GRATITUDE - Don't bitch

[? ? ?]

By snip do you mean it was actually cheap? Because I have a very capable DAW right now that I bought for way less han 500.

[donkey tugger]

By snip do you mean it was actually cheap? Because I have a very capable DAW right now that I bought for way less han 500.

The opposite - ye olde British irony.

[? ? ?]

Nah it's not the British - I'm American; we're dumb by nature. Hey at least I have an excuse.

[BertKoor]

$100,000 and all he could do is bark like a dog.....

A fool with a tool is still a fool.

Ah ok, it was the Fairlight as opposed to the Synclavier that I was thinking about that cost as much as the space shuttle.

Regarding Synclavier & Fairlight, they were quite similar. Wet dream for a regular musician:

a Synclavier could cost anywhere from $25,000 to $200,000.

Fairlight CMI [...]
Price £ 15,000–112,000

If you wanted one on an album, you'd rent a studio that had one. And skip the song when playing live, or have a tape playing.

[? ? ?]

Well thank God i'm a guitarist. And no way no how am I going to play to tape. Might as well just tell fans stay home, play the CD and jump up and down.
I'd have to say the dumbest fans on this planet right now are the KISS army. They'll eat whatever garbage is thrown at them. And thats coming from a KISS fan.

[PatchAdamz]

He owned a Fairlight CMI....

Ah ok, it was the Fairlight as opposed to the Synclavier that I was thinking about that cost as much as the space shuttle.

No, it was 2 Synclavier's, a Fairlight and a machine that goes Ping.....

[PatchAdamz]

$100,000 and all he could do is bark like a dog.....

A fool with a tool is still a fool.

Ah ok, it was the Fairlight as opposed to the Synclavier that I was thinking about that cost as much as the space shuttle.

Regarding Synclavier & Fairlight, they were quite similar. Wet dream for a regular musician:

a Synclavier could cost anywhere from $25,000 to $200,000.

Fairlight CMI [...]
Price £ 15,000–112,000

If you wanted one on an album, you'd rent a studio that had one. And skip the song when playing live, or have a tape playing.

The Synclaviers were at the studio I interned at so I got free, unlimited access to it which was f*king awesome.

Then, I had to do my first job with one.
They handed me the manual that was thicker then a New York phone book and said, you got to learn this.

Ended up having to sample "the history of sound" which was essentially the beginning of music and musical instruments.

A difficult but amazing way to learn how to sample.

I was hooked.........

[BertKoor]

Depeche Mode just made the reel2reel deck a full member on stage

[VitaminD]

I met George Hormel (Hormel was the son of Jay Catherwood Hormel and grandson of George A. Hormel, the founder of Hormel Foods.

Did you mean Geordie? He owned The Village studio out in West LA.

[? ? ?]

Depeche Mode just made the reel2reel deck a full member on stage

Let me backup a bit. Certain bands can get away with using tape. Bands like Depeche Mode and D.A.F. for example had limited band members so tape took over. I would have preferred D.A.F. to add a third member but that would have been one really bored keyboardist since all he had to do was trigger sequences. If he were good he could have added to the sequences but that would take away from that D.A.F. sound.
Anyhow, DM are playing the synth parts, i think the tape is providing the beats. That's fine.
It's garbage like KISS that pisses me off. Where one pays to see them actually play the songs as opposed to lip and instrument sync. I don't pay to see a f**king MTV video performance on stage. I'll go see a boy band if I want that crap.
Kraftwerk plays live as well with the exception when the robots appear on stage but that's understandable given the context of the show.
Let me just throw this in, the female trio Expose have synth driven songs.
Everything is synths and drum machines.
Live, they had a full band. No tapes. And they were a really talented band.
That's very respectable in my book. Instead of 3 girls on stage singing with tapes and pretty much performing a video on stage, they went all out with a full band to gve the people a show.

[PatchAdamz]

I met George Hormel (Hormel was the son of Jay Catherwood Hormel and grandson of George A. Hormel, the founder of Hormel Foods.

Did you mean Geordie? He owned The Village studio out in West LA.

Yea, Geordie, he invited me to his house to talk to him about writing and producing a music project with his singer.

It was a surreal experience.....

(Arf...arf...)

[xtp]

For a creative person who was active in the 80’s, the ‘in the box’ experience of the last 20 years has been a game changer. I have never upgraded past my Cubase Sx3 and I’m sure lots of people would have negative things to say about my not doing so, but compared to the technology I had available to me as an amateur musician in the 80’s and 90’s, the thing is like a rocket machine.

I never lose sight of how modern software and home computers have given creative people the freedom and ability to produce finished products in a home-based environment they can then make available to the public in whatever form that takes, whether for sale, or for free to listen, like posting in the Music Café on KVR.

I have another creative project where I write stories, and with the modern computers and software, I can produce everything at home, create the covers, and do the formatting, and publish on Amazon. I wrote a novella last month in the first 2 weeks; week 3, I did the cover; week 4, I published. A finished copy arrived in the mail printed in Las Vegas 6 days after I published and I live in New Zealand. I mean, I would have been typing on a typewriter in the 80’s.

The whole digital age still blows me out on a regular basis.

I don't think they'll ever be any bitching coming from this corner.

[BONES]

You're not Richard Parry, are you? I loved his "Chromed" stuff.

DAWs are an advantage as far as convenience (all in the box) versus the major studio setups of yesterday but they do sap the creative flow making the consistent production of ideas - meaning enthusiastic material - difficult.

I don't find that at all. DAWs make it so much easier to take a half-arsed idea and turn it into a finished song than hardware ever could.

Moving knobs and faders, inserting cassettes on a Portastudio, heck a 4 year old can do it. Managing a DAW on the other hand is a different story.

To me it's exactly the same, only with a mouse. In fact, I think it is more streamlined, if anything - most DAW mixers are far less daunting than a hardware console. I'd also suggest a 4 year old would find a Korg Trinity much harder to work than any DAW, and if you want to finish songs, you need something like a Trinity to do it.

I'm not complaining btw that would make me a hypocrite. I much prefer the DAW obviously but to get to that "zone" where one can fly the plane with ease takes much longer than ie recording with ancient porta studios.

Nothing on Dog's green Earth would get me back to working like that.

[? ? ?]

I don't find that at all. DAWs make it so much easier to take a half-arsed idea and turn it into a finished song than hardware ever could

Well anybody can write a song, it's a matter of writing an enthusiastic song. There was something about the ie porta studio and MPC that inspired me to even want to write and that enthusiasm birthed enthusiastic songs. It's only been the last couple of years (been using a DAW seriously since 2004) that i started to feel that energy with a DAW.

most DAW mixers are far less daunting than a hardware console

It seems that way because staring at a screen and controlling what is in it with -as you say - a mouse, is less daunting then having to control a bunch of knobs buttons and faders.
One would be less intimidated learning to fly a plane using a flight simulator than sitting behind an actual physical cockpit.

I'd also suggest a 4 year old would find a Korg Trinity much harder to work than any DAW, and if you want to finish songs, you need something like a Trinity to do it

Both are hard in their own way of course but you can finish a song with an acoustic guitar, a couple of mics and a porta studio.

[BONES]

Well anybody can write a song, it's a matter of writing an enthusiastic song.

I don't think that's true at all. If you're doing it right, it's hard work. Musical ideas are certainly a dime a dozen but taking them and crafting a song from them is a skill. I'm not sure what you mean by an enthusiastic song but it sounds like something I would not want applied to what we do.

It seems that way because staring at a screen and controlling what is in it with -as you say - a mouse, is less daunting then having to control a bunch of knobs buttons and faders.

That's not it at all. A 32 channel mixer has 32 channels all the time. OTOH, most of our finished songs only have a dozen or so channels and when I'm getting started on something, it usually starts with just one. Adding effects in a DAW is an order of magnitude less work than adding hardware effects in a studio.

... of course but you can finish a song with an acoustic guitar, a couple of mics and a porta studio.

Not a song I would want to hear but, even then, mics are annoying and you have to know where to place them, do your gain staging to minimise line noise, etc., etc. A lot of skills that take a lot of experience to develop.