Mark Mothersbaugh on Classic Hardware vs Software Emulations

[TechHaus]

You are very mad about the limbo thing, damn.

I’m not mad, I’m just amazed you thought that lame joke was a flex. You're like a toddler showing off a drawing that belongs on the fridge. Good job, buddy. So proud of you

Imagine being so desperate for a win that you have to convince yourself I'm 'mad' about a boomer-tier limbo joke. It’s genuinely hilarious how proud you are of that absolute swing-and-a-miss. Here’s your participation trophy for comedy, you tried your best

You're so mad you pulled out the millennial speak on me.

[VOODOO U]

Can you not see the difference between someone singing/playing a song live to a small group of people, than radio, TV or streaming playing a recording to millions of people?

Stopping people playing music in public cannot be good.

If you get paid to cover another's work, pay the songwriter(s) their due regardless of performance scale.
Why would you not see the logic in that other than being a f**king thief??
If you are at a local party doing covers for free then whatever....
But if you reach a level where you get paid, you're earnings are based off of others copyrighted works.
Sure there is no way to keep track of all the private performances done across the U.S., but there you go. The original songwriter gets stiffed and yet we got imbeciles complaining about A.I. stealing. Really? I wonder how many of these so called musicians refrained from downloading from Napster.

[vurt]

I doubt he'd stoop so low

i see what you did!

[IvyBirds]

You are very mad about the limbo thing, damn.

I’m not mad, I’m just amazed you thought that lame joke was a flex. You're like a toddler showing off a drawing that belongs on the fridge. Good job, buddy. So proud of you

Imagine being so desperate for a win that you have to convince yourself I'm 'mad' about a boomer-tier limbo joke. It’s genuinely hilarious how proud you are of that absolute swing-and-a-miss. Here’s your participation trophy for comedy, you tried your best

You're so mad you pulled out the millennial speak on me.

You keep swinging and missing. I absolutely love playing weddings, bar mitzvahs, dinner parties and everything else. I am certainly not embarrassed by it in anyway and most certainly don't try to hide what I do. In fact you wound even know I did that if I didn't openly talk about it. No one asks me to play the limbo, but I lost certainly would if requested.

If the check clears, I'm there, and the pay is fantastic. It’s pure comedy that you think doing what I love for great money is somehow a burn.

But I get it—when you have to grind out a standard 9-to-5 day job every week, seeing someone actually get paid to have fun and do what they love probably does make you project a little bitterness so I forgive you for your continued efforts to make fetch happen

[IvyBirds]

Can you not see the difference between someone singing/playing a song live to a small group of people, than radio, TV or streaming playing a recording to millions of people?

Stopping people playing music in public cannot be good.

If you get paid to cover another's work, pay the songwriter(s) their due regardless of performance scale.
Why would you not see the logic in that other than being a f**king thief??

I do make the sure the songwriter gets paid their due. This has been explained but you seem to be to dense to grasp it

I get paid to cover other artists work and the person or venue paying me to do so also pays the artist

Not sure why that is so difficult for you to understand. The venue decides they want live music at their business or event as such they pay the songwriters for the right to do so, and then hire musicians to actually play it. Its really not that hard

The system to make sure the artist gets paid is having ASCAP and BMI (In America anyway) sell the venue a license. One they all have. Again this has all been explained but you again you are to dense to grasp the basic reality of facts

You seem to want songwriters to get paid more than they are due and expect people to do so in a way there is literally zero mechanism for

So how do you suggest I pay artists above and beyond what they are due? I can't do so through their publisher as there is no mechanism to do and they have already sold a license to my employer to cover it and make sure the songwriter gets everything they are due

No one is being a f**king thief.

Edit:Should add this system is better for the songwriters and their publishers which is why they have it set up this way. Without it the cost to mange and collect and enforce licenses and royalties would be significantly more expensive, complicated and time consuming. In the end all of that would cost significantly more which means the Artists and songwriters would get paid less

Why are you advocating for a system that would pay artists and songwriters less?

[stoopicus]

New topic: "DSM-IV Sauna" - band name or album name?

[concealed identity]

The best way I could sum up this thread is "I'm not trapped in here with all of you, you're trapped in here with ME!" except literally everyone is saying it to each other

[machinesworking]

I definitely make sure that I have a use for anything that I buy, and that includes $3,000 hardware synths and $29 plugins, though I make different calculations based on price and space. I won't buy a synth with a keyboard, because they're just plain and simply not worth the space. I break that rule once, for a PolyBrute, but other than that, no. As for software, I'm a lot more discerning about what I'll buy than I used to be. I used to think, "oh, I'll have a few hours of fun on a weekend with this, so that's worth $X." But it started hitting a level where I just had too much clutter in my plugin folder. Plugins where I don't even remember what they do. Plugin suites that go on crazy sales are very guilty of packing my folder with a lot of stuff I never or rarely use, just because I wanted a handful of the plugins and the sale price made sense. So now, even when I'm curious about Memory V, I hold off. I just don't need it, unless it could eliminate a hardware synth, but I don't believe it could.

Yeah sales on collections are super bad for my tendency to love a deal. All of this collecting and I'm still drawn to Zebra, Absynth, Kontakt, Falcon and Atomika most of the time.

I'm not comfortable being a preset warrior so another aspect is wanting to grind into the details of a software and something like Falcon or Zebra could take all your time alone. I often think about how my own music isn't so drastically different than when I used an Emax III and the Memorymoog for everything. All that said I bought Oblivion Drums, I started weeks ago processing drum sounds like Heavyocity does and it's cool and all but at some point you're spending 90% of your time on sound design when something is already available commercially that would take minutes to tweak to taste.

I mean here's an example, I have a few Xils Labs synths, and I've never really messed with their weird modulation matrix, keep meaning to sit down and learn it, but something comes up. Too much of that really. <<< shiny object chasing instead of using what you have etc.

[BONES]

I really dislike playing covers that are close to the originals. I've done a bunch over the last few years as practice on a new instrument and I quit doing them because I just don't find it enjoyable at all.

I am the total opposite. I love playing covers and I feel a certain responsibility not to f**k with them too much, to show some respect to the original artist's intentions. Singing them with my voice should be the most different thing about them, in my view. Although I sometimes play around with the arrangements a bit, I think the song should be instantly recognisable to anyone listening. Like this one -

Not here in the States. A license is not required to earn an income performing covers for private parties, weddings etc.
In certain cases it's still the land of the free.

Nobody needs a license to do anything. As I said, you may not be directly compensated for each individual time your song gets performed but over the course of a year you'll do OK. Legally, if you are playing music you bought on CD or vinyl to the public - in a venue or a shop or even at a backyard barbecue to guests - you should be paying performance royalties but it's unenforceable and everyone realises this. But APRA are really good at going after shops that play music for customers and they collect a lot of money for redistribution to artists.

I was talking about being able to use it, i.e. the Memorymoog here is still around Kore is not, and I would doubt it would run on Windows 11, certainly not Mac OS Tahoe.

I'd see that as an equivalent to a hardware synth breaking down and requiring repair. You pay a lot of money for them, so you're happy to spend more getting them fixed. With software, you're still spending less money buying another piece of software to replace something that no longer works than you would be getting a hardware synth repaired, which is why I don't think it's a fair or valid argument.

I've had to do it. Moving from Orion's 32 bit environment to a 64 bit host meant leaving behind my favourite ever synth, WaspXT, as well as all the VSTi I had made for myself in SynthEdit. But that was still way less effort than moving from the 01R/W to the Trinity had been, for example, and far less costly.

I've been very lucky in a sense that the synths I chose to buy have all gone up in value, I think the only one that has gon down is the Uno, but I got it used for $100, I don't think it would be hard to sell it for $70.

I never think about it. In the 80s I mostly gave my old synths away, selling them would have been too much effort and sometimes, as with my TB303s, nobody wanted to buy them so I had to give them away to be rid of them. I made a few bucks on my Ultranova but that's because I got it at a bargain price from a pawnbroker who was happy to be rid of it.

I'm not one of those people with dozens of hardware synths, it takes it being useful in some way beyond soft synths, and I immeditaly sold my samplers when Reason came out, not to mention Kontakt a few years later. In the case of the Memorymoog, it's owning it since I was a kid.

I'm not sure I see the connection between Reason and hardware samplers. I only have the free Kontakt Player, yet I have spent more money on Kontakt libraries than on actual plugins. Way more.

I totally use similar logic to justify purchasing things for my music, though I’m not a big drinker. Instead, I’ll think, “that’s what I’d spend on a nice sushi dinner, or movies.” Of course, I eat the nice dinners and see the movies as well. I don’t spend any money on stuff a lot of dudes my age do, though. I’ve got a friend who spends a lot of money on sports and sports memorabilia. They go to Vegas a few times a year and drop a lot on gambling. They’re doctors who work a lot, so they’re not broke, but I’m sure even with all my expensive gear and software, it’s a fraction of what they spend on what really amounts to as entertainment, which is how I view my spending as well, even though I was making a living off it for years.

Here it's travel. Most of my cohort are retired now and they spend a f**king fortune on travel. Cruises, business-class flights, obscene expenses I could never justify to myself, even if I could afford them. I'm probably lucky that I much prefer a driving holiday in my tiny car to 20 hours in a pressurised aluminium tube at 30,000ft.

I guess I just have a much more expansive and open minded view of what I find great in a show.

I'm probably the opposite because if all you are doing is standing there laying your instrument, that's not performance in my view. Performance is what you do while you are playing, the playing itself is largely irrelevant and taken as read.

Using 'open-minded' as a euphemism for having zero standards for actual performance is hilarious. Nice try trying to dress up a glorified karaoke night as high art, though

Interesting, though, to know how many people go to karaoke to watch others perform, isn't it? Because that's really the thing, if you want to put on a show, a real performance, you need a frontman. The rest of the band, the musicians, are just window-dressing, boxes ticked.

Imagine thinking it's 'open-minded' to defend a band hitting spacebar and miming along to a WAV file.

Do bands do that? I'm happy to let the sequencer do everything in some of our songs, something every one of the thousand or more people in the audience can see. It doesn't seem to bother them. In fact, the most successful artist in our sub-culture, VNV Nation, have all their backing controlled from FoH but Ronan is a great frontman and has the audience going crazy for 75 minutes without having to pretend he is doing anything other than entertaining them. But I'm sure your wedding crowds go crazy for your Liberace schtick, too.

Well, I can see why some people are afraid to link their personal music to their KVR forum identity

People need to have thicker skins.

[dwringer]

People need to have thicker skins.

Can't disagree there, I was mainly referring to the concept that people who hide behind a totally anonymous pseudonym seem emboldened to say things they'd never otherwise be saying. I suppose it doesn't amount to much anyway, though. The internet is the internet, lol

[BONES]

Expecting users to post their tracks on a plugin and music production forum is like walking into a tire factory and demanding the engineers show you video footage of their morning commute. We aren't sensitive singer-songwriters sitting around a campfire; we’re a bunch of nerds arguing about VSTs.

Yeah, Dog forbid anyone should show us all that they actually know what they are talking about. Much better to just assume they are clueless idiots and ignore everything they have to say. If you don't have any links to your music, I assume you have none to link to, that you know nothing and your opinion is largely worthless. OTOH, if you have some links in your signature, I can at least make the effort to get some idea of where you might be at in your musical journey and maybe cut you some slack. (Not likely but possible.)

Do not why but this is the most entertaining thread here on KVR in a while...

It's interesting because I honestly figured most people would agree with him and we'd move on. It's definitely been a lot more fun than that, though.

The best way I could sum up this thread is "I'm not trapped in here with all of you, you're trapped in here with ME!" except literally everyone is saying it to each other

Nice Watchmen reference. 3 points to you.

[zerocrossing]

Using 'open-minded' as a euphemism for having zero standards for actual performance is hilarious. Nice try trying to dress up a glorified karaoke night as high art, though

Ivy, the guy you're insulting is a very accomplished instrumental musician with many gigs under his belt. He's done professional media scoring, and has worked with Laurie Anderson, for crying out loud.

Talking down to people who don't share your aesthetic preferences is bad enough, but you're spending a lot of time trashing fellow working musicians.

This stuff exists in DEGREES, man. It's not two diametrically opposed states of being, where things are either 100% live instrumental performance or 100% pre-recorded glorified karaoke. The overwhelming majority of recorded or sequenced tracks happen in conjunction with live playing in some capacity.

It's awesome that you're able to do all of your gigs under exactly the specifications that you want to, and have the budget and resources to consistently make music in the precise manner that matches your philosophical beliefs.

But not everybody can do that. Not everyone who CAN do that actually wants to. And no: not everybody who goes to shows cares about splitting these kinds of hairs. I mean, you're a function gig player. You must, on some level, realize that audiences in general are not nearly as invested in this sort of thing as you'd like to believe.

The elitist, holier-than-thou thing is NOT a good look. But you're going to write me off as not knowing what I'm talking about, so I'm probably jousting at a windmill...

Thanks Andre, it means a lot coming from someone 100x more accomplished as a musician than I will ever be. I don’t think it’s about that, though. Some people just live by a very strict doctrine and would like the rest of us to follow.

[IvyBirds]

Using 'open-minded' as a euphemism for having zero standards for actual performance is hilarious. Nice try trying to dress up a glorified karaoke night as high art, though

Ivy, the guy you're insulting is a very accomplished instrumental musician with many gigs under his belt. He's done professional media scoring, and has worked with Laurie Anderson, for crying out loud.

Talking down to people who don't share your aesthetic preferences is bad enough, but you're spending a lot of time trashing fellow working musicians.

This stuff exists in DEGREES, man. It's not two diametrically opposed states of being, where things are either 100% live instrumental performance or 100% pre-recorded glorified karaoke. The overwhelming majority of recorded or sequenced tracks happen in conjunction with live playing in some capacity.

It's awesome that you're able to do all of your gigs under exactly the specifications that you want to, and have the budget and resources to consistently make music in the precise manner that matches your philosophical beliefs.

But not everybody can do that. Not everyone who CAN do that actually wants to. And no: not everybody who goes to shows cares about splitting these kinds of hairs. I mean, you're a function gig player. You must, on some level, realize that audiences in general are not nearly as invested in this sort of thing as you'd like to believe.

The elitist, holier-than-thou thing is NOT a good look. But you're going to write me off as not knowing what I'm talking about, so I'm probably jousting at a windmill...

Thanks Andre, it means a lot coming from someone 100x more accomplished as a musician than I will ever be. I don’t think it’s about that, though. Some people just live by a very strict doctrine and would like the rest of us to follow.

Agree like how people like yourself called me closed minded because I don't follow the very strict doctrine you do?

For me personally when I go a concert I want to see live musicians play live music. You however seem to have a different doctrine you want the rest of us like me follow and you and several other people publicly chastised me for it

So I ask you and everyone else here am I allowed to have an opinion and make choices for myself when it comes to going to concerts? Or should I follow the dogma you think I should?

[Seafire Mk2]

I doubt he'd stoop so low

i see what you did!

Glad someone did.

[machinesworking]

I was talking about being able to use it, i.e. the Memorymoog here is still around Kore is not, and I would doubt it would run on Windows 11, certainly not Mac OS Tahoe.

I'd see that as an equivalent to a hardware synth breaking down and requiring repair. You pay a lot of money for them, so you're happy to spend more getting them fixed. With software, you're still spending less money buying another piece of software to replace something that no longer works than you would be getting a hardware synth repaired, which is why I don't think it's a fair or valid argument.

I don't think anyone would argue that software isn't miles cheaper, there's a reason I have 5 hardware synths and two drum synths, but 677 plugins. It's more that replacing the sound of some discontinued freebie from 2005 is just coming close, but the Memorymoog sounds exactly the same as it did in 1987 when I got it.

I've had to do it. Moving from Orion's 32 bit environment to a 64 bit host meant leaving behind my favourite ever synth, WaspXT, as well as all the VSTi I had made for myself in SynthEdit. But that was still way less effort than moving from the 01R/W to the Trinity had been, for example, and far less costly.

Yep, again I was more referring to losing a certain sound, like your scenario with the Wasp, the Trinity goes with you to a new DAW, therefore you're good.

I've been very lucky in a sense that the synths I chose to buy have all gone up in value, I think the only one that has gon down is the Uno, but I got it used for $100, I don't think it would be hard to sell it for $70.

I never think about it. In the 80s I mostly gave my old synths away, selling them would have been too much effort and sometimes, as with my TB303s, nobody wanted to buy them so I had to give them away to be rid of them. I made a few bucks on my Ultranova but that's because I got it at a bargain price from a pawnbroker who was happy to be rid of it.

It's mostly trivia but I bought the moog for 1200, put about 2500 into it, and it's worth around 9-15K. Same with the Xpander, bought for 2300, worth around 6K, and the Wretch, 1500 worth about 5k. I wouldn't buy any of them for the prices they go for now, unless I was filthy rich.

I'm not one of those people with dozens of hardware synths, it takes it being useful in some way beyond soft synths, and I immeditaly sold my samplers when Reason came out, not to mention Kontakt a few years later. In the case of the Memorymoog, it's owning it since I was a kid.

I'm not sure I see the connection between Reason and hardware samplers. I only have the free Kontakt Player, yet I have spent more money on Kontakt libraries than on actual plugins. Way more.

Reason had a few samplers in it, along with all the FX plugins it might not have been as powerful at the E6400 I had, but I just couldn't get into maintaining multiple sample libraries on hardware and software when software saved in a song. With how underpowered computers were in 2001 were Reason rewired made it possible to have dozens of FX and instruments without DSP cards etc. Once Kontakt was robust enough I moved over to that. I get some hardware, but samplers I just don't get why anyone would want to deal with hardware samplers? unless they were running a Fairlight CMI and wanted to nerd out on using that weird piece of gear. The MPC Sample does look appealing though, all in one, mic, and battery.