The most underestimated synths...

[wagtunes]

So, there can be no such thing as a poorly-made anything because 'it's all subjective'.
#NG: Don't Work; there's your logic and it's just not going to hold.
Is a $3 umbrella from Walmart, China-made POS which folds and breaks the first strong wind come up just as good as every umbrella?
So, some things are objectively better constructed. Tell me that's wrong.

Is art or music never a construction?
Is some moronic repetitive toddler-like drivel (but hey, A BEAT!) always equal to say Bach 3rd Violin Partita?

It seems like to me the people that like this argument have the perfect excuse to keep making drivel and feel great about it.

ANYWAY
There are many polished turds in popular music today, I believe.

Let me ask you a question (God, I am so going to regret this)

Who is it who actually decided, proclaimed, declared, defined or whatever it is you want to call it, what a "technically good piece of music is?"

It had to start somewhere. Somebody, somewhere, in some time period (maybe even 50 million years ago for all I know) heard something and said "This is good" and everything that didn't conform to that standard was bad.

Do you know that to total die hard super snobby classical musicians (sorry, but had to use that "S" word) there isn't a piece of music written that doesn't conform to one of the classical forms that's any good?

Are they right? Is all blues, rock, soul, jazz and whatever, total garbage? Because let me tell you, to some classical musicians, it is.

To a die hard super snobby opera singer, anybody who doesn't sing in that style and have that quality of voice can't sing.

Are they right? Are all blues, rock, soul, jazz and whatever singers total garbage.

We keep talking about what "good" music is but that term "good" is what was applied to a certain method of making sounds that some group of people decided in their infinite wisdom was good. As if their authority supersedes all others.

We can measure the quality of one piece of metal against another by its strength and physical characteristics. If we want to support a certain size structure, that metal will need to be of a certain strength or that structure is going to come down, possibly killing people in the process.

We can't do the same thing with a piece of music and say "THIS is good music and THIS is bad music." Not when there is no actual physical test that can be done. No two people will react to that piece of music the same way, whereas that miserably made piece of metal is going to absolutely fail under certain conditions. You can take that to the bank.

That is why, when people start talking about music that is technically "good" or technically "bad" I want to turn in my membership card to the human race because that kind of snobbery and pig headed attitude is why we have arguments and wars.

News flash. There are people who HATE Bach, HATE Beethoven, HATE Mozart, HATE Chopin, HATE Brahms, HATE....

I could go on and on. And I'm a classically trained musician with a music degree. But I gotta tell you, I hate most of the people in my field because their snobbery makes me ashamed to admit I'm a musician.

You're taking man made rules and man made sounds and proclaiming as if these men were gods that these rules are THE only rules that matter and anything that falls outside the boundaries of these rules is inferior.

As my grandmother used to say, God rest her soul, "You've got a lot of chutz·pah"

You're trying to take something that reaches a man's soul and emotions and reduce it to a f**king algebraic equation.

Keep believing your brainwashed lies if it helps you to sleep better at night.

[.jon]

I repeat: it is not the instrument which makes the music. It is the composer and his talent... and the performer and his talent. The instrument is there to express the talent, even if the instrument is extremely simple, and even with stones or with a wooden tube.

A good instrument simply makes it better than a bad instrument. It allows for a better performance and sounds better, resulting in better music when the talent component remains same.

This thread isn't about good or bad instruments or about amazing machines compensating for lack of talent and skill, everybody knows that is not how reality works, but this is simply a place to bring forth good instruments that are somehow left in the shadow of the more popular ones and you could recommend others to give them a try.

[Armagibbon]

I could go on and on. And I'm a classically trained musician with a music degree. But I gotta tell you, I hate most of the people in my field because their snobbery makes me ashamed to admit I'm a musician.

You're taking man made rules and man made sounds and proclaiming as if these men were gods that these rules are THE only rules that matter and anything that falls outside the boundaries of these rules is inferior.

Says the guy who gets his panties in a twist over whether someone calls a signal generator one thing or another. You want to see a snob? Look in the mirror.

And here's a fun fact for you: there is such a thing as objectively bad music. If you haven't heard it, you either have no sense or you've kept yourself oblivious.

[wagtunes]

I could go on and on. And I'm a classically trained musician with a music degree. But I gotta tell you, I hate most of the people in my field because their snobbery makes me ashamed to admit I'm a musician.

You're taking man made rules and man made sounds and proclaiming as if these men were gods that these rules are THE only rules that matter and anything that falls outside the boundaries of these rules is inferior.

Says the guy who gets his panties in a twist over whether someone calls a signal generator one thing or another. You want to see a snob? Look in the mirror.

And here's a fun fact for you: there is such a thing as objectively bad music. If you haven't heard it, you either have no sense or you've kept yourself oblivious.

You must have been one of those appointed God.

You guys crack me up.

Oh, and I have no sense. Go...

[Armagibbon]

A good instrument simply makes it better than a bad instrument. It allows for a better performance and sounds better, resulting in better music when the talent component remains same.

This thread isn't about good or bad instruments or about amazing machines compensating for lack of talent and skill, everybody knows that is not how reality works, but this is simply a place to bring forth good instruments that are somehow left in the shadow of the more popular ones and you could recommend others to give them a try.

Spot on.

[AnX]

blah blah bullshit

Let me ask you a question (God, I am so going to regret this)

Who is it who actually decided, proclaimed, declared, defined or whatever it is you want to call it, what a "technically good piece of music is?"

It had to start somewhere. Somebody, somewhere, in some time period (maybe even 50 million years ago for all I know) heard something and said "This is good" and everything that didn't conform to that standard was bad.

Do you know that to total die hard super snobby classical musicians (sorry, but had to use that "S" word) there isn't a piece of music written that doesn't conform to one of the classical forms that's any good?

Are they right? Is all blues, rock, soul, jazz and whatever, total garbage? Because let me tell you, to some classical musicians, it is.

To a die hard super snobby opera singer, anybody who doesn't sing in that style and have that quality of voice can't sing.

Are they right? Are all blues, rock, soul, jazz and whatever singers total garbage.

We keep talking about what "good" music is but that term "good" is what was applied to a certain method of making sounds that some group of people decided in their infinite wisdom was good. As if their authority supersedes all others.

We can measure the quality of one piece of metal against another by its strength and physical characteristics. If we want to support a certain size structure, that metal will need to be of a certain strength or that structure is going to come down, possibly killing people in the process.

We can't do the same thing with a piece of music and say "THIS is good music and THIS is bad music." Not when there is no actual physical test that can be done. No two people will react to that piece of music the same way, whereas that miserably made piece of metal is going to absolutely fail under certain conditions. You can take that to the bank.

That is why, when people start talking about music that is technically "good" or technically "bad" I want to turn in my membership card to the human race because that kind of snobbery and pig headed attitude is why we have arguments and wars.

News flash. There are people who HATE Bach, HATE Beethoven, HATE Mozart, HATE Chopin, HATE Brahms, HATE....

I could go on and on. And I'm a classically trained musician with a music degree. But I gotta tell you, I hate most of the people in my field because their snobbery makes me ashamed to admit I'm a musician.

You're taking man made rules and man made sounds and proclaiming as if these men were gods that these rules are THE only rules that matter and anything that falls outside the boundaries of these rules is inferior.

As my grandmother used to say, God rest her soul, "You've got a lot of chutz·pah"

You're trying to take something that reaches a man's soul and emotions and reduce it to a f**king algebraic equation.

Keep believing your brainwashed lies if it helps you to sleep better at night.

[Numanoid]

Oh the drama, what happened to focusing on discussing underestimated synths

[Armagibbon]

I could go on and on. And I'm a classically trained musician with a music degree. But I gotta tell you, I hate most of the people in my field because their snobbery makes me ashamed to admit I'm a musician.

You're taking man made rules and man made sounds and proclaiming as if these men were gods that these rules are THE only rules that matter and anything that falls outside the boundaries of these rules is inferior.

Says the guy who gets his panties in a twist over whether someone calls a signal generator one thing or another. You want to see a snob? Look in the mirror.

And here's a fun fact for you: there is such a thing as objectively bad music. If you haven't heard it, you either have no sense or you've kept yourself oblivious.

You must have been one of those appointed God.

You guys crack me up.

Oh, and I have no sense. Go...

Well hot damn Mr. Tastemaker, tell me what-for! Now what do you make of this?


or this?



Grammy award runners up right there huh (too bad not everyone can win). Shit's great, right up there with Vangelis and Michael Jackson and (insert your idol here), you betcha.

[cron]

You straight-up cannot have "objectively bad" anything because "bad" is itself a strictly subjective term. This isn't complicated stuff. Let's pretend for a moment that it isn't and argue from here on in using exclusively objective terms and language, or failing that, simply show me the data. Good luck.

All I'm really getting from this thread is the sense that most people don't know what the terms subjective and objective actually mean. Even if every single creature, in every infinite multiverse, thought something was bad, it still wouldn't sum up to an objective fact. If something requires a subject to appraise it, you're not in objective territory.

Subjective is not an antonym of universal.

[EnGee]

#NG: Don't Work; there's your logic and it's just not going to hold.

If you mean me, then I'm glad you found what I said illogical

[Ableguy1]

Geesh!

Lots of synth lovers here! I'm in the right spot

[cron]

Geesh!

Lots of synth lovers here! I'm in the right spot

Aww man, that feeling when you talk only about synths for the entire thread, but then crack and have your only OT post near-immediately followed by this.

edit: seriously though, after this thing popping into my replies and seeing no synth chat all day, I'm totally up for further steaming into this debate brandishing a dictionary.

[.jon]

You straight-up cannot have "objectively bad" anything because "bad" (as it relates to aesthetic quality) is itself a strictly subjective term. This isn't complicated stuff. Let's pretend for a moment that it isn't and argue from here on in using exclusively objective terms and language, or failing that, simply show me the data. Good luck.

All I'm really getting from this thread is the sense that most people don't know what the terms subjective and objective actually mean. Even if every single creature, in every infinite multiverse, thought something was bad (as it relates to this thread), it still wouldn't sum up to an objective fact. If something requires a subject to appraise it, you're not in objective territory.

You're massively oversimplifying. Things, especially technical objects such as synths do have objectively quantifiable qualities, and even easier to find out- comparative qualities. What someone thinks about them subjectively is not really interesting, and nobody here has tried to push their opinions as objective. You need to accept that without these qualities subjects could not form subjective opinions- we would have 12993 synths that would all be exactly equal.

Synth crashes often
Synth has reproducable bugs
Synth aliases so much the higher registers go out of tune
Synth's controls don't produce the intended or expected result
Synth is marketed as emulation of X but does not behave or produce the same waveforms as X

These properties exist without a subject appraising them.

Synth A uses 200% more CPU than B for the same perceived sound quality
Synth A lacks a feature available in synths B, C, D and E but costs 3 times as much
Synths A and B have the same features, but achieving the same result with A requires more time and effort due to errors in interface design

Now obviously these all slide into subjective territory as soon as the subject assigns them values, but the inescapable dominance of subjective appraisal does not remove the objective or comparative levels.

[cron]

You straight-up cannot have "objectively bad" anything because "bad" (as it relates to aesthetic quality) is itself a strictly subjective term. This isn't complicated stuff. Let's pretend for a moment that it isn't and argue from here on in using exclusively objective terms and language, or failing that, simply show me the data. Good luck.

All I'm really getting from this thread is the sense that most people don't know what the terms subjective and objective actually mean. Even if every single creature, in every infinite multiverse, thought something was bad (as it relates to this thread), it still wouldn't sum up to an objective fact. If something requires a subject to appraise it, you're not in objective territory.

You're massively oversimplifying. Things, especially technical objects such as synths do have objectively quantifiable qualities, and even easier to find out- comparative qualities. What someone thinks about them subjectively is not really interesting, and nobody here has tried to push their opinions as objective. You need to accept that without these qualities subjects could not form subjective opinions- we would have 12993 synths that would all be exactly equal.

Synth crashes often
Synth has reproducable bugs
Synth aliases so much the higher registers go out of tune
Synth's controls don't produce the intended or expected result
Synth is marketed as emulation of X but does not behave or produce the same waveforms as X

These properties exist without a subject appraising them.

Synth A uses 200% more CPU than B for the same perceived sound quality
Synth A lacks a feature available in synths B, C, D and E but costs 3 times as much
Synths A and B have the same features, but achieving the same result with A requires more time and effort due to errors in interface design

Now obviously these all slide into subjective territory as soon as the subject assigns them values, but the inescapable dominance of subjective appraisal does not remove the objective or comparative levels.

Well of course, they're objective facts that make the synth subjectively better. I'm not going all "everything is meaningless" or whatever, subjective opinions are perfectly meaningful, I was more trying to point out that "subjective" isn't an antonym of "universal", or even "true". Apologies if I've misread the thread. I was mostly replying to the post above mine, but I could have sworn I saw objective and subjective being thrown around in equally ludicrous and pointless ways when I was actually replying about synths earlier.

edit: btw "What someone thinks about them subjectively is not really interesting"... really? I personally find reviews far more interesting and useful than spec sheets!

[Artvera]

I feel Art Vera and Kirsty Roland don't get enough love for their efforts.

Good call! Well and truly underestimated. I really like Vera's sound design too.

Exact. And in addition her plugins are beautiful to make "Ambient" music as we talk currently in another thread. I find only one drawback to her plugins (but it is off topic) it is the price that I find definitely too high.

I consider Drumatoxin a steal, at regular price, as well as Mistral.
Some of the newer ones may be spendier, but a lot of time goes in to their sound design.

Unique and specialized vs bread & butter, comes at a price worth saving for,
if it suits your style. I'd get dizzy and tip over my chair, if I tried to reverse engineer
her complex sounds.
And there is a pricing difference between using Kontakt player, and a plugin requiring
the full Kontakt, which might be a factor.
Cheers

Art Pyrite is the bomb

THANK YOU VERY MUCH, BOYS !!!!