From objet Sent Mon, Oct 19th 1998, 06:00
From objet Sent Mon, Oct 19th 1998, 06:00
About this out-of-tune sample busy-ness: I've been putting together my first mix cd for the past month or so and have been spending *ages* pitch-shifting various tracks & various *sections* of tracks in Sound Forge & on my SP-808 simply so that, in the final mixdown, everything flows together nicely. I've found some interesting things out in the process: take, for example, a "fucking lush" track like Massive Attack's "Unfinished Sympathy." If any track could be expected to be completely in tune to the naked/casually listening ear, it would be this one -- but upon trying to mix it with another track in perfectly identical key, strange things happen -- discordances between the bassline, strings & piano in the track suddenly become excruciatingly evident. I've also been mastering & remixing tracks for a friend's band; local indie guitar-pop. The one track that the band wants to be its single has been a nightmare for me: during one phase of the song, the vocals are so out of key that no amount of fiddling in Cubase will help it. As the vox are on key for the other 2/3 of the song, this vivid difference presents quite a problem -- especially since vocal retakes are circumstantially out of the question. In short: worrying about whether a track or a mix is in tune is essentially not about being anal-compulsive, but rather about very practical questions such as: is it mixable? Will people hear this and feel their stomachs turn? I'm sure that even the most tone-deaf out there have had at least one bad experience with, for example, a child's first performance at a violin recital or simply hearing someone singing something so out-of-tune that they want to strangle that person. Have we become so accustomed to the monotone rantings of vocoded vox & MCs that it's now a matter of total indifference whether music, let alone vocals (which don't really belong in IDM, at least until Dot releases their 'Knights Who Sing Dot' comp. -- so, apologies to Teep) are on key? There's experimental unintended dissonance and then there's simple unintended dissonance, read bad musicianship: I think we all know the difference between these two things. It's enchanting if Sid Vicious, Edith Piaf or Richard James sings off-key, but nauseating if Jose Carreras or Dave Gahan does. It's all about context. One last question: Is it all relevant to IDM? Well, seeing as how this 'genre' essentially mixes classical and avant-garde motifs together, I would think that these questions/discussions do have a place here. I get confused when the purists get rowdy about the list's function. Is this list supposed to be dedicated *exclusively* to reviews, notices of shows, and auction/sale mentions, or is it not also supposed to be used as a forum for the vast variety of issues relevant to abstract electronic dance music? my 2 pesos sr -- sd