What are EMUSIC-L and SYNTH-L?
   


About
EMUSIC-L, an irregularly-updated electronic music blog


Joe McMahon
mcmahon@ibiblio.org

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  • EMUSIC-L weblog
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  • Info/docs/FAQs
  • Best of EMUSIC-L
  • Related sites
  • Back issues


  •        
    What were they?

    EMUSIC-L and SYNTH-L were Internet electronic mailing lists based out of American University in Washington, DC. They were a synergistic pair of discussion groups: EMUSIC-L discussed more esoteric aspects of electronic music - performance, music theory,composition, and synthesis, while SYNTH-L discussed the technical details of composing, recording and performing electronic music - hardware, software, recording technique, and the like. There was some small overlap between the two lists, and many of the same people were to be found on both.

    History

    • EMUSIC-L started in January of 1989 by Eric Harnden of AU
    • Resigned as list administrator in November, 1989
    • Joe McMahon (the current listowner) took over
    • SYNTH-L created to gateway rec.music.synth in 1990
    • SYNTH-L split off as separate entity in September, 1991
    • Mike Metlay added as co-administrator in 1992
    • Martin Russ began FAQ list in 1994
    • EMUSIC-L is ten years old as of 1/99
    • EMUSIC-L and SYNTH-L suspend operations 6/01

    EMUSIC-L

    • Archived here at ibiblio.org
    • An unmoderated, open discussion list
    • Monitored by listowners to keep discussions on-track and civil
    • Intended focus on the performance and composition aspects of electronic music.

      Hard subjects

    • Programming techniques
    • Synthesis methods
    • Performance

      Soft Subjects

    • Esthetics
    • Musical analysis & theory
    • Future directions in music
    • "Blue-sky" concepts

      Ad policies

    • Did not accept ads
    • Announcements of conferences,calls for papers, etc., were acceptable
    • Aggressively pursued spammers and one-shot ads
    SYNTH-L
    • No official archives
    • Like EMUSIC-L, unmoderated, open discussion list
    • Monitored by listowners to keep this on-track
    • Geared toward more hardware-oriented discussions

      Subjects

    • Equipment (synthesizers, controllers, effects, recording equipment)
    • Recording techniques
    • Performance setup and technique
    • Music software

      Ad policies

    • Non-commercial buy/sell by subscribers only
    • Did not permit spamming or other off-the-topic ads

    EMUSIC-L back issues

    • Available here at the Web site
    • Only for EMUSIC-L; no back issues exist for SYNTH-L
    • A Picosearch search engine is available

    Any further questions or comments can be directed to Joe McMahon, the current listowner, or Mike Metlay, the co-administrator, simply by clicking on their names here.

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