I don’t see it as opposite sides, just different branches in the huge tree we all share.
So much good music, so little time.
Truth.
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Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread
- Thread starter ttasselm
- Start date
Truth.
On DAWs, every single one has some kind of "gotcha". Bitwig's "scripting" for control interfaces assumes everyone wants to be a "hacker" as opposed to stuff working. Apple's "intuitive" interface for setting up control surfaces is so intuitive that it lacks certain basic options. Live doubles plugin delay compensation because every track is stereo. ProTools was designed in the 1990s and just keeps shoving new features into weird little corners of the interface (also comes with nothing, whereas Logic comes with everything). And it crashes all the time. I would have stayed with Audiodesk and DP but MOTU had a period of vomitously bad technical support and I bailed out of utter frustration with something.
The only one I have honestly never heard anything bad about from users is Reaper. I don't use it simply because I don't have time to learn another DAW.
In my day job I interviewed a bunch of people who design software for musicians, including DAWs, and at one point talked with one of the founders of Reaper. We met at a coffee shop instead of his office, because they live wherever they want. Everyone else I talked with had a "vision" of some kind for what they were doing. He just repeated the same mantra "we just ask our users what they want and then we try to do it."
If anyone of them were to add a "rewind time" feature it would be Reaper. (Which is a good idea, though I do like instantly looping sections while try to EQ a short vocal phrase in the mixing phase).
Bonus round: one of the inventors of ProTools took the money and retired young when they sold off to Avid. He goes to trade shows sometimes to see old friends and otherwise plays in bands and does whatever he wants. Struck me as a nice and thoughtful guy, had a lot of complementary things to say about Live and other newer programs. The other lives in a gated community, wouldn't talk to me, and is a venture capitalist (I think? would fit) now.
We should discuss our love and hatred for audio interfaces next.
The only one I have honestly never heard anything bad about from users is Reaper. I don't use it simply because I don't have time to learn another DAW.
In my day job I interviewed a bunch of people who design software for musicians, including DAWs, and at one point talked with one of the founders of Reaper. We met at a coffee shop instead of his office, because they live wherever they want. Everyone else I talked with had a "vision" of some kind for what they were doing. He just repeated the same mantra "we just ask our users what they want and then we try to do it."
If anyone of them were to add a "rewind time" feature it would be Reaper. (Which is a good idea, though I do like instantly looping sections while try to EQ a short vocal phrase in the mixing phase).
Bonus round: one of the inventors of ProTools took the money and retired young when they sold off to Avid. He goes to trade shows sometimes to see old friends and otherwise plays in bands and does whatever he wants. Struck me as a nice and thoughtful guy, had a lot of complementary things to say about Live and other newer programs. The other lives in a gated community, wouldn't talk to me, and is a venture capitalist (I think? would fit) now.
We should discuss our love and hatred for audio interfaces next.
Oh, and TAPE. One of my bands recorded in an all-analog studio here in Montreal, twice, once about 8-9 years ago, and once about 6 years ago. 1" 16-track. Run by a young guy who read lots of old audio engineering books, and Tape Op. He bought up old radio station equipment and knew how to fix everything. It was super fun to go back to that approach after years of digital, and did force more decisions. I would do it any time. (Of course then we dumped the whole thing into Logic so I could mix it. draw your own conclusions.)
But it's also fascinating what knowledge wasn't written down. At one point the first time we went there, we were doing it punk rock style and sloppily laying down track after track (this is the dad rock band--3 songwriters, so always too much material). He said "we have to be careful not to keep too many takes because I only have a little more tape." I explained to him that he should never run out of tape on a session, because unlike hard drives, in the tape era, the bands bought or rented the tape--the studio passed on the expense so they could make sure they had enough tape. By the 2nd time we went there, he changed his practice.
But it's also fascinating what knowledge wasn't written down. At one point the first time we went there, we were doing it punk rock style and sloppily laying down track after track (this is the dad rock band--3 songwriters, so always too much material). He said "we have to be careful not to keep too many takes because I only have a little more tape." I explained to him that he should never run out of tape on a session, because unlike hard drives, in the tape era, the bands bought or rented the tape--the studio passed on the expense so they could make sure they had enough tape. By the 2nd time we went there, he changed his practice.
Ok, might try Reaper (for the 8436517834561 time) this summer, I’m getting pretty sick and tired of all the enfin latency in Live.
Plus, the creators of Reaper are indeed awesome. One quick question, how are the stock FX? I hate chasing plugins to patch what is missing in the DAW.
I just need to kick my lazy @$$ and learn a new DAW, to me is one of the most boring things ever. That and chasing plugins……..euh……
Interfaces, ya….programmed obsolescence, let me get a sledgehammer and some army grade explosives.
there’s a lot going on in this thread these days. (fer instance, i’m days behind all the stuff i wanted to say about music/biz.)
two things i have time to say:
1 i don’t miss tape at all. between running out of time or tracks, or frequency or tape degradation, it’s not something i feel nostalgic about.
2 live gigs and the visual: at this point in my life, i find the visual aspects of a performance to be distracting and/or annoying (depending on the performer). mostly i listen to stuff with my eyes closed and open them when i can’t tell how someone is making a sound. i’m getting particularly annoyed by the trend of people adding visuals to a gig when there is no interaction between the visual and audio. this is really annoying in the improv scene. (why not have the visual person be a member of the band and not just a friend there to make things “interesting” for people used to mtv and youtube?)
ymmv, imo, etc.
two things i have time to say:
1 i don’t miss tape at all. between running out of time or tracks, or frequency or tape degradation, it’s not something i feel nostalgic about.
2 live gigs and the visual: at this point in my life, i find the visual aspects of a performance to be distracting and/or annoying (depending on the performer). mostly i listen to stuff with my eyes closed and open them when i can’t tell how someone is making a sound. i’m getting particularly annoyed by the trend of people adding visuals to a gig when there is no interaction between the visual and audio. this is really annoying in the improv scene. (why not have the visual person be a member of the band and not just a friend there to make things “interesting” for people used to mtv and youtube?)
ymmv, imo, etc.
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If I can comment on these two things as well:
1. I'm glad I experienced recording in studios to tape - minimal experience, a couple of times with my band in the early 90s, then at a friend's home studio around 2002-2005. I experienced the "preciousness of tape" in several ways - my project was basically a personal hobby project, so afterwards, once the mixes were bounced to ProTools, my friend asked if he could tape over it, he needed it for a different session. "OK" - kind of regret not having multi-track masters but not a big deal. But then - around 2005? - the actual tape shortage hit! I was actually happy to go 100% ProTools - that's what I had on my laptop, I was recording drums and bass at my friend's studio in Massachusetts and then working with those on my laptop in Kyoto, Japan. Haven't looked back since. ProTools is the only DAW I have ever used, I don't use plugins for the most part, no MIDI, just recording audio that I pipe in through my MBox.
2. I was thinking about the live performance aspect after pulling out my copy of Manuel Göttsching Live at Mount Fuji. There are a couple of pictures in the CD booklet that show him sitting at a table with gear in front of him and one with him playing guitar. But what is he doing? Is it just triggering things? Messing around with a multi-track mix? Actually playing the sequences in real time somehow? Or is it just a recording? Apparently there was a limited edition version of the album with a DVD, wish I had that. But I do have the DVD version of Invalid Link Removed and it's just him sitting in front of a huge bank of electronics with a table with keys & gear in front (and some guitar I seem to remember) - I guess I've given up trying to figure out what they're doing and just try and enjoy the music! At one point, he gets up and leaves the stage while the music plays on - it's pretty funny, he comes back, goes up to a microphone, shrugs and says, "It's electronic music!" I remember wondering, did he have to go to the bathroom or was it part of the show? Were there people in the crowd who looked upset because he had broken the illusion? Kraftwerk is another one - is it merely sequenced music or is there some human element that results in different versions each time? I saw them live on the 3D tour and loved it, had already come to terms with not knowing what they were doing with the Maximum-Minimum albums - the different releases (I think I have Europe & US) have different selections but haven't been able to really dig in, other than the different versions of Pocket Calculator - the Japanese one has a really cool energy, the audience really adds to the performance of that one.
more about tape:
when i was coming up, tape was all there was.
a tascam 4-/8-track and tape weren’t cheap—a major commitment. i did a lot of projects with that setup. lots of different parts on different tracks, so i learned a lot. but i can never go back and get that stuff, cause the tape is too degraded (we’re talking almost 40 years). (baking tape works sometimes.)
then there’s the cost of the 2-inch tape that we did albums on (etc.).
direct to dat? yep. time constraints and now the tape is degraded (same with dat mixdown).
adat? yep. oops i thought this tune was 5 minutes; it’s 6.5 minutes and i just lost the best bass solo on it because the tape ran out. and the tape degrades.
there are totally problems with hard drives (i lost hundreds of hours of work—dozens kn one piece—from hard drive failure), but flexibility and version control can be nice.
now if you want to get into the philosophical discussion of impermanence being a feature, not a flaw…
when i was coming up, tape was all there was.
a tascam 4-/8-track and tape weren’t cheap—a major commitment. i did a lot of projects with that setup. lots of different parts on different tracks, so i learned a lot. but i can never go back and get that stuff, cause the tape is too degraded (we’re talking almost 40 years). (baking tape works sometimes.)
then there’s the cost of the 2-inch tape that we did albums on (etc.).
direct to dat? yep. time constraints and now the tape is degraded (same with dat mixdown).
adat? yep. oops i thought this tune was 5 minutes; it’s 6.5 minutes and i just lost the best bass solo on it because the tape ran out. and the tape degrades.
there are totally problems with hard drives (i lost hundreds of hours of work—dozens kn one piece—from hard drive failure), but flexibility and version control can be nice.
now if you want to get into the philosophical discussion of impermanence being a feature, not a flaw…
228 secs of sample time. Clearly made for drums.
I can’t make my pseudo multi head tape machine\ asynchronous loop thing with that.
Will watch rest tonight. Thx for the share/
I see what they’re after. The pessimistic side of me feels like it’s a “loss leader” for selling sample packs, but it looks to be a handy tool.
Nicely linking ^^^this question in w/ the recent discussion here re: DAWs/sequencers, here's something I wrote in this thread ~4 years ago:
228 secs of sample time. Clearly made for drums.
I can’t make my pseudo multi head tape machine\ asynchronous loop thing with that.
Will watch rest tonight. Thx for the share/
you’re kind of in that area where you have a vision or a work flow and the products on offer don’t quite get you there.
right there with you.
but as a wise man mentioned previously on this thread, limitations can be good.
Touché.you’re kind of in that area where you have a vision or a work flow and the products on offer don’t quite get you there.
right there with you.
but as a wise man mentioned previously on this thread, limitations can be good.
I was going to say something about this but I already forgot...
My post-rock band talked about bringing on artists or dancers as part of the act. Since we make no money on it anyway, it's not like we're watering down a pay check.
Arguably, limitation is not just good, but the essence of artistic expression. If you could have a tool allowing you to manifest any idea then what impression would that have on the observer? I think an audience appreciates art in the context of being aware that the creation requires navigation of limits.
Actually, it looks like a streamlined version of the original Infinity, with a lot less button combinations. If this has the seamless overdub feature like the original, I may just sell that Aeros. There's too much not fixed in the Aeros, especially with the seamless overdub feature.
I just had to shell out 7k for two dog surgeries so by the time I can afford this, there'll be some used ones around.
