are machine bands gaining more respect these days?

[scorpionldr]

only 5 or 6 years ago it seemed completely unheard of to have a band that was machine based that did well on its own, let alone a band that had anything to do with a drum machine. now it seems like there's some sort of new respect for those people that actually bothered to sit down and program their own stuff. what's your take on this? lame and always will be or productivity that's fascinating and in some ways genius?

[MyUsernameHere]

Ever listen to rap or top 40 R&B in the last 15 years?

My vote's for lame, but with all the computer editing taking place in production now-a-days you might as well just go ahead and skip the middle man.

[scorpionldr]

ehhh i live in a crappy town with people that are too different minded and too unwilling to compromise for long. writing stuff at my own discretion that i think sounds good gives me an opportunity to have some longevity in a project i do....sure performances will be hard to pull off, but there's always got to be a hard part to something

[BassChuck]

I think it will have a place in music. Mostly as a production tool. After 15 or 20 years of drum machines and computer based performances, there still seems to be a rather narrow aesthic for this kind of music that I think will always exist in some form or another.

[Spoiled Grape]

Dance/Trance/"Core" music is still huge throughout the world.

[MonetBass]

Originally Posted by Spoiled Grape

Dance/Trance/"Core" music is still huge throughout the world.

And, no offense, but IME is for people who don't give a crap about musicality.

[scorpionldr]

Originally Posted by MonetBass

And, no offense, but IME is for people who don't give a crap about musicality.

IME?

[Deluge Of Sound]

He meant to say IDM, Intelligent Dance Music, which is subsequently one of the dumbest genre-titles ever, but it's describing guys like Aphex Twin and Venetian Snares.

[scorpionldr]

Originally Posted by Deluge Of Sound

He meant to say IDM, Intelligent Dance Music, which is subsequently one of the dumbest genre-titles ever, but it's describing guys like Aphex Twin and Venetian Snares.

ehh i dono, sometimes they do intelligent things....mostly it's a miss tho

[Jazz Ad]

Around here electro music gets a lot of respect and people aren't affraid to play it live.
It's been this way for at least 10 years and it's getting more and more common.
Feel free to stick to musicality, whatever you think it is. I prefer people who experiment and try to push things further.

[lemur821]

Originally Posted by Deluge Of Sound

He meant to say IDM, Intelligent Dance Music, which is subsequently one of the dumbest genre-titles ever, but it's describing guys like Aphex Twin and Venetian Snares.

I think he meant to say "in my estimation".

[DEFELDUS]

IME - in my experience

[alfredpunkjazz]

I have never understood clearly why there's so much fear of machines doing music...

There's gonna be always a person who is making it in the first place, plus it's a tool, a good one.

[amos]

I played bass in a band for a while called The Gentry. They no longer have a bassist, after going through five. Most of their songs having backing tracks, so they play to a click and run synth bass along with the backing track and occasionally Gino (lead vocals; guitar) will play a bass part here and there. They also have live keyboards, drums, and lead guitar. I saw them last Thursday (I am still a huge fan) at a little dive and it was the the tightest they've ever sounded after having seen them a half dozen or so times. If the soundman at the venue knows what he's doing, they backing tracks sound great, and vibe well with the live instruments.

[jenderfazz]

Why have contempt for programmed music? I don't discriminate whether a drummer or a machine lays down that straight 8th beat. Similarly, a good drummer will play with dynamics and variety, but a good electronic musician will program all those changes anyways. The fact is, if those artists are that "unmusical", nobody will listen to them - but then don't we all have different tastes? And so some people appreciate it...

Of course they'll sound different, but there are times you might want the tinny sound of a drum machine or the thick sound of delay and distortion on your drums. Great drummers have a feel advantage that machines probably never will. They can push the beat forward, etc... But that's why drum machines aren't used in every genre, because they have their own strengths and weaknesses...

The point some people tend to miss is that entire genres have emerged and developed from the ability to program loops and trigger samples. And some couldn't be further from jazz or rock, so why try to define them in those terms? People listening to dance music don't necessarily want the same feeling that those genres offer. To call simply programmed music inferior or unmusical is your opinion, and sometimes it's not a wrong assessment. But to discredit genres (and thousands of artists, musicians too) would be very wrong.

Listen to an artist like Squarepusher (Tom Jenkinson, a terrific bass player, too) and tell me the stuff he programs isn't musical.

I guess if I have to make this argument, not enough respect has been gained, yet.

[CrazyArcher]

In fact, I'm unsure if it takes much less time to record stuff with a good drummer than to program it with all the dynamics. I've done job like that myself, even though I am a quite poor drummer myself, and I gotta say that good programming paired with good samples can do wonders. On the other hand, I'll take a living drummer over machine for my own musical needs any day. People can adapt on the spot, machines can't.

[brianrost]

Originally Posted by scorpionldr

only 5 or 6 years ago it seemed completely unheard of to have a band that was machine based that did well on its own, let alone a band that had anything to do with a drum machine.

Kraftwerk had a top 40 hit with Autobahn in 1974.

Synthpop bands using sequencers and drum machines were all the rage in the 1980s.

It's nothing new, other than the fact that a lot of people are now just using computers to create the music. This sort of thing is much more in the mainstream outside of the USA, the rave scene never took off here in the 90s the way it did in Europe.

For a tongue in cheek look at the various genres of electronic music, read this.