what underside?

This is a very nice decade old article by David Myers, who's known for
his many "Feedback Machine" recordings under the ARCANE DEVICE
moniker. I find it very easy to lay these ideas into the context of
alternate tuning's often disproportionate reliance on the MIDI and its
admittedly wondrous retuning ease, as he articulates a lot of my own
general dissatisfaction with MIDI very well...

I really think that those who are not so deeply involved in this
niche -- "microtonality", "alternate tuning"; whatever -- are a lot
less likely to greet those MIDI tuned new notes with attentive ears if
they're more often than not basked in a numbingly uninteresting
musical sound world.

(Please note that these are just some of my own feelings, and as such
I can't exactly pretend to be "fair", but I also wouldn't expect that
they'd be everyone else's experience/view either...)

"Limited by Your Imagination"

by David Myers
From: The Cassette Mythos, Autonomedia 1990

A number of factors can be credited for the development of the
independent, sub-indy, and "underground" music scene from the late
seventies through the late eighties. Experiencing lean times from the
excesses and bloated financial expectations of the early seventies,
major record companies tightened their belts, investing in nothing but
sure-bet megagroups or their clones. Free-form FM radio died and
programming fell completely under the control of paid "consultants"
who dictated what musical mush would yield the maximum number of
listeners. Under these conditions, musicians even marginally outside
the plain vanilla mainstream had no choice but to create and circulate
their music via self-developed means and channels.

Equally significant during this period, technologies emerged which
allowed musicians to create increasingly sophisticated recordings
without relying on large commercial studios. Audio cassettes and
recorders developed into a surprisingly high-fidelity medium and
provided an accessible means of distributing independent music.
Musician-produced recordings have since thrived in an environment of
four-track cassette portastudios, affordable synthesizers with
remarkably detailed sound, digital delay and reverb units, sampling
machines, and of course the Musical Instrument Digital Interface
(MIDI). Along with digital audio technologies, the much-lauded
phenomenon of MIDI has brought equipment costs down and allowed
greatly enhanced compatibility between instruments, processors, and
even recording machines.

Being an "electronic musician" and shameless tech-head, I might be
expected to join the ranks of those praising such developments to the
heavens. But since I consider myself a troublemaker first and a
musician second, and considering the fact that there appear to be more
than enough praise-singers here and about, you'll have to indulge my
playing devil's advocate in the present instance. My task here is to
examine the neglected underside of these developments.

What underside? Since hardware has only become
"faster-cheaper-better," and standards for equipment compatibility and
control have exceeded any expectations, one may well wonder what there
is to bitch about. Ten years ago independent musicians certainly found
life more difficult and more expensive. In the area of electronic
music, synthesizers were only slowly coming to programmability; one
might work for hours to attain a particular sound on a
patch-cord-style machine, and have only a dim possibility of
recreating it with any accuracy at a later time. Such synths were
typically monophonic, time-consuming to program, bulky, and pricy. The
workhorse home" multi-track tape recorder at the time, the Teac 3440,
was considerably more costly than later portastudio-type machines, and
of course additionally required an external mixing board. As far as
the most essential sound processor--reverb--the situation was even
worse; manufacturers continually struggled to produce the least
crappy-sounding spring reverberation, few having much success, and not
many musicians self-producing their recordings could afford the cost
or space requirements of the much-preferred plate reverbs. In
retrospect it all seems to have been unbearably difficult; every
production was a challenge to one's resourcefulness and innovative
craftiness. Many times things seemed held together with spit and
exhibited a fidelity to match, by today's standards. But at least in
the days of modular and other non-programmable synthesizers, we didn't
turn on the radio and hear the same patch over and over again. The
3440 did and still does offer superior sound to any cassette
portastudio. And as far as reverb units...well, that one is a bit
tougher to justify, but let's at least say that the truly adventurous
who built their own plates or pressed unoccupied bathrooms and
stairwells into service certainly had something special to show for
their efforts.

Today, of course, much higher sound fidelity is attainable, we have
access to more, ah, beautiful sounds, the price of outfitting a home
studio is within reason for many, and naturally of greatest importance
these days--it is all so much easier. The current hot item is the
"workstation," a piece of gear incorporating keyboard, multiple-voice
synthesizer, realistic sampled instruments (usually including several
full drum kits), delay, reverb, and other processors, and a digital
multi-track sequencer/recorder. As the ads say, "Now you can get down
to the real business of making music," the dirty job of creating sound
and schemes for assembling it into unique music now out of the way!

But it seems that innovation is now an optional ingredient rather than
a necessary one. Current digital wonders are relatively cheap and easy
to use, but without the requirement of innovative approaches, many
musicians leave out the innovation part altogether. The most frequent
and damning criticism of today's "home studio" music productions is
that they all sound so similar. With vastly increased possibilities,
and manufacturers telling us that we are "limited only by our
imagination," why does one hear so many independent cassette
recordings that sound virtually identical?

The fact is that most of our expanded technical capability has come
about through that mixed blessing of modern civilization, mass
production. The palm-top digital reverb unit only exists because the
potential sale of a hundred thousand of the little suckers subsidized
the whole affair. (I own one myself, but what are the implications of
a dozen or so sounds spread amongst tens of thousands of users?) Out
of necessity large corporations design products for Mr. Average
User--as average and bland as possible, in fact. But does that
describe you and your music? If so, you've probably read too far
already.

Perhaps most curious of all is that musicians not only accept this
middle-of-the-roadism, but often don't even meet manufacturers' modest
expectations of them. A common story in synthesizer repair departments
is that units brought in for work frequently contain only the original
factory preset sounds, the famously creative musicians never having
even tried to come up with any of their own. And the manufacturers
listen! Now we find, in many cases, newer models of equipment which,
rather than employing more developed soundcrafting possibilities,
actually revert to less capable (easier to use) versions, even of
inferior sound quality.

I have met musicians who own home studios which almost literally
contain "one of everything." And within each of the devices which are
programmable, guess what you'll find? Yup--factory junk, milquetoast
sounds for milquetoast music. My argument here is that one does not
need to be a major stockholder in Yamaha or Roland to produce
interesting, vital music. (They even dragged me into it for a couple
of years, promising heaven-with-a-MIDI-cord-attached, but I got wise.)
We don't need one of everything, we don't need stacks of MIDI synths
and $10,000 samplers. We need innovation and original approaches.
Don't use factory synthesizer patches; don't buy factory disks for
your sampler--it was made to use your sounds. Look into "obsolete"
gear like non-programmable synths, ring modulators, and analog delays.
Use a transducer driver to run your voice through a suspended
refrigerator rack on its way to your vocal track, put some alligator
clips on your guitar strings, use a mixer to add more regeneration to
effects than the manufacturer would normally allow.

What's most difficult to obtain today is interesting music. Been to a
record store lately? I haven't found much. Oh, and one last thing:
Anybody have a spring reverb for sale?

fight the power!,
- Dan Stearns

[Dan Stearns:]
>This is a very nice decade old article by David Myers, who's known for
>his many "Feedback Machine" recordings under the ARCANE DEVICE
>moniker. I find it very easy to lay these ideas into the context of
>alternate tuning's often disproportionate reliance on the MIDI and its
>admittedly wondrous retuning ease, as he articulates a lot of my own
>general dissatisfaction with MIDI very well...

Well, I for one wouldn't try to cram MIDI down anyone's throat. For the
work I'm doing, there's no other choice. I'd LOVE to have a dynamically
retunable acoustic grand piano at my disposal, when/if one becomes
available.

>I really think that those who are not so deeply involved in this
>niche -- "microtonality", "alternate tuning"; whatever -- are a lot
>less likely to greet those MIDI tuned new notes with attentive ears if
>they're more often than not basked in a numbingly uninteresting
>musical sound world.

Sure, but when that happens, that's not MIDI's fault. That's lazy work
on the part of whoever realizes the sound.

The article by David Myers is interesting, but it's worth noting that
even he says, "I consider myself a troublemaker first and a musician
second." And, his overall thesis, I think, is that when having nice
sounds becomes easy, it is also easy for sloppy work to pass as
semi-competent. There's nothing new about that!

Dan, I can't agree that there is a "disproportionate reliance on MIDI"
today. The majority of the posts I see from people who are actually
making music are from players of acoustic instruments, or people who
present a fully fleshed out sound file by whatever means.

If your concern is that MIDI may crush out interest in acoustic options
for music-making, I don't believe that's going to happen any time soon.

JdL

Hi John,

I guess I'm being a bit of a rabble-rouser here... but my main gripes
and groans are directed at the idea of "tuning examples" as music, and
in this medium -- the computer -- that's the first thing that a lot of
folks are bound to run into... from my experience, limited to those I
know and whatnot, I hear an awful lot of 'what's the big deal with all
these microtonal guys, I hear a lot of grand and interesting talk and
then a lot of weak and uninteresting crap!'... and the rote use of
MIDI is the thing that seems to "offend" most...

FWIW I think the process that your working on is a very creative labor
of love well that's worth the effort... and not that it really matters
a damn, but I think I recognize hard work and creative workmanship
even if it falls outside the realm of my own interests and what really
fires me up personally. Anyway, no personal offence intended...

BTW, when Myers says, "I consider myself a troublemaker first and a
musician second", it's a poke in the same direction... He's an adroit
craftsman in the sphere of what he's doing. He's once again just
trying to put in a good word for the "underside".

--Dan Stearns

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "D.Stearns" <STEARNS@C...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/15199

> Hi John,
>
> I guess I'm being a bit of a rabble-rouser here... but my main
gripes and groans are directed at the idea of "tuning examples" as
music, and
> in this medium -- the computer

But, Dan... I was under the assumption that the majority of your work
is computer-realized...

Am I incorrect??

Joe Pehrson

Joseph Pehrson wrote,

> But, Dan... I was under the assumption that the majority of your
work is computer-realized...

Actually, not even a single note! But in a way that's neither here nor
there anyway...

I do use MIDI more than infrequently to realize microtonal scores for
instruments I don't play, and though I diligently toil and slave with
it well past the self-inflicted insanity threshold, MIDI realizations
of pieces intended for acoustic instruments by and large leave me
cold... so yes, in short, I pretty much hate MIDI realizations!
However, as a motley DIY "microtonalist" this is often the only way
I'm going to get to hear complex pieces intended for acoustic
instruments that I don't play... and here MIDI realizations are of
course profoundly liberating... so, yes, I pretty much love MIDI
realizations... well in a way anyway.

Am I confused? Am I crazy? No, well probably, but I don't think that
actually matters here! It seems that I'm just stuck with some
irascible congenital disposition for the tangible organic
imperfections of creaking chairs, finger squeaks, key clicks and the
assorted like... but this doesn't completely deter me from continuing
to use whatever means I can to realize my musical ambitions the best I
can... it just hobbles my enjoyment of the whole a wee bit from time
to time... From my experience, MIDI is what it is -- effective if
often frustrating.

Fight the power.

--Dan Stearns

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "D.Stearns" <STEARNS@C...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/15202

> Joseph Pehrson wrote,
>
> > But, Dan... I was under the assumption that the majority of your
> work is computer-realized...
>
> Actually, not even a single note! But in a way that's neither here
nor there anyway...

Well, that's interesting, since to me it SOUNDS computer-realized.
Perhaps it all the complex rhythmic activity. What do you do,
obviously PLAY it all direct-to-recording??

To me, it sounds like most of your "instruments" are "sampled" via
MIDI and not acoustic...

Or are my "ears just on wrong" to quote our "friend..."

JP

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "D.Stearns" <STEARNS@C...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/15202

>MIDI
>realizations of pieces intended for acoustic instruments by and
large
>leave me cold... so yes, in short, I pretty much hate MIDI
>realizations!

Actually, I believe this is a TOTALLY different topic from what you
were discussing before... MIDI used to generate "plastic"
pieces that were experimental in tuning nature.

MIDI realizations of acoustic instruments is a "whole different
kettle of fish..."

Although, I believe such realizations are EMINENTLY useful, IF and
ONLY IF accompanied by the ACOUSTIC SCORE. This makes "judging" such
piece for performance SO MUCH easier! I always welcome such MIDI
realizations... that is UNLESS I don't have the score... in which
case I won't listen to them, since I won't have the vaguest idea to
what I am listening.

But, I belive, again, that that is a totally different topic from the
one you first addressed...

JP

[Dan Stearns:]
>I guess I'm being a bit of a rabble-rouser here... but my main gripes
>and groans are directed at the idea of "tuning examples" as music, and
>in this medium -- the computer -- that's the first thing that a lot of
>folks are bound to run into... from my experience, limited to those I
>know and whatnot, I hear an awful lot of 'what's the big deal with all
>these microtonal guys, I hear a lot of grand and interesting talk and
>then a lot of weak and uninteresting crap!'... and the rote use of
>MIDI is the thing that seems to "offend" most...

Understood; wish we all had better options! But, these are early
days... we make do with what we've got.

>FWIW I think the process that your working on is a very creative labor
>of love well that's worth the effort... and not that it really matters
>a damn, but I think I recognize hard work and creative workmanship
>even if it falls outside the realm of my own interests and what really
>fires me up personally. Anyway, no personal offence intended...

None taken; sorry if that wasn't clear!

>BTW, when Myers says, "I consider myself a troublemaker first and a
>musician second", it's a poke in the same direction... He's an adroit
>craftsman in the sphere of what he's doing. He's once again just
>trying to put in a good word for the "underside".

And I'm glad he's out there doing that! (or was in 1990). I've no
quarrel with his points. I think that was a heady time, in that digital
synths were newly affordable and everyone was a little "high" on them.
It's a universal truth that there's always a lot of crap being pedalled
as craftsmanship. I'm definitely in favor of the guy who says the
emperor is wearing no clothes, even if the real point is more grey than
black and white.

JdL

Joseph Pehrson wrote,

> What do you do,

I record most everything to analog 8-track, an old Fostex A-8, though
there is a fair amount of digital mastering on some stuff. But
whatever the sound source or the musical means, it's "interesting
personality" -- as in the Myers article, which said it all far better
than I am -- that I'm personally looking for... personally I like all
the misfiring oddities and quirks of funky gear and ways of going
about ones musical business, but it's a music that's strong enough to
overshadow its means of transmission that I'm really interested in,
MIDI or otherwise...

--Dan Stearns