I'm 62 going on 63 and those were the best years of my life...disco,funk,new wave, punk, and skateboarding.....it was paradise!!zerocrossing wrote:I think in the 80s there was a transition between using synths as a replacement for traditional instruments to using them as unique instruments true unto themselves. Think about early synth music and early synths. A lot of them were really designed and marketed as "string machines" or as replacements for brass instruments, etc. It took a while for artists to dig into them and really start to explore them, not only as instruments for experimental types of sounds, but just as instruments that had their own place in pop music. I seem to remember thinking Greg Hawkes from The Cars was one of the first who seemed to find a way of putting synths in pop songs and they just "fit" without trying to be an imitation of some other instrument.Hans25 wrote:It was ME he ment! How dare I call M1 a "porn-plugin"....Let me add that I have M1 myself and I like it!
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 5#p6195261
What's wrong with porn-music or porn anyway?
It's definitely ment as a reference to the "cheesy" synth sounds from the 80s but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. In the 80s developers tried to make realistic sounds of different instruments but they kind of failed doing that. Instead the sounds became instruments in their own rights. Like the fake brass sound, cheesy piano, electric slap bass, orchestra hit sound, very 80s electronic popdrums (Simmons drums like).Karma_tba wrote:Maybe it's a reference to the cheesy background music that was so prevalent in porn in the '80's. Not that I would know.
As I see it, when music and sound technology developed in from the 90s and ahead the 80s sounds was kind of left behind as a naive ridiculous attempt to make synths sound realistic.
The synth sounds of the 80s was almost too much with that "cheese" everywhere and all those kind of effects (like orchestra synth hit) or electronic tomtoms filling in every song.
Today - because of technology everything get's automated with effects and that way kind of "masked" for the regular listener in opposition to the 80s music where every effect and instrument are so distinct. It was like the fascination in the 80s of synth sounds that was impossible before made composers emphasize everything the synths could offer. For example having an electric slap bass sound that sounded just a little bit like a real electric bass with slap was just fantastic at that time.
In the 90s I hated 80s sound but today it's one of my favorites. There's just something funky, funny and distinct about that sound. A lot of music made where the beat was running from hardware sequencers just made the songs tight funky.
The porn-fake 80s instrument expression I think comes from the fact that porn music is awfull in composition and in choice of cheap instruments (like GM from the 80s or something). I think that was especially true in the 90s and early 2000 (I know my porn music. Off course I always turned away from the screen. My only real interest was the music).
The purpose of porn music I guess is just to hold "the beat" and nothing more.
I think a real good example of porn 80s music is Sabrina - Booooys. The instruments are just so fake and Sabrina is hot and sexy - but somehow there is an ironic distance in the song. It's just too much too be taken seriously with all those cheesy instruments, the self-important rapper and Sabrina in that sexy outfit and the sexy video where her boops almost falls out:
It's silly but funky and fun. I like it. True 80s porn music
A lot of manufacturers took a long time to react and that's why we still see lots of ROMplers and synths from companies like Roland with the lable "Supernatural." For me personally, I have to ask, "Why Roland? Do you think you can compete with something like Kontakt?" Of course, they're thinking of a different market that I'm not a part of. I'd pick up an Integra 7 if I was doing a lot of live performances just because it's a good way of covering a lot of ground in a reliable package and the tech has caught up to the point where it's no longer "cheezy."
I still think that Roland isn't quite sure why it's great instruments were great. They often seem like they were on the way of creating something lame and accidently hit great along the way. (x0x boxes, for sure) Early ROMplers could be especially cheesey considering the technology was still too expensive to be done well at a price point where most people could afford it. But artists are great at taking what they can get and making it work.
To you I say, "BOW CHICKA WOW WOW."
The early 80's to be more precise, the Sabrina song someone posted is terrible. I guess I dislike that European type of synth pop sound, American pop sounded different, let alone RnB, Fusion etc, where synths have been used a lot, but in a more elegant and solid way. Just think of MJ's Thriller album (from 1982 if I remember correctly), lots of synths on it, but in a tasteful rather than cheap way.