Re: Loopers-Delight-d Digest V98 #138

["brown25" <brown25@ramlink.net>]

I dissagree about the DAW.  I believe it provides a vision to people that
are less instrumentally inclined.  Should music be exclusive?  Should it
only be a medium for the musician?  Can't it too, be a medium for the
artist, painting a picture with sound?  Sure, it's sort of cheating from
the eyes of the musician who may spend hours on a single track...but who or
what does it cheat if the recording is an artistic masterpiece?  It's made
'professional' production more accessible, more affordable, and now, pretty
darn easy.  Where's the cheat in that, other than the fact that the
competition for success is about to baloon.  You don't even have to play an
instrument to write a song now.  Should that be a prerequisite?
I don't think so.  I look forward to the - soon to come - musical
artists.......isn't it about time that more music was art?  What 'creative
possibilities' could you possibly cheat yourself out of?...other than the
desire to become a better musician......with DAW, it's no longer necessary
in the studio.

To maybe relate to some of the jampeople....if someone said that using the
jamman was cheating...you should play clean...without effects....would you
agree?  Maybe to the purist.....but to not the visionary.  The future is
about doing different things and doing things better...the jamman allows
that (or so I've figured out in about 2000 e-mails on the subject) and so
does the DAW.    

btw..this is my last post, I'm jumping ship.  Thanks for letting me in the
group everyone!!!!  Feel Free to respond or e-mail me at
brown25@bionicmilk.com.

later,

brown25
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From: Jon Grant <tianmus@aracnet.net>
To: 'Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com'
Subject: RE: Loopers-Delight-d Digest V98 #138
Date: Thursday, March 26, 1998 10:26 AM

        The questions were posed: does the venue of digital recording seem
sterile/what are the pre&post production benefits?

        Some people complain about the actual "sound" of digital 
recordings.  They
feel there isn't the warmth of the analog sound.  This is true (although
not necessarily bad).  This "warmth" of tone/sound comes from the inherent
signal and harmonic distortion that occurs throughout the analog recording
process.  Also, low-end digital recorders don't have the dynamic or
harmonic range of analog equipment.  Whenever I record something to a
digital source from a microphone, I almost always use an analog tube
preamp.  There are many of these around of varying quality.  These add the
distortion/warmth of the analog sound to the digital domain.  There are
also a few software plug ins that emulate tube preamps that sound very
nice.  There are, however, many occasions where I choose NOT to add this
warmth to the instrument.  I just record straight to digital, reducing the
distortion to almost nil.  As an artist, to have this choice of
digital/analog tones increases yet again the ways in which I can express
the music.  Also, the obvious "cut and paste" abilities of the
computer-resident recording/editing format are impossible for any
tape-based equipment.  If one can use this kind of digital editing and
manipulation sensitively and in service to the music, then it becomes a
valuable tool.  Unfortunately, it also helps us "cheat" when time is
running out of performances that day in the studio aren't up to standard. 
Recently, I recorded three songs performed by a person who was, shall we
say, less than gifted vocally.  I gave up trying to ask her to redo the
tracks, hoping she would fix her mistakes.  Finally, I sent her home, pitch
shifted, cut and pasted, copied, deleted, and otherwise utterly fritched
her performance into something that was at least close to being on pitch
and in rhythm.  However, it still resulted in a very unmusical track, not
following the natural paths a song goes through in a one-take performance. 
The results when one cuts and pastes even the most musical of performances
can be just as unsatisfying.  It all depends on whether you can use the
equipment to serve your musical vision or whether the equipment controls
your music vision.  By limiting yourself to simple cut and paste
techniques, the DAW user is cheating themself out of a huge range of
creative possibilities.

        'Struth, I do babble once I get going, don't I?

                Cheers,

                        Jon Grant
                        Tian Music
                        www.aracnet.net/~tianmus
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