========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 20:57:09 -0800 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Spamboy Subject: Re: Quality of Sounds In-Reply-To: > >Just for fun, could some > >(or all) of you quantify what good synth sounds consist of? > > Imagery. The best sounds are the ones which look good and seem to be in > interesting places. > > Sorry, but that's how my mind works when I'm composing. > > Nick Rothwell CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance nick@cassiel.com > > four synths good two synths better > I totally know what you mean Nick. Sounds make me see things too. I bet a lot of people share in this phenomenon. It's kind of interesting I think. Randy Budnikas * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Randy@isaac.biola.edu 8182 Glengarry Green *SPACE MONKEY ENTERPRISES * 714-522-BITE Buena Park, CA 90621 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * fax/modem:714-522-6323 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 22:39:34 -0600 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Macalester College Music Department Subject: Re: Schenker In-Reply-To: "Your message dated Thu, 16 Nov 1995 11:18:08 +1000" <01HXPJ8FBILK8X386E@LURE.LATROBE.EDU.AU> > Mark Simon wrote (as part of his contribution to "Complexity"): > >Heinrich Schenker could, in his analyses of the classical masterpieces, > >reduce any of them to a descending sequence of scale steps, 3-2-1. > >Everything else is just elaboration, and then elaborations on elaborations, > >and so on through several levels until you get to the finished product. > > And everything is ultimately V-I. > > Sorry to all those Schenkerian analysts out there, but ol' Heinrich was > IMO severly lacking in imagination! > > Regards, David > musdr@lure.latrobe.edu.au well...I think there is a dandy debate coming, and I am too tired to get it on tonight, so that will have to wait a few hours.... BUT everything is ultimately I-V-I, not V-I. And this is not oversimplification but rather the beauty of the most fundamental, simple logic. The rest is not "just imagination"...it is the creativity which defined the style of an era. I-V-I is demonstrably the core of Sonata form, for example. It is like saying that sonata form is essentially exposition-development-recapitulation. That is not oversimplified, but rather the essence of simplicity. I believe that in Schenkerian analysis it is the *process* by which a piece is reduced to I-V-I that illuminates the understanding of that work, because it can be accomplished in so many creative ways. BTW I do not consider myself a Schenkerian theorist, but the processes of HS's analysis helps me understand the basic deep structure (as it were) of the work I am conducting. I am putting the musical flesh back on the I-V-I skeleton as I conduct. I have to know where to put it, and how much. To know THAT, I must know where the skeleton itself is. In a very general way, the Hauptstimme/Nebenstimme indication in Berg's scores gives me a similar skeleton outline, but based on partwriting rather than harmony. This could be a very interesting discussion, so long as the contributors discuss issues, and do not replace insights with insults! Furthermore, it is not a discussion to be "won" or "lost" but to have participated in. Sorry David, but I feel that "ol' Heinrich" is not a productive way to begin. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Ed Forner Macalester College Music Department + + forner@macalstr.edu voice (612) 696-6189 + +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 10:09:41 +0100 Reply-To: dmantripp@esys1.esys.co.uk Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List Comments: Authenticated sender is From: David Mantripp Organization: ESYS Limited Subject: 2 points on CD compilation Sorry if this is just noise but: In terms of CD cost, we (AD Music Ltd) get 500 runs done for stlg895, including artwork printing and CD packaging. Divide that by 10 people (say) and it works out at around $120 per person - not much! CD length: *don't* exceed 74 minutes (whatever color book that is, I can never remember...blue..red..pfff). Some, albeit few, players, especially CD-ROM players, cannot go over this limit. Some versions of Apple's CD 600i for example. However, we've managed to get 79'50" on 1 CD once. ------------------------------------------------------ David Mantripp Guildford, UK email: drm@esys.co.uk (work) drm@atlas.co.uk (home) ------------------------------------------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 21:24:53 +1000 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: David Rodger Subject: Re: Schenker Hi Ed, thanks for well-considered reply. > well...I think there is a dandy debate coming, and I am too tired to get it on Well, for someone who is tired, you sure do well! >I feel that "ol' Heinrich" is not a productive way to begin. Yes, that was a bit impulsive. >everything is ultimately I-V-I, not V-I. Thanks for the reminder. It's been a few years. > the beauty of the most fundamental, simple logic. The rest is not "just > imagination"...it is the creativity which defined the style of an era. Well, I 'm afraid I just never saw (and still do not see) the point of that sort of reductionist analysis. sometimes it seems that Schenkerian analyses are simply compress the 'time-line' of a piece and demonstrate that its overall harmonic movement is I-V-I. Others simply seem to be emphasizing what was the most dominant (no pun intended, but a nice one anyway :-) ) harmonic progression of the time. (And we can tell this becasue they all did it in what are now very predictable places.) That is, V-I. So, what is the point of that? I much prefer analyses which look at smaller units of harmonic structure (say, on the phrase level) and look at how different ones relate to each other. This is more likely, I think, to tell us about the piece since it shows how the composer was (or might have been) thinking when structuring the piece. Onee can see how the harmony at 'this' point derives from the harmony at 'that' point. And, often, of course, one can see a sort of 'form' or method in the variations. A pattern of sorts emerges. I-V-I doesn't tell me that. And this sort of analysis lends itself to other styles of music because the study of (just) diatonic harmony is not its reason for being. I'm glad you find Schenkerian analysis illuminating. (I had assumed that a few people did, given its position in the general music curriculum.) If we admit, as you duly do, that it is most (or even solely) applicable to a short period in Western European music, then that's fine. So, I don't like Schenkerian analysis. But then I don't much like the subjects of it either. I won't go into that lest I say something else 'impulsive', but I will admit that the harmonic predictability of the Classical period is a testament to how good the composers were at doing it! I much prefer subsequent periods. Wagner might have been a unpleasant chap, but there ain't nothing like that Tristan chord! >it is not a discussion to be "won" or "lost" but to have participated in. Quite right. Few are. Since we're talking opinions, there can't strictly be a right and wrong no matter how firmly we hold them. To sum up, I find HS's technique just too much of an abstraction. After listening to a piece and thinking about it, it's not the sort of thing I'm likely to come up with. It's the more detailed work, _not_ the 'deep structure' which has the greatest effect on me and scrutiny of which is, for me, the most rewarding. Feel free to disagree anyone. I am interested in your opinions even if I don't agree with them. That's what I like about this list. Regards, David musdr@lure.latrobe.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 09:46:41 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: mark simon Subject: Re: Complexity >Don't forget that recent compositional school, the so called "New Complexity" >(people like Ferneyhough, Dillon, Finnessey, et al). Man that stuff evokes >primal reactions in this listener (I love the stuff). And yes, they do use >assorted electronic music devices, although not many synth things. I've only seen their scores, but from the looks of them, I rather doubt that I'd care to hear them. I sincerely doubt that there are any human performers who can really play anything coming close to syncopated 5-in-the-time-of-three nested within 3-in-the-time-of-four nested within something else. There are tales of frustrated musicians completely ignoring the printed notes during performances of Ferneyhough and just doodling jazz licks or Beethoven themes, and NOBODY KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE.(you see, these scores are such a jumble of stuff going on at the same time that no ear can pick out individual lines anyway). Now Ives was much smarter. When he wrote a big jumble of stuff going on at the same time he actually wrote in the folk and popular tunes for the musicians to noodle around on. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Mark G. Simon mgs2@cornell.edu \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 09:03:42 -0600 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Macalester College Music Department Subject: Re: Schenker In-Reply-To: "Your message dated Thu, 16 Nov 1995 21:24:53 +1000" <01HXQ3UUFUEW8X32RI@LURE.LATROBE.EDU.AU> David, and others interested...I was amazed to see this is being done on emusic-l, and to forstall the flames, we had better get it elsewhere, or private, or see to our backsides. This is the last list post I will make...the rest will be private to you David, or another list. Smt-l??? Not sure. Anyway: > Hi Ed, > thanks for well-considered reply. > > > well...I think there is a dandy debate coming, and I am too tired to get it on > Well, for someone who is tired, you sure do well! Nice of you! :-), perhaps it caught my romantic soul at a moment of weakness. > Well, I 'm afraid I just never saw (and still do not see) the point of > that sort of reductionist analysis. sometimes it seems that Schenkerian > analyses are simply compress the 'time-line' of a piece and demonstrate > that its overall harmonic movement is I-V-I. That, I feel, is if you look at the important result as being the fact that it all comes down to I-V-I. For me it is the understanding of how it got there. I KNOW in advance, that it will result in I-V-I, the knowledge I seek is to understand the route taked to get there. By the way, Schenker himself stated that his theory only worked in common practice pieces, and that even Debussy was forcing the issue a bit...according to my theory professor in Vienna who studied with Schenker. > So, what is the point of that? I much prefer analyses which look at smaller > units of harmonic structure (say, on the phrase level) and look at how > different ones relate to each other. Interesting...it seems to me that this is exactly what Schenker does. Not sure what to make of that. > To sum up, I find HS's technique just too much of an abstraction. After > listening to a piece and thinking about it, it's not the sort of thing > I'm likely to come up with. It's the more detailed work, _not_ the 'deep > structure' which has the greatest effect on me and scrutiny of which is, > for me, the most rewarding. First of all, the goal is understanding, not which system is best. HS is by no means the only way I look at scores, only my means of understandng harmonic tension, which I then use when assembling how I will conduct. To me the deep structure IS the detailed work. > > Feel free to disagree anyone. I am interested in your opinions even if > I don't agree with them. That's what I like about this list. > > Regards, David > musdr@lure.latrobe.edu.au Again, we need to find a better place for this, unless the list does not object. From now on I will post privately until someone says differently. regards +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Ed Forner Macalester College Music Department + + forner@macalstr.edu voice (612) 696-6189 + +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 18:23:09 GMT Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: "Eric Harnden (Ronin)" Subject: CD prices,mastering,length,sample ROM,artwork let's see, now... a few items on this general topic. 1) i've got an ad here for 300 CDs for $1000, complete. not bad. can we do better? do we want to? sometimes when you do the full numbers you discover that furhter discounts leave things out that require more than their actual cost in your own time and effort to put together. 2) (talman) mastering? well... i've got the workstation and the editing skills. but you say you've done 50 CDs. when you say that, do you actually mean "mastering"? i mean, not just editing, sequencing and level setting, but compression, eq, and the like for overall tone? if so... you may be hired. i've only done it a couple of times. what i'll probably wind up doing is taking a stab at it at the same time you do, and letting us decide between us which version we like best. 3) so far, btw, i've got 13 people for the project (including those that said they wouldn't do it unless it went to CD). in terms of what this means for our total time per cut, let me provide the following quote (Pohlmann, 3rd ed., p265): "Apart from modulation and error correction overhead, a CD-DA disc holds a maximum of ... 783 million bytes... for 74 minutes. (...) A compact disc has a maximum playing time of 74 minutes, 33 seconds. By varying the CD standards slightly, playing times of over 80 minutes can be achieved. For example, a track pitch of 1.5micrometers and linear velocity of 1.2m/s would yield about 82 minutes of playing time." Now, i have a strong suspicion that such mucking around with the CD spec is not something that your non-name-label manufacturer is going to offer. i'll poke around a little, but i really think that 74 minutes is where it's at. 4) i love the idea of an emusic-l sample CD. but that's going to be a much more painstaking and time-consuming project. i might be willing to start accepting submissions for such a project, but i'm just not going to get around to assembling and mastering such a thing myself for several months at least... i've got a thesis to finish. any other takers? 5) actually, i was thinking of doing the artwork myself. but, hey, why not open that up, too? many of us are multidisciplinary and probably have something to contribute in the visual vein... or have good friends who do. once we're at that stage we could swap gifs around in private email until we agree (or at least disagree least) on final art. does everyone have the ability to view images? if not, i can point to some shareware for the purpose. <--- Entropy Always Wins, And I Like To Be On The Winning Side ---> Eric Harnden (Ronin) harnden@physics.american.edu (202)885-2746 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 18:43:33 GMT Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: "Eric Harnden (Ronin)" Subject: musical survival before i hit the main topic, let me just say that B. Edwards has made my morning. lovely... absolutely lovely. anyway... one of my pathologies for the past ten years has been a deep need to be able to reconstruct everything i do. this has been such a driving force that, not only have i spent far too much time worrying about data dumps, setup charts, and the like, but i have refused to record certain music specifically because i liked it too much and the medium i was going to record it on was so imperfect... why bother producing when you can't reproduce? like i said, it's been a pathology. some of that was relieved when i got a DAT recorder, and now can at least have some confidence that a simple recording won't disappoint me... and now that that has been relieved somewhat, i've relaxed further. i am now much less concerned with the specific repeatability of a sound. one of my favorite synthesizers right now is an old brain-dead DX7... it doesn't remember anything when you turn it off. like an old analog modular, it's a blank slate every time i sit down at it. i'm gearing myself up for a project soon, for which i intend to enter the studio for a solid three days, track like mad, program everything from scratch, and save nothing. no patches. no sequences. the only thing that will survive is the music itself. and i'm beginning to feel that that is as it should be. all experience is ephemeral. from a certain frame of mind, that is part of its beauty. don't be afraid. give birth to the progeny of you and your muse. like you, it will die. similarly, once you've created, is it necessary to recreate? move on. the music you made last year is not the true voice of the present artist. <--- Entropy Always Wins, And I Like To Be On The Winning Side ---> Eric Harnden (Ronin) harnden@physics.american.edu (202)885-2746 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 09:22:16 +1000 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: clive@PELICAN.DBE.CSIRO.AU Subject: Re: Art--><--emusic--help! This list is a wonderfully bizarre place to be: ridiculous to the sublime in 2 weeks flat. Thank you, Bruce. Regards Clive Clive McFarland CSIRO Australia clive@pelican.dbe.csiro.au ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 22:28:21 +0000 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: comp tape >are you sure you wouldn't accept DAT returns? >Nick? Harold? DAT is far too fragile for any kind of permanent recording, although I could digitally clone a backup. >oh, wait... here's a thought. i can get the DAT master cut to one-shot >CDs for those that want them. i think the blanks cost about $20. Better. I'd go for that. Nick Rothwell CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance nick@cassiel.com four synths good two synths better ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 17:42:04 -0600 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Marshall Tuttle Organization: Torii Station 30Gig online at 405-733-7083 Subject: Re: schenker > everything is ultimately I-V-I, not V-I. And this is not > oversimplification but > rather the beauty of the most fundamental, simple logic. The rest is > not "just > imagination"...it is the creativity which defined the style of an > era. 1) eugene narmour in his book "beyond schennkerism" has demonstrated that Schenker's theories are logically flawed beyond repair. I am still waiting for one schenkerian to refute anything mr. narmour wrote. 2) Schenker himself stated that analysis is an art not a science. The art was apparently to prove that his theories are correct. this is often done by ignoring some notes and adding others that are not in the piece. Schenker was not without merit in his early writings, his ideas of structural prolongation are insightful. His concepts of the urlinie 3-2-1( or three blind mice for those who do not understand that notation) being the basis of all music or the chord progression cited above are clearly delusional. mt ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 17:40:10 +1000 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: David Rodger Subject: Re: CD prices,mastering,length,sample ROM,artwork Hi Eric, Jeff, Nick and all the prospective CD stars... 74 minutes _is_ where it's at. Some older CD players won't play longer ones. Their tracking is not good enough to handle a smaller track pitch. Regards, David musdr@lure.latrobe.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 12:53:52 -0600 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: "J. Southwood" Subject: Re: Schenker In-Reply-To: <01HXQ3UUFUEW8X32RI@LURE.LATROBE.EDU.AU> On Thu, 16 Nov 1995, David Rodger wrote: > > Well, I 'm afraid I just never saw (and still do not see) the point of > that sort of reductionist analysis. sometimes it seems that Schenkerian > analyses are simply compress the 'time-line' of a piece and demonstrate > that its overall harmonic movement is I-V-I. Others simply seem to be > emphasizing what was the most dominant (no pun intended, but a nice one > anyway :-) ) harmonic progression of the time. (And we can tell this becasue > they all did it in what are now very predictable places.) That is, V-I. > I'm not an expert on Schenker, by any means, but I know that there is another aspect which seems to have been overlooked. Schenker was concerned also with showing that the German music from the "Common Practice" period could be reduced to a simple 2-part contrapuntal fabric. He argued that the music was just an elaboration of that 2-voice contrapuntal framework. > > I-V-I doesn't tell me that. And this sort of analysis lends itself to other > styles of music because the study of (just) diatonic harmony is not its > reason for being. > > I'm glad you find Schenkerian analysis illuminating. (I had assumed that a > few people did, given its position in the general music curriculum.) If > we admit, as you duly do, that it is most (or even solely) applicable to > a short period in Western European music, then that's fine. Schenker was only concerned with the German/Austrian music between J.S. Bach and Brahms. His reasoning was that the German composers came from a tradition of a certain type of compositional pedagogy which concerned itself primarily with counterpoint, as opposed to the Italians who seemed to favor a more homophonic approach (there are exceptions, of course.) Schenker never intended his analytical method to be applied to Ockeghem, or Verdi or Team Metlay for that matter. > > I much prefer subsequent periods. Wagner might have been a unpleasant > chap, but there ain't nothing like that Tristan chord! Be careful here. As I understand it, there is a rather heated debate among Theorists as to exactly which chord is the "Tristan chord." > > >it is not a discussion to be "won" or "lost" but to have participated in. > > Quite right. Few are. Since we're talking opinions, there can't strictly > be a right and wrong no matter how firmly we hold them. > > To sum up, I find HS's technique just too much of an abstraction. After > listening to a piece and thinking about it, it's not the sort of thing > I'm likely to come up with. It's the more detailed work, _not_ the 'deep > structure' which has the greatest effect on me and scrutiny of which is, > for me, the most rewarding. > Actually, you'd be suprised at the difference it makes to have Schenker's 2-part counterpoint idea running through a composition, even in atonal music. I recently attended the Midwest Composer's Symposium at the University of Illinois (at Champagne) where there were four concerts of student works. There were many that seemed very static (without even being minimalistic or "ambient"), lacking direction or drive toward whatever goal they had intended. A large part of the reason for this lack of direction was the fact that those composers did not take care in organizing the contrapuntal framework. Just for the record, the same contrapuntal framework can be implied in a monophonic line. I hope this didn't seem like rambling, or a huge flame--I'm not a Schenker-ist, but I did want to put in my two cents worth. Cheers, Jon Southwood Jon Southwood ******************************************** ***************** Is 'anal retentive' hyphenated? ***************** ******************************************** jdsouth@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 06:44:56 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: "Mark Nutter, College Tech Systems Mgr" Organization: Indiana University of Pennsylvania Subject: Not-Quite-Ready-For-Prime-Time (Music) Players All this talk about doing a compilation tape has got me thinking about something that's been in the back of my mind for a while. I've asked in a few other forums (fora?), but haven't really gotten any useful answers, so I'll try here. :) Someday I want to be able to plug my synth(s) into some kind of equipment setup at one end, and pull out a professional-quality DAT and/or CD-R at the other. Right now, though, all I know how to handle is plugging my synth into the RCA-type jacks on my $130 boom box, and needless to say, the quality is somewhat lacking. I don't want to ask people to tell me what I need (unless it's much simpler than I suspect), I'm wondering if there are any readily-accessible ways I can learn for myself what I need. Are there, for instance, any magazines you recommend, or any good books on setting up a home studio? I'd rather have a magazine than a book, because I expect a book will be quickly outdated (any good books on setting up a studio built around the new $2K-and-under CD-Recordable drives?). I dunno, maybe my best source is to just keep lurking on emusic-l, but if anybody has any other places I can turn, I'd be grateful. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Nutter Internet: manutter@grove.iup.edu College Technology Systems Manager BITNET: MANUTTER@IUP ACS/College of Fine Arts WWW: http://www.iup.edu/~manutter/ G-4 Stright Hall, IUP Indiana, PA 15705 "Prejudice is what keeps us from seeing that every member of the human species is a person with human rights equal to our own." ============================================================================ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 07:48:08 -0800 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City Subject: Re: Quality of Sounds In-Reply-To: from "Spamboy" at Nov 13, 95 10:29:12 am Spamboy writes-- > >I can't help but notice that people on this list have very strong views on >the quality of sounds on certain synths. But no one seems to explain why >they think certain synths have stupid sounds. Just for fun, could some >(or all) of you quantify what good synth sounds consist of? I know it's >all a matter of opinion, and you can't exactly quantify aesthetic value, >but I'd still like to hear what you gurus have to say. If it makes me frown in concentration, it's good. If it makes me smile spontanteously, it's very good. And a few people on this list have been there when I've heard a sound that actually makes me giggle.... I'm told that it's an endearing trait, quite in opposition to my kick-ass image. :) mike -- I can see the ads now: "The NordLead: It's Team Metlay in a box!"(j.mcmahon) ========================================================================== Mike Metlay ~ ATOMIC CITY ~ P. O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 USA = atomic@netcom.com = http://pd.net/atomic-city = All of our CDs can now be ordered directly from our WWW site, or by calling INFINITE ILLUSIONS: vox 904-385-6463 or 1-800-548-6724, or FAX 904-668-5825 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 08:06:27 -0800 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City Subject: Re: Progress our most important product? In-Reply-To: from "Nick Rothwell" at Nov 14, 95 07:40:38 pm Nick Rothwell writes-- > >>Complexity >>leads not to artistry but to that neurotic attention to tiny detail >>that is the hobgoblin of small minds. > >At the risk of being branded elitist (although a friend of mine recently >defined "elitist" as "requiring talent"), I would point out a further >problem which compounds this: while true artists are (presumably) able to >judge their tools as instruments to facilitate their art, the >"democratisation" of the musical noisebox market ("Hello Music"? How about >"Goodbye Music"?) opens it up to a less experienced potential customer base >which buys features rather than usefulness, and cannot distinguish between >them. It's not elitist to recognize feature bloat as a burgeoning problem, not only for the untrained amateur but for the increasingly frustrated professional. >>The argument of many current artists, including the lamentedly lost >>Jeff Harrington, is that it is impossible for us to create art that >>will survive, because the machines that create it will not. > >I don't mind creating art which does not survive, so long as it can be >recorded. Or am I missing something here? Besides, what does it matter >whether the machines last forever, if the artist cannot? Well, the argument seems to hinge on the idea that a recording of music isn't enough; somehow the music must be performable in future times by others, which implies a need for the machinery rather than the artist. It may all be completely bogus anyway; you deleted the sentence after that, in which I mentioned that I regarded this attitude as a good reason to get out of emusic. :) > four synths good two synths better Concise and accurate. Bravo. mike -- I can see the ads now: "The NordLead: It's Team Metlay in a box!"(j.mcmahon) ========================================================================== Mike Metlay ~ ATOMIC CITY ~ P. O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 USA = atomic@netcom.com = http://pd.net/atomic-city = All of our CDs can now be ordered directly from our WWW site, or by calling INFINITE ILLUSIONS: vox 904-385-6463 or 1-800-548-6724, or FAX 904-668-5825 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 11:24:19 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Jeffrey Winston Mikulski Subject: Re: Schenkar As was aptly stated by another member of the list, Schankarian analysis is a reductive *process*, of deconstructing complex works to the fundamental movement I-V-I. To say that Schankar's theories showed a lacked imagination is missing the point. Would you say that there is no imaginative use for computers since their language is ultimately only 1 and 0? Schankar recognized I-V-I as the basis for all occidental music (at least at the time he was creating his theories), the fact that this is true is in no way a comment on the man or his imagination. Jeffrey W. Mikulski Climbing Ivy Media ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 08:29:13 -0800 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City Subject: Re: Progress our most important product? In-Reply-To: from "roger king" at Nov 15, 95 04:26:00 pm roger king writes-- > >This is why all recorded music should be scored in some way. >I was wondering, though, how ambient music is scored? The same way any other music is scored, of course. With traditional notation. With lead sheets and chord charts. On graph paper. With reams of text notes. With computer files. With pictures. Not at all. All facetiousness aside, let me elaborate: while any music can be scored in any manner, ambient music, with its reliance on timbre, is too young and non-traditional a form to have a generally-accepted lingua franca for notation, in the manner in which we expect an orchestral score to be written out on staff paper in various clefs. mike -- I can see the ads now: "The NordLead: It's Team Metlay in a box!"(j.mcmahon) ========================================================================== Mike Metlay ~ ATOMIC CITY ~ P. O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 USA = atomic@netcom.com = http://pd.net/atomic-city = All of our CDs can now be ordered directly from our WWW site, or by calling INFINITE ILLUSIONS: vox 904-385-6463 or 1-800-548-6724, or FAX 904-668-5825 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 09:20:54 -0800 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City Subject: Re: oops In-Reply-To: <199511160309.WAA112788@acs-mail.bu.edu> from "Mark Hodgson" at Nov 15, 95 10:09:59 pm After a lovely letter in which he managed to make me feel like a total ignoramus for only knowing the name of Cristofori, Mark Hodgson writes-- >But, manufacturer's claims to the contrary, I'm sure, there is a whole >lot less variation across manufacturers today in what makes a piano >plink, than there is in what makes each synthesizer . . . well, you >know. And I don't think that will always be the case for synths. To reply to this and your other note: I'd agree, to some extent. There will always be a historical interest in instruments that have unique characters. I think that a number of ideas from our formative era will survive, at least as ethnomusicological curiosities, and I am personally glad to be here. As to what the default wonderbox might be, I have several ideas, but those will have to wait until I see how much of my latest article submission gets by the editors at RECORDING Magazine.... mike -- I can see the ads now: "The NordLead: It's Team Metlay in a box!"(j.mcmahon) ========================================================================== Mike Metlay ~ ATOMIC CITY ~ P. O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 USA = atomic@netcom.com = http://pd.net/atomic-city = All of our CDs can now be ordered directly from our WWW site, or by calling INFINITE ILLUSIONS: vox 904-385-6463 or 1-800-548-6724, or FAX 904-668-5825 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 09:14:01 -0800 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City Subject: Re: musical survival In-Reply-To: <199511161742.MAA88743@atlanta.american.edu> from "Eric Harnden" at Nov 16, 95 06:43:33 pm Eric Harnden writes-- >one of my pathologies for the past ten years has been a deep need >to be able to reconstruct everything i do. this has been such a >driving force that, not only have i spent far too much time >worrying about data dumps, setup charts, and the like, but i have >refused to record certain music specifically because i liked it >too much and the medium i was going to record it on was so >imperfect... why bother producing when you can't reproduce? like >i said, it's been a pathology. some of that was relieved when i >got a DAT recorder, and now can at least have some confidence >that a simple recording won't disappoint me... and now that that >has been relieved somewhat, i've relaxed further. i am now much >less concerned with the specific repeatability of a sound. one of >my favorite synthesizers right now is an old brain-dead DX7... it >doesn't remember anything when you turn it off. like an old >analog modular, it's a blank slate every time i sit down at it. >i'm gearing myself up for a project soon, for which i intend to >enter the studio for a solid three days, track like mad, program >everything from scratch, and save nothing. no patches. no >sequences. the only thing that will survive is the music itself. >and i'm beginning to feel that that is as it should be. all >experience is ephemeral. from a certain frame of mind, that is >part of its beauty. don't be afraid. give birth to the progeny of >you and your muse. like you, it will die. similarly, once you've >created, is it necessary to recreate? move on. the music you made >last year is not the true voice of the present artist. A not unusual problem and a very constructive solution IMO. I actually found, in my case, that reproducing music was not as vital to me as reproducing timbre: once a song was recorded, even on four-track cassette, I stopped worrying about it, but my patches were objects of constant concern...for me it was a matter of maintaining one's tools, rather than worrying about cloning works one had previously completed. Getting a copy of Galaxy helped a lot where my Xpander and most of my other instruments were concerned, but ironically the one place where it was really needed was for my D-70, which has never worked properly with Galaxy. I've been told by a friend at Opcode to expect a bugfix for this exact problem in the new release. We'll see. In the meantime, I worry more than I should about overwriting old patches.... mike -- I can see the ads now: "The NordLead: It's Team Metlay in a box!"(j.mcmahon) ========================================================================== Mike Metlay ~ ATOMIC CITY ~ P. O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 USA = atomic@netcom.com = http://pd.net/atomic-city = All of our CDs can now be ordered directly from our WWW site, or by calling INFINITE ILLUSIONS: vox 904-385-6463 or 1-800-548-6724, or FAX 904-668-5825 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 12:56:53 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Wired4Soun@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Schenker Previously on EMUSIC-L: > To sum up, I find HS's technique just too much of an abstraction. After > listening to a piece and thinking about it, it's not the sort of thing > I'm likely to come up with. It's the more detailed work, _not_ the 'deep > structure' which has the greatest effect on me and scrutiny of which is, > for me, the most rewarding. >>First of all, the goal is understanding, not which system is best. HS is by no >>means the only way I look at scores, only my means of understandng harmonic >>tension, which I then use when assembling how I will conduct. To me the deep >>structure IS the detailed work. *********** I think the important corollary here is "departure and return." I don't care to get into a lengthy academic discussion loaded with labels for every bone and muscle in a piece of music. However, getting to glimpse how another composer/artist envisions structure is totally welcome at my digital door. :> What makes an artist an artist is often a different vision of very common events: seeing the sculpture within the rock. I prefer to lean toward the "truck driver analysis" of musical structure. "Ya know? Well, it started here, an den it did sumpin' else, an den it came back again." "It's fun to take a trip, but it feels so good to return home again." Schenker? Profound? It's still rock-n-roll to me? I remember wasting a whole lot of time in grad school doing an independent study of a Vaughn Williams symphony in a Schenkerian method. I didn't really care that one could reduce _everything_ to a tonic-dominant relationship. It was beautiful and compelling music, but why? Do literary folk reduce great works to a subject and a verb? "Romeo and Juliette died." And now, we have lots of structural things that are based totally on repetition - Glass and Reich among the early leaders (don't forget Stravinsky, Debussy, and Ravel.) Visually, repetition is weaving a tapestry or other fabric that is a common part of just about every culture. And we now have "stasis" as a musical form. Atmospheres, environments, non-linearxjust being. Eno's airport music was a non-event for me, because I was around lots of that kind of stuff, and doing some of those kinds of events, too. He was an art student that ran with his vision into a world of sound. I always hope that I can bring some of those kinds of vision into my emusic compositions. Tom Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 09:08:47 -0800 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City Subject: Re: CD prices,mastering,length,sample ROM,artwork In-Reply-To: <199511161721.MAA47310@atlanta.american.edu> from "Eric Harnden" at Nov 16, 95 06:23:09 pm My god, replying to one of ronin's letters in less than a week! Eric Harnden writes-- > >let's see, now... a few items on this general topic. >1) i've got an ad here for 300 CDs for $1000, complete. not bad. >can we do better? do we want to? sometimes when you do the full >numbers you discover that furhter discounts leave things out that >require more than their actual cost in your own time and effort >to put together. It may be worthwhile to go to a CD-R place. Depending on how many you want made, you can have them burned for $20 apiece in whatever quantity. The problem with these is that this cost does not include artwork, just a blank CD-R in a jewelcase. I'm going to be sending several very difficult mastering projects to Blue Planet Studio, whom some folks may have seen advertising in the back of EM. The proprietor, one Sean Flemming, seems pleasant, prompt and competent, and his prices are unbeatable. I'll evaluate the calibre of his work on my own stuff and let people know. >2) (talman) mastering? well... i've got the workstation and the >editing skills. but you say you've done 50 CDs. when you say >that, do you actually mean "mastering"? i mean, not just editing, >sequencing and level setting, but compression, eq, and the like >for overall tone? if so... you may be hired. i've only done it a >couple of times. what i'll probably wind up doing is taking a >stab at it at the same time you do, and letting us decide between >us which version we like best. This is something that should be done ourselves...Blue Planet charges a premium for it. >3) so far, btw, i've got 13 people for the project (including >those that said they wouldn't do it unless it went to CD). I guess you could add me at this point, but I'm not sure how much money I could spend to make it happen...I have music of my own to put out. Add to that my continual internal struggle against giving away my material for compilations, and I'm a definite maybe. >Now, i have a strong suspicion that such mucking around with the >CD spec is not something that your non-name-label manufacturer is >going to offer. i'll poke around a little, but i really think >that 74 minutes is where it's at. I agree. >4) i love the idea of an emusic-l sample CD. but that's going to >be a much more painstaking and time-consuming project. i might be >willing to start accepting submissions for such a project, but >i'm just not going to get around to assembling and mastering such >a thing myself for several months at least... i've got a thesis >to finish. any other takers? I have no interest in making or adding to a sample CD. >5) actually, i was thinking of doing the artwork myself. but, >hey, why not open that up, too? many of us are multidisciplinary >and probably have something to contribute in the visual vein... >or have good friends who do. once we're at that stage we could >swap gifs around in private email until we agree (or at least >disagree least) on final art. does everyone have the ability to >view images? if not, i can point to some shareware for the >purpose. The issue then becomes printing. Depending on how many copies we actually want to make, there are various ways to do this cost-effectively. And this points up a critical issue: how many? Do we think we could sell 1000 of these things, or 500, or even 300? Realistically, now. -- I can see the ads now: "The NordLead: It's Team Metlay in a box!"(j.mcmahon) ========================================================================== Mike Metlay ~ ATOMIC CITY ~ P. O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 USA = atomic@netcom.com = http://pd.net/atomic-city = All of our CDs can now be ordered directly from our WWW site, or by calling INFINITE ILLUSIONS: vox 904-385-6463 or 1-800-548-6724, or FAX 904-668-5825 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 07:50:35 -0800 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City Subject: Re: Art--><--emusic--help! In-Reply-To: <199511141402.JAA03026@postoffice.mail.cornell.edu> from "mark simon" at Nov 14, 95 09:02:10 am mark simon writes-- > >The point is you can use any kind of random process or non-musical data to >generate music, but the sound of the end product is going to be determined >mostly by the method you use to convert the data into music. And THIS is what I term 'selection artifacts', the process by which a supposedly objective reduction of data into art is by no means objective. It's my primary gripe with the music of F**r*ll* T*r*nz*, aside from the fact that it's unlistenable. :) mike -- I can see the ads now: "The NordLead: It's Team Metlay in a box!"(j.mcmahon) ========================================================================== Mike Metlay ~ ATOMIC CITY ~ P. O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 USA = atomic@netcom.com = http://pd.net/atomic-city = All of our CDs can now be ordered directly from our WWW site, or by calling INFINITE ILLUSIONS: vox 904-385-6463 or 1-800-548-6724, or FAX 904-668-5825 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 11:12:00 EST Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: roger king Subject: Re: CD prices,mastering,length,sample ROM,artwork >4) i love the idea of an emusic-l sample CD. but that's going to >be a much more painstaking and time-consuming project. i might be >willing to start accepting submissions for such a project, but >i'm just not going to get around to assembling and mastering such >a thing myself for several months at least... i've got a thesis >to finish. any other takers? Where's that John III when you need 'em? :) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 20:21:54 +0000 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: Progress our most important product? >>The argument of many current artists, including the lamentedly lost >>Jeff Harrington, is that it is impossible for us to create art that >>will survive, because the machines that create it will not. >This is why all recorded music should be scored in some way. >I was wondering, though, how ambient music is scored? Well, in my opinion, it should not. I thought ambient music was intended originally to enhance a particular space or installation. Why score it if someone comes along the following year and knocks down your gallery or warehouse? Nick Rothwell CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance nick@cassiel.com four synths good two synths better ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 16:07:25 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: "Ridderbusch, Michael" Subject: competitions I would like to submit a DAT to an e-music composition competition. I would be appreciative of list members for information on e-music competitions. You could post info. to me personally (or the list, if you think others might be interested). Leads would be appreciated also. Michael Ridderbusch mridder@wvnvm.wvnet.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 16:26:00 EST Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: roger king Subject: Re: Progress our most important product? >=========================================================================== >Mike Metlay ~ ATOMIC CITY ~ P. O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 USA > = atomic@netcom.com = http://pd.net/atomic-city = >All of our CDs can now be ordered directly from our WWW site, or by calling >INFINITE ILLUSIONS: vox 904-385-6463 or 1-800-548-6724, or FAX 904-668-5825 > >... while any music can be >scored in any manner, ambient music, with its reliance on timbre, >is too young and non-traditional a form to have a generally-accepted >lingua franca for notation, in the manner in which we expect an >orchestral score to be written out on staff paper in various clefs. There should be a new, young, non-traditional way to notate, then. Any ideas on where to start? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 08:30:53 +1000 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: David Rodger Subject: Re: Schenkar Hi Jeffrey, Ed and I took this discussion off-list because it didn't have ObEmCon (Obligatory Emusic Content). >To say that Schankar's theories showed a lacked imagination >is missing the point. Hmm. Schankar (that's a very interesting mistake). I had mentioned that I had been a little hasty. Edd said that he found Schenkerian analysis illuminating not because of the I-V-I result but because of how you get there. I find that it's because you get there (I-V-I) that it doesn't tell me anything. Why continue to that point? Why not just stop at the middle level of the analysis? Since everything in that limited ouevre is going to end up at I-V-I, ther isn't any point to going that far, is there? (Real question, not a rhetorical attempt to emphasize my position.) I find it interesting that you use the term deconstructing. In lit crit, the aim of deconstruction is often find (and assert) that a text actually says the opposite (or at least something completely different) from what an uncritical reading would suggest. >Would you say that there is no imaginative use for computers since their >language is ultimately only 1 and 0? I think we'd have a flamewar if I answered that one! Suffice to say that if I were analyzing a computer music piece, I'd be looking at musical constructs (as I do with traditionally rendered pieces). I can't hear the 1s an 0s any more than I can hear each cycle of a violin note. Schenker's 'recognition' of I-V-I would, I suspect, have insulted the composers of the music we has analyzing. As I said to Ed, I don't find reducing it that far illuminating, but, as with Ed, I think that what we might disagree on is where to stop. Gee I'm glad this had a bit of ObEmCon! Regards, Dvid musdr@lure.latrobe.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 14:51:57 -0700 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: John Krikawa Subject: Re: competitions Michael Ridderbusch writes, >I would like to submit a DAT to an e-music composition competition. >I would be appreciative of list members for information on e-music >competitions. You could post info. to me personally (or the list, >if you think others might be interested). Leads would be appreciated >also. I have not heard any 'competitions' (that I can recall) in my getting-lengthy lurking here. However, this list is subject to periodic posts regarding 'calls for submissions' and these may include musical works, papers and multidisciplinary exhibits. The submissions are usually for symposiums. If enough people submit to the emusic-l compilation tape, pieces may compete for DAT/disc-space...but you aint gonna get tangible goods for it! regards, -john ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JKRIKAWA@CCIT.Arizona.Edu Tucson, Arizona homepage-less day: (520) 626-6013 night: (520) 326-3068 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 08:22:52 -0800 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City Subject: Re: Complexity In-Reply-To: <199511152014.PAA51001@pen1.pen.k12.va.us> from "Peter K Schoenhoff" at Nov 15, 95 03:14:27 pm Peter K Schoenhoff writes-- > >These are the graceful words of mark simon: > >->In my definition of artistry, one of the essential requirements is the >->ability to balance simplicity with complexity. Attention to minute detail >->is very important. It can make the difference between mediocrity and >->greatness. It only becomes a hobgoblin of small minds when you lose sight of >-> The big picture... >->Can I say this another way? Yes: Artistry means presenting complex ideas in >->such a way as to make them seem simple. > > VERY well spoken (written!) I couldn't have said it better. Neither could I. It gets what I was attempting to communicate across much more effectively than my too-blunt statement had managed. I hope this resolves our disagreement, Peter. mike -- There is one art, no more no less: to do all things with artlessness. (hein) ========================================================================== Mike Metlay ~ ATOMIC CITY ~ P. O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 USA = atomic@netcom.com = http://pd.net/atomic-city = All of our CDs can now be ordered directly from our WWW site, or by calling INFINITE ILLUSIONS: vox 904-385-6463 or 1-800-548-6724, or FAX 904-668-5825 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 16:48:01 PST Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List Comments: Environmental Systems Research Institute From: "Tapas Das [ESRI-Redlands]" Subject: COMDEX - promising toys Just returned after the tiring COMDEX in Las Vegas. This show never fails to amaze me year after year as we see the unvieling of new technologies. This years spotlight was taken up by the new 5" DVD discs. Philips, Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba staged some very impressive demos to display the capabilites of this new wonder disc. It is good news that the two warring camps have judiciously agreed on a unified format. The official name is not MMCD (as proposed by Sony) or SD (as proposed by Toshiba). Both are being dropped in favor of "DVD". DVD has great potential in the home studio market. If you are capable of getting a cheap rewritable random access media at 2.6 GB per side, would you really care for tapes? We all know how simple and fast it is to work with hard disk recording systems, but the downside is cost of storage. At present it is cost effective to have a hard disk system for all the editing plus have a DA88 or ADAT for backing up data, storage, and data transfer. Once the DVDs go into mass production, we may as well drop the tape based DA88 and ADATs. Here are the storage limits: 4.7 GB - single layer, one sided, read only. 8.5 GB - dual layer, one sided, read only. 9.4 GB - single layer, two sided, read only. 17.0 GB - dual layer, two sided, read only. 3.8 GB - single layer, one sided, write once. 2.6 GB - single layer, one sided, rewritable. The video clips using MPEG2 codec were better than laser disc quality and the DOLBY AC-3 5.1 discrete audio tracks sounded stunning although it is hard to make critical judgements in a noisy environment. The second show stealer were the ever glorius flat color LCD panels with their dropping prices and the new Sony flat screen plasma displays. The Sony display looked like a product from a sci-fi movie. Astounding clarity and depth - the perfect companion for a hi-definition video feed. Imagine a synth with a popup 10" color LCD display. Imagine a built-in recordable drive, capable of sampling from 17 GB discs. Music Workstations will redefine themselves. Another interesting product was Sonys IEEE 1394 bidirectional digital link. All IEEE compatible products can be hooked up to a personal computer which becomes the master controller. This is similar to hooking up a bunch of audio/video components to a receiver. We got a cool demo of how a PC can interact with a digital handycam, a DVD recorder, a 100 CD changer, a color printer, an audio receiver plus other assorted gear. The demonstration began with hooking up a digital link to a digital handycam. The software program on the PC immediately sensed that the handycam did not have a tape loaded inside. It flashed a warning message. So we put in a tiny digital video tape - slightly larger than a micro cassette. The PC then automatically scanned the contents on the tape and displayed a matrix of different video clips on the PC screen. We selected clips numbered 1, 5, and 3, and pressed ok. The software on the PC sent commands through the digital link to the handycam asking it to rewind to scene #1, play the scene, while it activated a DVD recorder to record the scene. Once done, the recorder went to pause, while the handycam got cued up to scene #5, and the process continued till done. All without any human intervention. When the DVD was instructed to playback, it played back the dubbed scenes with seamless continuity. Spectacular. And you had complete control of all the devices via the PC. Heck, it even made a hard copy of a scene on a color printer while playing back a selected track from a 100 CD changer to keep us entertained - multitasking in action! Any electronic device can be equipped with a tiny 5mm x 5mm x 2mm chip to make it IEEE compliant. Knowing very well how MIDI redefined the music industry, this IEEE digital link standard may revolutionize the way we interact with and control electronic devices. I see far reaching possiblities in the project studio arena. Tapas Das tdas@esri.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 08:59:24 -0800 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City Subject: Re: obliquity In-Reply-To: <009996CF.A88C6420.22430@physics.american.edu> from "Eric Harnden" at Nov 15, 95 10:43:26 am Eric Harnden writes-- > >my own addition to my cardset: > >Play only notes. Nice. Is this a physical addition, or do you have something like a Hypercard stack that you add to? >p.s. actually, i also keep wanting to have a way to include my >favorite quote from the artist Moebius: "ah... that's it! i can >feel the great blueness taking over my head!" I would suggest the following: Do you feel the great blueness taking over your head? Why not? -- I can see the ads now: "The NordLead: It's Team Metlay in a box!"(j.mcmahon) ========================================================================== Mike Metlay ~ ATOMIC CITY ~ P. O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 USA = atomic@netcom.com = http://pd.net/atomic-city = All of our CDs can now be ordered directly from our WWW site, or by calling INFINITE ILLUSIONS: vox 904-385-6463 or 1-800-548-6724, or FAX 904-668-5825 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 20:59:22 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: MORGAN ELLINGTON SMITH Subject: Re: Not-Quite-Ready-For-Prime-Time (Music) Players "Electronic Musician" magazine publishes some useful articles. It's not as synth-intensive as it sounds; perhaps you don't want so many articles like "how to record a killer guitar sound" and such. They've had some articles on digital recording (i.e. vs. analog recording, deck-vs.-deck, etc). Morgan Smith ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 00:05:54 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Bruce Edwards Subject: complex & devious On 11/13 Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City Subject: Re: Progress our most important product? wrote: >While it's dangerous to get into value judgements, my current >frustration with my studio as a (non-)music-making system leads me to >believe that there may well be a negative correlation here. Complexity >leads not to artistry but to that neurotic attention to tiny detail. . .< Having arrived on this list solely on the basis of the utility of "emusic" tools I am sure Imust be missing some subtle cosmic and karmic link between a synth and the soul . . . maybe I just don't get it -- it is unfortunately true that in life you get to make choices. Walking and Driving a car are not different forms of the same act. If you want to ride your bike to work, ride your bike TO WORK! But if you find yourself riding in an automobile don't blame the unique maintenance chores cars demand for your inability to enjoy your world from the back of a bike Or maybe it is just the use of the word "complex" that I stumble against. Mike as a card carrying member of Big Science you got know the gentleman sitting under a tree scribbling esoteric symbols with a worn down #2 pencil on a Big Chief Tablet would not have the practical opportunity to do that without an extremely complex support structure (including the janitor who never quite manages to get the cigarette butts swept up.) The infrastructure needed to mine, timber, design, manufacture and market a piano has created a reciprocal "complexity" in who what why when & where the piano is used (in the early 19th century English piano manufacturers waged a conscious & deliberate "war" on the guitar to make it (& its inherent simplicity) unacceptable to the "better" class of people.) I can not design a piano, cannot build one (did Heath ever have a kit for one?), do not ever want to be responsible for a concert tuning of one, and not one I have ever owned would fit on even the largest of my Korg, Roland, Yamaha motorcycles (oh, wrong list for that reference). . . and a piano is simple compared to the complexity of some of the organs upon which Bach performed . . . and after spending 3 years coordinating 11 players performing as frequently as possible in amorphous electron cloud like configurations within a home radius of 150 miles I tend to believe that the logistics of assembling, rehearsing, feeding, clothing and thrusting on stage a choir capable of performing St. Marks Passion exceeds the level of complexity of even most 48 track (got a midi side car and a fairlight in the closet) professional studios it has been my pleasure & misfortune to stumble across. What is it that you want to do with the music that you do not already have an answer as to how to proceed ? - - - I guess that I do not believe that equipment maintenance is a critical blockage (even though it near t' broke my heart to let the CONN organ go a year ago and it was never going to "pull out the stops" in response to a floppy disk.) Regards, B. Edwards ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 10:34:22 +0000 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: Quality of Sounds >If it makes me frown in concentration, it's good. If it makes me smile >spontanteously, it's very good. And a few people on this list have been >there when I've heard a sound that actually makes me giggle.... Then, there's also the sounds which rearrange his hair. Nick Rothwell CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance nick@cassiel.com four synths good two synths better ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 17:47:58 +0000 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: Art--><--emusic--help! >It's my primary gripe with the music of F**r*ll* T*r*nz*, aside from the >fact that it's unlistenable. :) Let me try to follow this: you mean she's claiming that the original source material should be regarded as Art in its own right? Nick Rothwell CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance nick@cassiel.com four synths good two synths better ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 17:48:09 +0000 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: obliquity >I would suggest the following: > >Do you feel the great blueness taking over your head? Why not? "Does the blueness burn? Can you travel in it?" Here are some obliques that I've put together: "Be the room, looking in." "Pure alcohol. Now introduce a drop of blood." "Energy flows where attention goes." "Crisis is a moment of power." These are largely picked up from dance/theatre people here and adapted. I have some others of my own which no-one else would understand (such as "Tortoiseshell and brass" which would take a long time to explain); but then, understanding isn't really the point. Nick Rothwell CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance nick@cassiel.com four synths good two synths better ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 14:12:19 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: NEC_CEELY@FLO.ORG Subject: Re: Schenkar perhaps you should learn the correct spelling of his name! RPC ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 16:07:21 -0600 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Macalester College Music Department Subject: Re: Progress our most important product? In-Reply-To: "Your message dated Fri, 17 Nov 1995 16:26:00 -0500 (EST)" > >=========================================================================== > >Mike Metlay ~ ATOMIC CITY ~ P. O. Box 81175, Pittsburgh, PA 15217-0675 USA > > = atomic@netcom.com = http://pd.net/atomic-city = > >All of our CDs can now be ordered directly from our WWW site, or by calling > >INFINITE ILLUSIONS: vox 904-385-6463 or 1-800-548-6724, or FAX 904-668-5825 > > > >... while any music can be > >scored in any manner, ambient music, with its reliance on timbre, > >is too young and non-traditional a form to have a generally-accepted > >lingua franca for notation, in the manner in which we expect an > >orchestral score to be written out on staff paper in various clefs. > > There should be a new, young, non-traditional way to notate, then. > Any ideas on where to start? 1. Decide what the basic elements are of the style of the music you wish to notate. (not all music requires harmony, pitch, duration, speed and volume as does the traditional western model...and in pretty equal amounts) 2. Decide what the most logical way is to express those values in graphic form. Test it, refine it. This is an assignment I give my e-music class each year. I would be VERY interested in comments, as would my class!!! regards +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Ed Forner Macalester College Music Department + + forner@macalstr.edu voice (612) 696-6189 + +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 08:18:12 -0800 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City Subject: Re: Art--><--emusic--help! In-Reply-To: from "Nick Rothwell" at Nov 18, 95 05:47:58 pm Nick Rothwell writes-- > >>It's my primary gripe with the music of F**r*ll* T*r*nz*, aside from the >>fact that it's unlistenable. :) > >Let me try to follow this: you mean she's claiming that the original source >material should be regarded as Art in its own right? Not as such, but that its form contains certain Truths that she brings out somehow in her music. I think. Her liner notes aren't very clear on this. She may have just said, "Ho hum, it's a boring day, I think I'll feed some galaxy data into my sampler...oooh cool, that sounds like noise, think I'll play with it." But I doubt it. mike -- mike metlay * atomic city | = atomic@netcom.com = | cd mailorder po box 81175 | "So, instead of musical mind over matter pittsburgh, pa 15217-0675 | we end up with no mind over matter, or or order from our website | cognitive dissonance with a good beat." http://pd.net/atomic-city | or via infinite illusions | (r. king) toll free: 1-800-548-6724 | ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:43:09 EST Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: "william.b.fox" Subject: Re: Progress our most important product? Nick said: > four synths good two synths better Mike responded: >Concise and accurate. Bravo. To extend the concept, could one say the following? "Four synths good, two synths better, one synth best." My newly acquired ARP 2600 and I stand at the ready! Bill Fox wbf@aloft.att.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:43:03 -0800 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Mike Metlay ++ Atomic City Subject: Re: Progress our most important product? In-Reply-To: <9511201543.AA09876@acropolis> from "william.b.fox" at Nov 20, 95 10:43:09 am william.b.fox writes-- > >Nick said: >> four synths good two synths better > >Mike responded: >>Concise and accurate. Bravo. > >To extend the concept, could one say the following? > "Four synths good, two synths better, one synth best." >My newly acquired ARP 2600 and I stand at the ready! Bill, email to your address is bouncing with unusual error messages. This is especially weird because you seem to be getting emusic list mail just fine. Please write me at your earliest convenience. >Bill Fox wbf@aloft.att.com Thanks. mike -- mike metlay * atomic city | = atomic@netcom.com = | cd mailorder po box 81175 | "So, instead of musical mind over matter pittsburgh, pa 15217-0675 | we end up with no mind over matter, or or order from our website | cognitive dissonance with a good beat." http://pd.net/atomic-city | or via infinite illusions | (r. king) toll free: 1-800-548-6724 | ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 00:00:53 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Gregory Jenkins Subject: MIDI software router/countroller I've had this crazy idea for a couple of days: a software package for the IBM-PC that would emulate a *very* nice keyboard controller in concert with a not-so-good keyboard controller. What the software would essentially do is receive MIDI information (notes, control codes, etc.) on one channel and map these incoming MIDI events into other MIDI events, while also allowing the user to set up any number of breakpoints assigning each to a different MIDI channel. The impetus behind this originated from my Yamaha KX-88 that I use as a keyboard controller. It is pretty clumsy to program, and only allows 2 channel output with one split point. A program package with the functions described above would really save alot of hassle. Here comes the 'Can you help me?' part...... I have looked around on the major MIDI-related ftp sites for a software package that might fulfill *some* of these requirements, but have missed the mark. If *ANYONE* has home-brewed or know of such a utility, please let me know. Since I am pretty sure it doesn't exist (I can only hope), that leads me to my second question. Can anyone suggest good routines for accessing an MPU-401 compatible MIDI interface for a PC in C or Visual Basic? I have down loaded some from ftp sites, but it is difficult to tell if the routines will be quick enough to handle all this real-time MIDI accessing. I am particularly interested in the Visual Basic application since I don't know C very well. If someone has programmed for MIDI on a PC platform, please offer your advice. Thanx--- ___________________________________________________________ | gjenkins@delphi.umd.edu | University of | | Greg Jenkins | Maryland | ----------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 03:35:44 GMT Reply-To: jetman@tunanet.com Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: jetman Organization: tunanet Subject: Re: CD prices,mastering,length,sample ROM,artwork Comments: To: homer!AMERICAN.EDU!EMUSIC-L@AMERICAN.EDU Eric Harnden writes-- >2) (talman) mastering? well... i've got the workstation and the >editing skills. but you say you've done 50 CDs. when you say >that, do you actually mean "mastering"? i mean, not just editing, >sequencing and level setting, but compression, eq, and the like >for overall tone? if so... you may be hired. i've only done it a >couple of times. what i'll probably wind up doing is taking a >stab at it at the same time you do, and letting us decide between >us which version we like best. sure, the more the merrier. yes, i have done actual mastering: eq, peak limiting, compression, level balance between numbers, the works, many times over. i have access to a sonic solutions station for printing the final pre-master (that's pre-glass master) that would be shipped out to the factory. >but i really think that 74 minutes is where it's at. wouldn't have it any other way, in fact we usually set the limit at 73:30, popping up to maybe 73:45 just a couple times. the few extra seconds just aren't worth all the aggravation you'd get when the factory called up and said you had to re-master and chop out a few seconds. > emusic-l sample CD not my interest, but if it's cheap enough i'll buy a copy. >we could swap gifs around in private email until we agree (or at least >disagree least) on final art sounds fine to me. what's the next step?? probably to decide what sort of a chunk of money were looking at. electronic musician has shortrun cd printers listed every month. anyone have experience with any of them? i havce a friend who just did a shortrun, will check with him. jeff talman jetman@tunanet.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:08:42 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Joe McMahon Subject: Re: obliquity In-Reply-To: from "Nick Rothwell" at Nov 18, 95 05:48:09 pm > >Do you feel the great blueness taking over your head? Why not? > > "Does the blueness burn? Can you travel in it?" > Or, more in the flavor of the original strategies: Allow the great blueness to take over > Here are some obliques that I've put together: > > "Be the room, looking in." > "Pure alcohol. Now introduce a drop of blood." > "Energy flows where attention goes." > "Crisis is a moment of power." > > These are largely picked up from dance/theatre people here and adapted. I > have some others of my own which no-one else would understand (such as > "Tortoiseshell and brass" which would take a long time to explain); but > then, understanding isn't really the point. Exactly. There are two points here: one is to create your own personal symbology which helps you tap your creative energies - the symbols have meaning which work for you. The other is to purposely use opacity as a trigger to vector you current state of mind in a new direction. The fact that there is no definite association may actually be better. I'd be very happy to have any other strategies anyone comes up with - I'll add them to the canonical list with attributions in the Newton app. It will, I hope, be able to allow you to add your own strategies and to share them with others who have the app, once I get past the next plateau of understanding soups and routing. --- Joe M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 02:34:38 -0800 Reply-To: Mario Milat Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Mario Milat Subject: MU5 + ProMix 01 MIDI implementation In-Reply-To: <199511210601.BAA06693@atlanta.american.edu> Hi, could anybody kindly help solving this, please: I'm working on some dynamic GM MIDI files using Cubase and Yamaha MU5 GM module (also serves as a Mac-to-MIDI box ). I would like to control the volume of the MU5 voices in the mixdown with ProMix 01 as a MIDI fader controller. I connected MIDI ins and outs between the two and assigned ProMix faders to control 7 (volume) to each voice. So far I succeeded to get the response from MU5 watching all 16 LCD VUs move as I move the faders but when I connected it to Mac all faders switched to only one voice - 16! So, I tried changing all MIDI parameters, thrus and echos on both ProMix and MU5, as well as Cubase MIDI through, but with no results. Seems as Cubase is filtering MIDI in some way... or, am I doing something wrong? Any MIDI gurus who might point to a solution? Thanks, any advice much appreciated. Mario ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 09:20:15 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Wired4Soun@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Progress our most important product? >>>it is impossible for us to create art that >>>will survive, because the machines that create it will not. >>This is why all recorded music should be scored in some way. >>I was wondering, though, how ambient music is scored? >Well, in my opinion, it should not. I thought ambient music was intended >originally to enhance a particular space or installation. Why score it if >someone comes along the following year and knocks down your gallery or >warehouse? It cuts both ways! I remember hearing about tons of NASA data that is stored on formats that are totally obsolete and never used/studied. And, often the memory of the "event" is far more eloquent than the factual documentation - audio recordings included. Nick Rothwell's "hair on the neck" can prove the same for those memories. Tom Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 10:49:01 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Composer 11 Subject: Pro-Tools for sale! Comments: To: wd528@freenet.victoria.bc.ca I have a Digidesign Pro-Tools system for the Macintosh for sale. This system provides 4 channels of digital audio with extensive editing capabilities. I am asking $2500.00 for my system. My analog contact information is as follows: KB Music/Kelly Bryarly 1570 Quail Lake Loop Colorado Springs, CO 80906 800-279-2759 Thanks, Kelly Bryarly ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 17:50:39 GMT Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: "Eric Harnden (Ronin)" Subject: midi remapping on the pc ha... yet another call for MAX on the pc. failing that, one could use Musicbox, a cryptic, difficult, bizarre, and wonderful little pd program that provides a menu of event processing objects that can be multiply instantiated, linked together, and run in real time. quite a hoot. i've done several odd arpeggiator/mapper/general noisy nuttiness kind of things with it. it's on all those ftp sites. an alternative is to roll your own using either the CMU MIDI Toolkit, which contains a realtime processing language compiler (at least it think it's a compiler... i don't remember it as being an interpreter), or on an even more basic level the MIDI i/o library provided by Jim Conger in his "midi programming in C". that book seems to be out of print, and i don't know about the copyright status of those routines (i mean, they've got to be embedded in quite a lot of homebrew stuff by now), but they're quite useful. btw, i don't know how much thought you've given to this up till now, but when you decide to start programming MIDI for real, let me suggest that the paradigm you need to adopt is that of an interrupt-driven state machine. we'll see if nick disagrees. <--- Entropy Always Wins, And I Like To Be On The Winning Side ---> Eric Harnden (Ronin) harnden@physics.american.edu (202)885-2746 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 17:59:07 GMT Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: "Eric Harnden (Ronin)" Subject: coordinating the comp tape... last call i've set up a separate list for the purposes of getting this tape together, so those of us that are involved can natter at each other without bogging down the main group. would the following people please subscribe to the list EMLTAPE-L on the server LISTSERV@AMERICAN.EDU : John Krikawa Jeff Talman Jon Morris Alan Bookmiller Doug Michael Nick Rothwell Trish O'Neil Harold Cowherd Jason Geistweidt Bjorn Lynne Peter Uchytil Pete Schoenhoff Mike Metlay Michael Ridderbusch Bill Scott until we receive the submissions, we can't guarantee that everyone will make it on the final pressing, but let's take a stab at it, shall we? the list, btw, is open subscription but private posting. i don't really mind if people other than those who have explicitly declared their participation want to put their two cents in, but the scope of the list is deliberately narrow, and only active participation is appropriate. see you there. <--- Entropy Always Wins, And I Like To Be On The Winning Side ---> Eric Harnden (Ronin) harnden@physics.american.edu (202)885-2746 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 12:59:03 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Joe McMahon Subject: Re: Pro-Tools for sale! In-Reply-To: <951121104900_87210950@mail06.mail.aol.com> from "Composer 11" at Nov 21, 95 10:49:01 am > > I have a Digidesign Pro-Tools system for the Macintosh for sale. > This would be more appropriate on SYNTH-L. --- Joe M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 12:20:00 -0500 Reply-To: ROSCO Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: ROSCO Organization: Media Spectrum: Montreal, Quebec - (514)366-0670 Subject: Re: MIDI mapping AD> Subject: MIDI software router/countroller AD> AD> I've had this crazy idea for a couple of days: a software package for the AD> IBM-PC that would emulate a *very* nice keyboard controller in concert AD> with a not-so-good keyboard controller. What the software would AD> essentially do is receive MIDI information (notes, control codes, etc.) on AD> one channel and map these incoming MIDI events into other MIDI events, AD> while also allowing the user to set up any number of breakpoints assigning AD> each to a different MIDI channel. There are a couple of them for Atari that are public domain, and may have the source code available if you want to try to port it to IBM. One of them is Master Keyboard - it's from 1991 - the author is Ralf Sturm, Salzmannstr. 11, 48 Bielefeld 15, tel. 05206 / 1729. This address is from '91, so who knows if it's current. There was another one I had - think it was called MIDI Mapper. Both these programs allow the mapping of any controller to another, multiple splits of the master keyboard, program changes, channel redirection, etc etc. I'll give you one Atari FTP site where you can find MIDI stuff: nic.switch.ch /mirror/atari Ross MacIver --- * Kivi (unregistered) 1.41a * ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 00:51:01 +0000 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Sean Wolfe Subject: Re: to Spindle303 >Once you have a complete sequence file you can jam and jam >and jam and jam. But with real structure and tonality. >Plus, you'll have something to play live with confidence. >Very important. ;/ When somebody asks what you're >playing tell them it's off UMMAGUMMA. :) > Thanks for the tidbit... I'll try it out... and see how the Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In a Cave and Grooving with a Pict think of it.... | __ Give Anything... \ / Expect Nothing... (@) Spindle Productions Recieve Everything... _/ \ | +-------------------+ |Sean Wolfe | |Spindle303@lnd.com | +-------------------+ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 00:51:05 +0000 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Sean Wolfe Subject: Re: comp tape Being a self publishing artist.... I would like to help out in any ways possible to.... I have acess to a lot of publishing tools... Such as artists(they really are tools) computers, printers and such for helping the production of cover art.... I would also like to contribute to the compilation if at all possible.... Please let me know more info..... | __ Give Anything... \ / Expect Nothing... (@) Spindle Productions Recieve Everything... _/ \ | +-------------------+ |Sean Wolfe | |Spindle303@lnd.com | +-------------------+ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 11:38:53 EST Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: "Eric Harnden (Ronin)" Subject: good sounds i like sounds that get up your nose. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 22:27:34 -0800 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Craig Marks Subject: GM Drum Map Can anybody send me a map of the general midi drum keyboard assignments (i.e. which note is which drum). I want to map some GM drum grooves to my individual setups. Thanks for the help. -Craig ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 11:06:40 -0700 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Renaissance Man Subject: Re: MIDI software router/countroller In-Reply-To: "Your message of Tue, 21 Nov 1995 00:00:53 EST." Greg Jenkins wrote: >Here comes the 'Can you help me?' part...... I have looked around on the >major MIDI-related ftp sites for a software package that might fulfill >*some* of these requirements, but have missed the mark. If *ANYONE* has >home-brewed or know of such a utility, please let me know. I don't know of anything off hand that would work in real time... If you don't mind switching to a Macintosh (ugh...) you could use MAX, which in my mind *almost* makes a good enough reason to buy a Mac right there... Another thought would be Bars and Pipes on an Amiga... (It's that old good advice - pick the software first, then buy whatever platform it runs on...) I'm working on a package along the lines of what you want... I am using embedded Python (a scripting language) to do realtime filtering of the MIDI stream... Some day I'll get it done... Yeah, sure, RSN... ;) Right after I get done playing with the latest version of the MSDN and Visual C++ 4.0...! >Since I am pretty sure it doesn't exist (I can only hope), that leads me >to my second question. Can anyone suggest good routines for accessing an >MPU-401 compatible MIDI interface for a PC in C or Visual Basic? I have >down loaded some from ftp sites, but it is difficult to tell if the >routines will be quick enough to handle all this real-time MIDI accessing. >I am particularly interested in the Visual Basic application since I don't >know C very well. If someone has programmed for MIDI on a PC platform, >please offer your advice. Well, lessee... I cut my teeth with the routines from Glib and that sysex dump program that I can't remember the name of... If you are only going to do realtime filtering, you won't have to worry about timing, so you may be able to use them. The biggest problem is latency. (You want the MIDI stream to come in and go back out as fast as possible.) In your case, you may just want to look into some async (serial port) access routines. A MIDI adapter is just a serial port that operates at 31.25k... I may be trivializing this, but you should be able to just set up an interrupt driven comm routine with a little circular buffer and then just grab each message, process if necessary and then send back out... In this case, it would be easiest to stick the MPU-401 into "dumb" mode so you won't have to worry about the time stamps... (Heck, I even built my own MIDI interface - a Paia kit - and it was strictly a UART (dumb) board anyway. That sure makes it EASY to program for this kind of application...) There are various files on the net that describe what is contained in the MIDI stream, or you can spring for the "Official" MIDI specification from the International MIDI Association, so that you know how to process the MIDI messages. I have been using the Music Quest Windows programming kit for a while now. I think Opcode just bought them out... [Flamebait mode on!] See, even Opcode knows when to switch to PCs... [Flamebait mode off - gleefully runs to closet, looking for flame retardant underwear...] ;-) ;-) ;-) Seriously though, that programming kit includes MIDI input, output, file handling and even SMPTE time sync... I think it retails for $99... It comes as a DLL and includes all source code... It didn't come designed to fit with VB, but it isn't too hard to hack together the stuff you need. There is also a separate DOS level programming toolkit as well... I have also heard rumour that Voyetra has a programming kit, and there is another kit called something like MIDI Cool Tools, but I don't know anything else about it. As another option, I personally use a Peavey MIDI Master II MIDI patch bay. It is the typical 8 in 8 out kinda thAng, but it also has a built in processor that can reroute/filter the MIDI stream... It's nice to take along a single rack space device instead of my whole computer when I go somewhere... Another option for me is that I have the Music Quest MQX-32M MIDI board in my PC and it can be programmed to reroute the MIDI stream as well... OOOPS, hold on - I just talked to Opcode, and while they did buy the Music Quest hardware, the software is still owned by Paul Messick. You can email him at pmessick@cinenet.net... -Doug Doug Wellington doug@sun1paztcn.wr.usgs.gov System and Network Administrator US Geological Survey Tucson, AZ Project Office (602) 670-6821 x26 According to proposed Federal guidelines, this message is a "non-record". Hmm, I wonder if _everything_ I say is a "non-record"... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 07:54:15 +0000 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Martin Russ Subject: Admin FAQs V1.2 (Last changed 9 July 1995) Comments: To: SYNTH-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU This is the fifth posting of the V1.2 Administrative FAQ document. Apologies again for the long gap since the last posting. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Warning: Long Document (411 lines, 3119 words, about 7 pages)-------------- EMUSIC-L and SYNTH-L Frequently Asked Questions: Administration This document is posted approximately every few weeks. It is intended that this document should answer many of the questions asked by newcomers to the lists. Comments and corrections should be sent to the maintainer, Martin Russ, at: mruss@midi.dungeon.com This is Issue 1.2. 9 July 1995. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Added since issue 1.1. 11 June 1995: - Reply to List or Author (messages, 2/3) - Mike Metlay returns as list co-moderator (background, 1/3) - Rough index of topics covered (index, start) Added since issue 1.0. 14 May 1995: - AOL subscriber problems with unsubscribing and digest changes (subs, end) - Contributor list (end) TOPIC INDEX**************************************************************** - Background - Max - Soundcards - Music mailing lists - Messages - Subscriptions etc BACKGROUND***************************************************************** "What are the EMUSIC-L and SYNTH-L lists for?"***************************** EMUSIC-L and SYNTH-L are for the discussion of electronic music in general: its history, practitioners past and present, equipment, techniques, trends, research, development, resources, you name it. They exist as a 'post-moderated' alternative to the rec.music.makers.synth newsgroup. (post-moderated means that the moderators monitor what is posted, and sometimes remind posters about the 'rules': see below for the 'rules'). A digest is also available for each list. This collects all the postings for a day into one e-mailing. "Who are the moderators?"************************************************** Joe McMahon and Mike Metlay have been on here for over seven years. Their aim is to keep the mail flowing and the illegal and blatantly out-of-line traffic to a minimum. Joe can be contacted at: mcmahon@clark.net Mike can be contacted at: atomic@netcom.com "So, can I post anything I feel like?"************************************* Well, no. There are some RULES. The basic thrust of EMUSIC-L is to provide a forum for the discussion of music made by electronic means. The actual means is secondary (and more the subject of SYNTH-L). What we are concerned with on EMUSIC-L is the music, composing, and related topics. Therefore: 1) Ads are not permitted on EMUSIC-L. Advising someone as to whether they are getting ripped off *if they ask the list* is permissible; otherwise, use private mail. Requests for addresses of mail-order firms, etc. are OK. Cutting deals on your own personal equipment is not OK. Please do it privately, or subscribe to SYNTH-L, where you'll reach a more responsive audience. Requests for advice as to whether a price is good or not are marginally OK, but would probably reach a more knowledgeable audience on SYNTH-L. Prices really aren't so much of interest unless either the entire world (literally) should know about this great deal, or you have inside information on a new product or upgrade. Exception: if someone has gone through the trouble of composing, recording, and pressing a CD or tape, submitting an article describing the process and their experiences and mentioning that the tape or CD is available for purchase is OK. Posting repeated ads for the CD is not. (A single mention is marginally acceptable; a short mention in a signature file is fine.) Here's a quick summary (it goes from 'admirable' to 'not acceptable'): - A ONE-TIME post mentioning that you have completed a CD or tape and a summary of experiences/etc. in making the recording is admirable. - An article which contributes to the discussion on the list AND contains a signature file which mentions CD/tape/album availability is acceptable. - Repeated postings saying nothing but "My recording is available" are bad. - Outright ads for records you did not make, hardware, software, used cars, etc. are very bad. 2) Discussions as to the relative merits of hardware/software/etc. are permissible, as long as the reviewers state evidence supporting their opinions. Ad hominem attacks will not be tolerated. Arguments based solely on personal taste are not acceptable. It is preferable to request private mailings, which you can summarize and post back to the list. Reviews are useful. Mutual admiration societies are not. 3) All members *will* be treated with kindness and respect. There is no such thing as a dumb question on this list. If you can answer, answer, and be nice about it. Otherwise, say nothing. If you've got a problem with what someone has had to say, discuss it in a civil manner. If you can't do that, take it to e-mail, or just forget about it. 4) EMUSIC-L is meant to be for the discussion of electronic music, in the studio, the classroom, in performance, and on recordings, including techniques, resources, user reviews and experiences, and speculation on futures. Some divagations will be tolerated, as it's rather nice to have a little humor on the list; however, the list owner(s) (Joe McMahon at the moment) will maintain the final say as to the subject matter on the list and will move to terminate off-topic, pointless, and (especially) rancorous discussions. 5) Please refrain from adding to the noise level by commenting about accidental private posts to the list or the accidental sendings of SUBSCRIBE requests or suchlike to the list. That is the administrators' job. If you must pour out your wounded feelings ;-), either to Joe, or to the offender, use private mail. 6) The listowner(s) are permitted to be as arbitrary as they please. We have only once had to take action against a member of the list for breaking these rules, even when they hadn't been stated explicitly. We will notify offenders via private mail and will wait for a response. But we don't have time to play Politeness and Germaneness Monitors. We will remove users from the list only if we must, and we always give people the benefit of the doubt when possible. But be assured that we will act to preserve the quality of discussion on this list. "How did EMUSIC-L and SYNTH-L start?"************************************** Perhaps a bit of ancient history is in order here, to show where these lists come from and why they are the way they are.... Many moons ago, when there was for all practical purposes no such thing as the Internet (and there were certainly few or no commercial online services), people had access to cyberspace only through a set of large but mutually exclusive network protocols, generally provided by and germane to their place of education or work. One of these was the USENET hierarchy of UNIX machines at universities and laboratories and a few commercial sites; another was BITNET, an international mail system for mainframe computers used by scientists. Communication between the two systems was possible only in a crude and roundabout manner, so they developed separate systems for dealing with the same needs. In a rough, very general sense, USENET developed the news hierarchy and BITNET developed list servers and mailing lists; in the subfield of electronic music, USENET had the once-quite-small newsgroup rec.music.synth and BITNET had EMUSIC-L. The 'feel' of these groups was in concert with the sort of people using them; rec.music.synth was more open, with college students and commercial users, whereas EMUSIC-L tended toward academic users. This tended to shape the level of discussion and the topics covered, but keep in mind that early on, the overlap between the two groups was relatively small. Some time later, as reliable gateways between BITNET and the rest of the growing Internet allowed for the redistribution of newsgroups as mailing lists, SYNTH-L was launched as a gateway of rec.music.synth posts, so BITNET users without USENET access could enjoy the news there. It was a short, hard-learned lesson; the lack of moderation and the huge number of news articles delivered as email (!) knocked many prospective users for a loop. It wasn't all that long before the USENET feed was cut and the gateways to the news hierarchy were removed, isolating SYNTH-L and effectively removing its reason for existence. At that point, with Joe's blessing, Mike stepped in as conceptual 'parent' of SYNTH-L, and began to promote it as a nice middle ground between EMUSIC-L's often rarified discussions and the daily mayhem on rec.music.synth (now rec.music.makers.s). It was semi-moderated, so postings stayed (by and large) polite and focussed, but long discussions of gear, software, technical problems, and so forth that were considered a waste of time by many EMUSIC-L readers were encouraged, and over the years since then a de facto division between the two groups, and a healthy relationship, has settled into place. It's true that the divisions between topics for the two groups are occasionally blurry, but that's something most folks simply learn to live with and get a feel for. "Is SYNTH-L supposed to be technical discussion of synthesizers?"********** "Does EMUSIC-L cover electronic music in general?"************************* Very roughly, SYNTH-L is for the detailed technical talk, like gear for sale, where to download patches, whether synth A is better than synth B (whatever 'better' means), technical problems and solutions, and so on. SYNTH-L is the stuff that people on EMUSIC-L don't want to have to wade through to discuss electronic music. Conversely, EMUSIC-L is for all the serious (and sometimes not so serious) philosophical discussion on electronic music in its widest sense. EMUSIC-L is the stuff that people on SYNTH-L don't want to have to wade through to discuss gear. In both cases, one could say that this sort of discussion has its place, but people sometimes like to see it, and sometimes don't. All the EMUSIC-L/SYNTH-L division purports to do is allow an approximate separation between the snobs and the plebs. Where people take that is up to them. It's true that there seems to be no set focus or set of aims in these lists. That's deliberate. We are like-minded individuals looking for someone intelligent and knowledgeable to talk to, and the topics range all over the place, as well they should in such a forum. One shouldn't expect any kind of focus in an environment where anything is a potential topic for discussion. "What's the point? It's not what I expected!"****************************** The point is that we don't want you to have unreasonable expectations of what EMUSIC-L and SYNTH-L are 'for'; they are what they are, and most people seem content to enjoy them as they are or guide them elsewhere, either for a while or for good... A good starting point for finding out what the electronic music of EMUSIC-L and SYNTH-L is all about is the EMUSIC-L World Wide Web page at: http://sunsite.unc.edu/emusic-l. MAX************************************************************************ "What is MAX, anyway?"***************************************************** MAX is a software toolkit which gives a real-time, interactive, graphical development environment for multimedia, music (and more). Programs are 'written' by connecting together graphical objects, rather than typing text. Typical applications for MAX include: Editors and Librarians for MIDI equipment; Compositional Tools; Utilities for analysing musical performance; and much more. MAX is often mentioned in these lists. It currently exists in variants for the Unix environment and on the Apple Macintosh, although a petition has been mentioned within these lists for a Windows version - contact JOEL STERN on stern@email.loc.gov or j.stern11@geis.genie.com for details. For more information on the Macintosh version, you should try contacting your nearest Opcode dealer. (Opcode distribute MAX for the Mac). Opcode also have a World Wide Web page at : http://www.rahul.net/opcode/index.html. There is also a MAX listserv. Send a message to listserv@vm1.mcgill.ca with a Subject of: Subscribe Max, and the message text: SUBSCRIBE MAX You will then receive daily digests of postings to the MAX list. SOUNDCARDS***************************************************************** "Where do I find information on Soundcards?"******************************* Information on soundcards for personal computers can be found in the following Usenet newsgroup(s)" comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.GUS. MUSIC MAILING LISTS******************************************************** "Anyone know a good MUSIC discussion group on ?"********* The best place for discussion of almost any group, band, artiste, performer, musician (you get the idea), is the Usenet newsgroups. Try: alt.fan. MESSAGES******************************************************************* "Should I respond to a message on the list?"******************************* The whole point of this list is that we attract people who are smart enough to make these decisions for themselves, and do. You can be one of them, if you let yourself. Think and decide for yourself, make mistakes, correct them, learn, move on, and enjoy the trip. Or, if you're paralyzed by fear of doing or saying something wrong, you can choose to lurk forever. Please also read the "So, can I post anything I feel like?" 'Rules' section of this document before posting anything to the list. "How do I send a message to the list?"************************************* For EMUSIC-L, you send your posting to emusic-l@american.edu. It will be automatically sent to all of the other subscribers. You will not receive a copy of your own mail; LISTSERV does this to decrease mail traffic. For SYNTH-L, you send your posting to synth-l@american.edu. Should I reply to the List or the Author?********************************** Questions posted by people who are not long-term subscribers to a mailing list often say something like 'please reply privately' or 'please respond off-list'. This usually has two effects: (1) Probably lots of repetition in the responses! (2) The rest of the list never hearing about what might be an interesting topic. Replies are a valuable asset to the list members! So an unsubscribed person contributes very little to the list, and probably wastes quite a lot of time sorting through the responses. An unsubscribed person is also unlikely to post a summary of the received replies back to the list. Edited summaries can be very valuable assets to the list members. Unless a response is really private in content, it is probably best to post it to the List, not the Author. This encourages people to subscribe; provides a wide variety of potentially useful information; and discourages unsubscribed people from posting queries to a list. Most importantly, it is often replies to a question which trigger off some of the most useful discussions. Replying privately just short-circuits this process. Sometimes adverts are posted to the SYNTH-L list (EMUSIC-L does not welcome adverts) as part of a 'shotgun' approach, where all the music-related lists and newsgroups receive the same advert. In this case it is best to reply directly to the Author of the original advert rather than the List. Off-topic advertisements, chain letters, and other annoyances will be dealt with by the list administrators. There is no need to reply to or comment on these - it just adds extra 'noise' to the mailing list. The SYNTH-L and EMUSIC-L mailing lists went to 'subscriber-posting-only' on the 6th of July 1995. This means that postings are only accepted from people who have formally subscribed to the lists. This will not prevent all adverts, chain letters etc (see above), but it should help to keep the list clear of many of them. "Where is the archive of FAQs kept?"*************************************** This is a new document (as of May 1995). As the maintainer adds new questions this document will be revised, and some questions and answers may be removed. You will be able to ftp the full FAQ file from the Internet. SUBSCRIPTIONS************************************************************** "How do I unsubscribe?"**************************************************** For EMUSIC-L, you send mail to listserv@american.edu with the text UNSUB EMUSIC-L as the body. No special subject is required. For SYNTH-L, you send mail to listserv@american.edu with the text UNSUB SYNTH-L as the body. Again, no special subject is required. If this does not work, you will get a message saying that no entry was found for your ID. Please contact Joe McMahon (mcmahon@CLARK.NET) directly. Do *NOT* post unsubscribe messages to the list. They don't help, and simply irritate other readers. AOL subscribers may experience some problems with unsubscribing from the listserv. This may be a communications problem or an incompatibility... If you cannot unsubscribe then please save any messages that you may receive from the listserv and send them to Joe McMahon (mcmahon@CLARK.NET). "How do I subscribe?"****************************************************** To join the discussion group on a message-by-message basis, send a mail message to listserv@american.edu with the text SUB EMUSIC-L where "" is your actual first and last name (at a minimum; LISTSERV insists on at least two blank-separated words here). Do not send subscription requests to the list address, as they only serve to annoy the other list members. For SYNTH-L, you do exactly the same, but replace the text 'EMUSIC-L' with 'SYNTH-L'. "How do I subscribe to the daily digest?"********************************** If you would like to get daily digests of the mail to EMUSIC-L, send the following mail to listserv@american.edu: SUB EMUSIC-L SET EMUSIC-L DIGEST where "" should be replaced by your first and last name (at a minimum; LISTSERV insists on at least two blank-separated words here). Note that these two commands should be on separate lines: SUB EMUSIC-L SET EMUSIC-L DIGEST so that the listserv will interpret them correctly. Do not send subscription requests to the list address, as they only serve to annoy the otherlist members. For SYNTH-L, you do exactly the same, but replace the text 'EMUSIC-L' with 'SYNTH-L'. "How do I unsubscribe from the full list and subscribe to the digest?"***** If you would like to get daily digests of the mail to EMUSIC-L instead of the message-by-message form, just send the following mail to listserv@american.edu: SET EMUSIC-L DIGEST You will then get one message per day, which consists of a list of topics, followed by all the messages which have been posted in the previous 24 hours. For SYNTH-L, you do exactly the same, but replace the text 'EMUSIC-L' with 'SYNTH-L'. AOL subscribers may experience some problems in changing their subscription details via the listserv. This may be a communications problem or an incompatibility... If you cannot change to a digest then please save any messages that you may receive from the listserv and send them to Joe McMahon (mcmahon@CLARK.NET). Contributors:************************************************************** Mike Metlay, Joe McMahon, Ned Kartchner, Clive McFarland and others --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin Russ EMUSIC-L & SYNTH-L Admin FAQ Maintainer mruss@midi.dungeon.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Martin Russ Reviewer & Columnist for Sound On Sound Magazine (UK) mruss@midi.dungeon.com Hi-Tech Music Technical Author & MIDI Consultant http://www.dungeon.com/~midi Macintosh & Synthesizer Programmer ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 21:29:47 +0000 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: Art--><--emusic--help! >She may have just said, "Ho hum, it's a boring day, I think I'll feed some >galaxy data into my sampler...oooh cool, that sounds like noise, think I'll >play with it." But I doubt it. If I had a sampler I would already be writing a recursive found-sound piece constructed from samples of the mechanical noise of the DMP7's motorised faders. Hell, I might even have applied for an Arts Council grant for it. Nick Rothwell CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance nick@cassiel.com four synths good two synths better ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 00:02:30 -0500 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Bruce Edwards Subject: Re: Not-Quite-Ready-For-Prime-Time (Music) Players On Fri. 11/17 : "Mark Nutter, College Tech Systems Mgr" asked about printed material relating to entry level home recording. The following list is not meant to be complete nor comprehensive but they do represent a place to start. Accept where specifically noted they are offered with no particular recommendation Magazines: RECORDING, published by Music Maker Publications, E-Mail: Recordin@haven.ios.com MIX, published by same company that does Electronic Musician . They also publish & retail a number of books about music (do not have address) MUSIC & COMPUTER, published by same company as Keyboard, E-Mail: m&c@mfi.com Books: HOT TIPS FOR HOME RECORDING, by Hank Linderman; 1994. The info is directed towards producing "demos" but it is readable and a lot of the information is useful and largely introductory as opposed to advanced technical. ". . . Good, Cheap, Fast . . . you can choose any two . . ." MODERN RECORDING TECHNIQUES, (4th edition, 1995)), by David Hilbert & Robert Runstien (spelling may be wrong on this name). This one lists for about $50 -- is a useful primer, fairly technical (assumes you understand "normalized" & have some idea of what causes phase problems) not necessarily geared to home market. AUDIO RECORDING & REPRODUCTION, by Michael Talbot Smith; 1994. If I remember correctly this one is sort of intermediate between first two and lists for about $25 THE SOUND STUDIO, by Alec Nesbett; 1995. Again if I remember correctly, this is a fairly descent entry level primer (but lists for about $50) and I actually own a copy the next one by the same author THE USE OF MICROPHONES, by Alec Nesbett; 1994 (lists for $20) -- this one might seem to the one furthest away from your area of interest but the theory behind microphone design and placement is information that applies to all recording -- so it approaches ideas with which you will need to become familiar from a slightly different perspective than that from which you seem to be starting. I do not know what your level of experience is nor what your short term/long term goals might be. But have a couple of suggestions. First find an equipment rental facility and with a specific project in mind (to provide a "time" budget) try out an ADAT or the Tascam or hard disk before you buy one. While ADATs should be available used for under $2000 -- the primary piece of equipment is seldom the most expensive part of a set up. If you have a computer that will support it you might check out Turtle Beach Hard Disk recording packages-- entry level here starts at about $400. Lastly, I have found that most Junior college systems will offer extension courses in recording or studios or etc. It is not particularly difficult to sign on as an intern (if you live in a city) with one of the local studios. The idea is not only that it can sound really cool to be able to say "48 volt phantom power" with conviction but watching people stumble around in a working environment can demystify some of the process and help you avoid having to reinvent the wheel. Regards, Bruce Edwards ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 15:19:43 WST Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Cameron Newham Subject: Re: good sounds > > i like sounds that get up your nose. > do you often listen naselly ? c. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 17:40:23 +0200 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: Uri Bruck Subject: Re: good sounds >> >> i like sounds that get up your nose. >> > >do you often listen naselly ? > >c. > This is begining to get nosetalgic Uri ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 12:23:28 -0700 Reply-To: Electronic Music Discussion List Sender: Electronic Music Discussion List From: William Ender Subject: Windows drivers for Yamaha MU80? Looking for an updated Windows driver (for Windows for Workgroups v3.11) for use with the Yamaha MU80. I downloaded one recently from the Yamaha MU80 Web Home Page, but it may be an older version; although the driver installed properly and my Cakewalk Pro Audio and other MIDI apps recognize it, anytime I try to "talk" through it to the MU80, I get a display that reads Illegal Data! on the MU80. As far as I know, I *am* using the right serial cable (Mac-style mini-DIN to 9-pin D-style) -- even though it didn't come from Yamaha -- but from Korg -- I believe it specs out the same. So ... I suspect I need a driver written more specifically for the MU80.