Re: (idm) bucket brigade

From Jon Drukman
Sent Wed, Mar 25th 1998, 21:13

siliconvortex wrote this:
> this kind of gear wasn't really the focus of what i was saying - i was sort
> of talking about high-quality gear, as in low noise, high bandwidth blah
> blah, not so much about new tools, which are a more valid way of spending
> your cash, but still, not something you HAVE to have..

you don't HAVE to have anything.  i don't think you can draw a
distinction between the akai/mac combo and the lexicon anyway.  they
both make certain things easier.  i could get a good reverb by
recording my tracks in a cave or hallway... eg: the awesome drum loop
from "god od" was recorded under a staircase in a school.

> :-)   ...if tom jenkinson can do what he has done on a boss drum machine for
> sequencing and a 12 bit akai sampler, then for anyone who has the drive and
> determination to really do something, a setup such as yours (not that it's
> particularly expensive) isn't crucially important.

i respect tom's ability to a degree but his bad engineering really
detracts from the experience, for me.

> with more expensive, and more complex equipment, you can obviously achieve a
> wider variety of sonic delights and other such things.  but is this all that
> is important about music?

nobody said it was.

> can we not listen to music in a deeper sense?

since music is an aural experience, it's really all about what goes in 
your ears.  i don't know what other sense there is.

> no it's not.  this is much too expansive a subject to write about off the
> cuff as i am doing here, but i would say that looking at technology as the
> way to solve your problems, in this case, musical, is simply side stepping
> the issue.  if you can't 'do it' on a simple setup, what is there to say
> that by simply piling up the gear, piling up the options, piling up the
> sounds, is going to make your music worthwhile?  nothing!

your argument pushed to the extreme says that you don't need an
orchestra, you should be able to say what you want to say with a solo
violin.  i refute that.  what i want to "say", musically, can't be
expressed with one drum machine and one synth.  does that make it more 
or less valid?  i don't think so.

> music worse?  i would say that more often than not, it will!  you'll just
> end up with 48 tracks of crap instead of 8!  no-one wants to hear a boring
> bastard hammering away on expensive gear - it's a waste of the musician's
> money as well as the listener's time!

right but surely you admit that it's possible that 48 tracks of
expensive gear can sound good if used by talented individuals.

> well i would.  but i don't have a million dollars.  and i'm not going to
> lose a minute of sleep over it.  any millionaire musicians who would agree
> to let me have a go on their equipment should feel free to contact me.

i'm not a millionaire but you're welcome to muck about in my studio if 
you're ever in San Francisco.

> >the musicians i respect the most know what to do with a studio full of
> >expensive gear.
> 
> i don't respect any musicians.  i just love pieces of music and try to
> forget that mere musicians actually made them.  cos musicians are really
> pathetic people on the whole!

well you need to find some better musicians to hang around with then
cos most of the ones i know are really great people.

-- 
Jon Drukman                                            xxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx
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Plan: Eat right, exercise regularly, die anyway.