobic like a safe room/panic room. Isolationist ambient but with beatz"

 

makes an article online saying there is a genre called "Paul Newman As Julius Caesar" and encourage speculation through an alt account in the comments section

[Ragnar]

NEXT EP