New IK teaser

[Andrew Bach IK]

Sorry IK but this is quite a fail, imho. Wish you good sales with it though so you don't go bust.


bManic

i can't stop laughing about all the comments here: it's not a fail. We have a 13 year old boy here, who has spent a lot of his holidays now with Garage Band. He doesn't know anything about theory and he can't play an instrument (yet), but now he gets interested in music making and he tries out strange combinations of loops. These easy apps aren't especially for us, but for the curious not yet musicians.

m

Bingo. I was that kid, and many of you were. What was your music making "gateway drug"?

[p356]

This thread from last night should prove without a doubt that I'm not the person to go to for any cleverly worded nuggets. At least not any that normal humans can understand.

Point taken. I bow to the "queen."

[fanfarecircuit]

Bingo. I was that kid, and many of you were. What was your music making "gateway drug"?

the guitar?

maybe i'm missing something, but why divert kids away from real instruments? it's not that hard to learn a few chords. kids might even come up with something original.

[Andrew Bach IK]

Bingo. I was that kid, and many of you were. What was your music making "gateway drug"?

the guitar?

maybe i'm missing something, but why divert kids away from real instruments? it's not that hard to learn a few chords. kids might even come up with something original.

Some people start on guitar. Some start on MPC's. Some start on software. By that logic, we should ban kids from software till they had training on a "real instrument". Giving more people a chance to express their creativity is never a bad thing.

[Kriminal]

so whats the new thing then?

[CypherOne]

so whats the new thing then?

ketamine

[fanfarecircuit]

Bingo. I was that kid, and many of you were. What was your music making "gateway drug"?

the guitar?

maybe i'm missing something, but why divert kids away from real instruments? it's not that hard to learn a few chords. kids might even come up with something original.

Some people start on guitar. Some start on MPC's. Some start on software. By that logic, we should ban kids from software till they had training on a "real instrument". Giving more people a chance to express their creativity is never a bad thing.

i disagree and don't make me out to be something i am not. i'm all for new ideas, tools and giving people the opportunity to express themselves. this is a closed program with preset loops, not an mpc or any other "real instrument". i fail to see your logic. open it up and include a little synth or drum machine that can record original loops... then you hve an instrument. sorry but mixing premade loops is not creative. it's a game. relaxing, sure... but don't convince children that they are "expressing" themselves. that is a sick perversion and counter productive.

[Kriminal]

so whats the new thing then?

ketamine

IK sell drugs? i did that accidently in 2001, in a field, not a good time...certainly wont be using that company again.

[headquest]

Wearing my music teacher hat for a moment.... [for those who don't know, I'm an experienced educational consultant, teacher and author...]

Any Stuff that dumbs down "what music IS" by reducing it to compiling a few loops into a track does, imho, a serious disservice to our kids. Certainly it's true that such an approach can inspire an interest in *making music*, but in my experience I would have to say that of the many kids who ask to learn keyboard/piano as a way of taking their music further... many simply won't have any sense of the discpiline required to master an instrument.

Kids that start out this way are *mostly* in the mindset that they can get instant results.

When it comes to piano lessons or keyboard, this isn't true. For guitarists who are motivated I have seen that it can work - for some reason the learning curve and learning style are different. But for most other instruments - and certainly for learning *serious* music in order to take graded exams, get into music conservatoires, etc - a level of discpiline must be developed BEFORE those results come along.

I'll put it into perspective with some simple facts. The level of "drop off" in instrumental tuition has reached truly frightening levels. According to Ofsted (the UK education inspectorate) around 25% of kids learn an instrument aged 12. By age 16, when it comes to taking Music as an "A' Level" subject, only 0.5% see it through. So of 50 children playing an instrument aged 12, wanting their quick fix instantaneous results - just ONE of the 50 gets to a good level before leaving school. I dare say that similar research has been conducted, showing similar results, elsewhere. Maybe not - perhaps UK is unique!

Of course we all want to look for ways to encourage and inspire more people to get into music. I would say however that computer game type approaches are rarely effective. Engaging genuine music imagination and helping kids become more inquisitive about how music REALLY works... now that's what we need to aim for.

Any ideas for software that will do that?

[Squids]

Believe what you want but publicly accusing me of lying is not right.

why make a claim that you can't substantiate?

Because no one except you has ever asked me to substantiate a claim of that nature before. I've been on KVR for a long time and have shared many stories - many of which happen to be connected with photos, video, articles (have a look at the photo gallery on www.sonicreality.net ). This story happened to be about a phone conversation. I never told it before because I haven't talked about Groove Maker much on KVR. Now that it is relevant in forum conversation I thought I'd share that story. It is 100% true and if I DO find a way to prove it (Paul from IK UK may have something in an email perhaps or maybe I even had some emails back and forth too going back a few years) then I'd enjoy a little justice such as... hmmmm, you having to wear a print out of the email around your neck for a week in shame? Maybe write on the wall "I will not accuse others of lying when I don't know what I am talking about" 100 times... I don't know. Something to put you in your place would be nice.

[BERFAB]

OK, OK...

It's not for you. Move along...nothing to see here.

I don't even own an IPhone (I like my phones to do one thing, and do it well--although I'll admit it's getting harder and harder to resist...). So nothing for me here either.

However, the market has shown a huge appeal for these things, and IK is tapping into it. It's a BUSINESS, folks. If you want them to keep creating those esoteric emulations that allow you to faithfully recreate the second solo on the third track of Van Halen's fourth album (go ahead, google it), then you've GOT to let them have one for the masses every now and again.

I DO agree that, by and large, KVR is NOT that audience. Definitely a swing and a miss for trying to hype something like this here. And for all the anticipation, ESPECIALLY in light of the recent success of the World's Most Successful Group Buy Ever, I think it was an opportunity squandered.

But now that the curtain has been pulled back, let's all take a view and then move on.

Cheers
-B

[bmanic]

Sorry IK but this is quite a fail, imho. Wish you good sales with it though so you don't go bust.


bManic

i can't stop laughing about all the comments here: it's not a fail. We have a 13 year old boy here, who has spent a lot of his holidays now with Garage Band. He doesn't know anything about theory and he can't play an instrument (yet), but now he gets interested in music making and he tries out strange combinations of loops. These easy apps aren't especially for us, but for the curious not yet musicians.

m

You obviously didn't read my post then thoroughly enough. I said that IK Multimedia is underestimating the potential market. Making an application extremely simple and only for combining loops is silly. There is nothing stopping them from adding the possibility of using single samples and perhaps some simple synth sound sources to create your OWN material.

I'm 99.999% sure your 13 year old wouldn't have any problems with an application that is slightly more advanced than Garage Band. He'd still be interested in it and would probably still make music and combine various things if music is what interests him.

The "instant gratification" stuff and "everything must be ready-made and easy" is just a silly mentality (although very well selling one, which is obviously why IK decided to jump on the bandwagon). Why on earth do we have to dumb down everything? Cookie cutter ready made bullcrap. Kids/youngsters are much MUCH smarter than many of us adults give credit to. Heck my 3 year old daughter is already experimenting with music on this wonderful site called Poisson Rouge. There are some "games" there where you can create your own melodies and such.

The excuse that an application needs to be very easy and make everything for you to make you interested in a genre is just so wrong that it hurts my brain. Since when did you see teenagers play extremely simple easy games that do everything for you? Right.. never, coz it's in their nature to explore and push the boundaries.

Cheers!
bManic

[mellotronaut]

make a poll on kvr, who really plays a 'real' instrument quite well! I think, a lot of peeps here aren't that skilled, but maybe they are good enineers, sound-designers or djs.
I play guitar, bass and keys more or less well, i'm not the hit in reading scores, but i can express my musical needs quite well anyway.
There are so many ways of making music or helping in music making.

[mellotronaut]

Sorry IK but this is quite a fail, imho. Wish you good sales with it though so you don't go bust.


bManic

i can't stop laughing about all the comments here: it's not a fail. We have a 13 year old boy here, who has spent a lot of his holidays now with Garage Band. He doesn't know anything about theory and he can't play an instrument (yet), but now he gets interested in music making and he tries out strange combinations of loops. These easy apps aren't especially for us, but for the curious not yet musicians.

m

You obviously didn't read my post then thoroughly enough. I said that IK Multimedia is underestimating the potential market. Making an application extremely simple and only for combining loops is silly. There is nothing stopping them from adding the possibility of using single samples and perhaps some simple synth sound sources to create your OWN material.

I'm 99.999% sure your 13 year old wouldn't have any problems with an application that is slightly more advanced than Garage Band. He'd still be interested in it and would probably still make music and combine various things if music is what interests him.

The "instant gratification" stuff and "no real challenge" is just silly mentality. Why on earth do we have to dumb down everything? Cookie cutter ready made bullcrap. Kids/youngsters are much MUCH smarter than many of us adults give credit to. Heck my 3 year old daughter is already experimenting with music on this wonderful site called Poisson Rouge. There are some "games" there where you can create your own melodies and such.

The excuse that an application needs to be very easy and make everything for you to make you interested in a genre is just so wrong that it hurts my brain. Since when did you see teenagers play extremely simple easy games that do everything for you? Right.. never, coz it's in their nature to explore and push the boundaries.

Cheers!
bManic

don't be so rude!
these apps are just teasers for people, who do a lot of things with their favourite app (either mobile-phone or multi-purpose music app) together with their pals. They push boundaries with other apps at home on their pc after having tried simple pleasures first. May your brain hurt or not.

cheese

m

[bmanic]

It's not about how well one plays or how much music theory one makes. It's about companies NOT limiting ones creativity. If everything is done FOR you BY the software then there is no creativity involved.

Skill and creativity are completely different things and have nothing to do with each other. Again, my 3 year old daughter likes painting with her crayons. The images she paint are terribly archaic and typical 3 year old stuff but that doesn't mean shit coz she is exercising her creativity which is important.

I'm not sure how much more clear I can be. Application limiting the creative possibilities = bad (in my opinion). This has nothing to do with an application being hard or easy to use, complex or simple. It is in the inherent design.

An application that has a single button that says "push the button and get endless melodies" is not very creative but if it simply said "push me" and then created melodies that varied and interacted depending on the tempo, length and intervals of the pushes, it would be "creative".

EDIT: I'm not trying to say that the IK iphone app is completely useless or void of creative options. It isn't but it could have been much MUCH more, considering the hype.

Cheers!
bManic