Re: [crazy_music] User interfaces -- also "bias" in ETs

> From: <xed@...>
> To: <crazy_music@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2001 6:32 PM
> Subject: [crazy_music] User interfaces -- also "bias" in ETs
>
>
> My own experience, doubtless limited and most likely inept,
> tells me that each particular synthesizer or soundcard or
> even software-based synth has its own "sound." <etc.>

Now *that's* my friend Brian McLaren, with whom I enjoy getting
together and talking shop!

Good show, Brian! You've overloaded this list over the
past day with a ton of terrific information, with your subtle
yet madcap sense of humor coming thru.

The post about the revision of the left/right-brain theory
was really awesome. Keep sending us stuff like this!

Yours,

-monz
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"

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--- In crazy_music@y..., xed@e... wrote:
> My own experience, doubtless limited and most likely inept,
> tells me that each particular synthesizer or soundcard or
> even software-based synth has its own "sound."

A very good point, Brian, and quite accurate. The whole post: well
answered, very helpful stuff with lots of wonderful detail. Thank
you.

> As a result, each particular synthesizer, like an
> orchestral instrument, earns a special niche in a studio
> composer's sonic armamentarium. "Simplifying" a studio setup
> by eliminating this or that synth in favor of some handy-dandy
> Swiss Army Knife software synth or sampler typically means:
> collapsing down that rich pallette of sonic colors produced
> by different types of synths into anindustrial gray-on-gray
> of General Midi mud or algorithmic synthesis mud or (you
> name the particular overarching process) mud.

Nicely said. Whatever works. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

> As you can tell from my persistent use
> of an 8088 PC XT as my main sequencing computer, obsoletismo
> remains my watchword.

Oh, please come to the bleeding edge and suffer with the rest of
us. :-) Seriously, I'm not always too far "in front" of you,
technologically. In addition to my Windows 98 machine with new Sound
Font sound card and subwoofer-boosted Alpine sound (which I must,
alas, share with my dear wife), I have a 286 running DOS 6.something,
equipped with an old version of PowerTracks Pro - a $30 program that
is relatively full featured and works just great. In fact, it works
better under DOS than under Windows: faster, easier to navigate, more
stable. Can't remember the last time it crashed in DOS. I've thought
several times about upgrading it to a 486 or early Pentium with a
newer, graphical interface sequencer. But it's just not worth it yet.
It works perfectly fine for 99 percent of what I want to do.

Thanks for clarifying about harmony and fifths. Earlier I had missed
the context somehow.

Also enjoyed the heck out of part one of eleven. I hope to get caught
up and read more parts soon.

David