thinks : is a good faker equivalent to a good performer?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
rsaulo
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Re: thinks : is a good faker equivalent to a good performer?

Post by rsaulo » Wed Mar 31, 2010 2:33 pm

flippo wrote:also, anyone ever noticed that it's only midi geeks that like monome music? :lol:

Show a monome video to someone who isn't a computer music fiend and they just get too confused to enjoy/notice the music. :lol:
Monome does not make music....

It's a controller...

BTW, people does not need to understand what happens behind the scenes to enjoy music, it's all about that this topic is no?

:roll: :roll: :roll:

Dombleton
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Re: thinks : is a good faker equivalent to a good performer?

Post by Dombleton » Wed Mar 31, 2010 3:49 pm

I used to start off the gig with a completely blank slate and build up the loops,
but in order to make some things flow quicker I have pre recorded a couple of midi loops.

Its still live but some things just need to flow more quickly to keep the audience interested.

flippo
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Re: thinks : is a good faker equivalent to a good performer?

Post by flippo » Thu Apr 01, 2010 12:06 am

rsaulo wrote:
flippo wrote:also, anyone ever noticed that it's only midi geeks that like monome music? :lol:

Show a monome video to someone who isn't a computer music fiend and they just get too confused to enjoy/notice the music. :lol:
Monome does not make music....

It's a controller...

BTW, people does not need to understand what happens behind the scenes to enjoy music, it's all about that this topic is no?

:roll: :roll: :roll:
I'm sorry if I offended you.

I know the monome is a controller. I use monome apps myself with my APC sometimes. But by virtue of its design there are certain musical aesthetics that tend to come form using it; it has no direct velocity sensitivity, and typically applications allow for a limited rhythmic resolution, so more-often-than-not the music is very mechanical and gridlike I find. There is to some degree a 'monome sound' to my ears, although I'm aware you can use it to control a great deal of things.

As for not needing to understand what happenens behind the scene to enjoy music - I'm talking about videos where the monome is displayed and it's only natural in that situation that people are going to try and reconcile the performance they are seeing in front of them with the music. More often than not it just looks like random button pushing to them :)

someone like Edison doesn't really fit this mold though I don't think.

rsaulo
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Re: thinks : is a good faker equivalent to a good performer?

Post by rsaulo » Thu Apr 01, 2010 1:48 am

Don't worry, no ofense...
flippo wrote: more-often-than-not the music is very mechanical and gridlike I find. There is to some degree a 'monome sound' to my ears, although I'm aware you can use it to control a great deal of things.
I don't agree at all, maybe generally people are using the same apps, MLR for example, because of this, all look the same, the good for monome like controllers is in the apps, actually, max apps, and now M4L apps, I think that we begin now to see a new world for this type of performance, I see monome much more as an performance tool that an instrument.
flippo wrote: As for not needing to understand what happenens behind the scene to enjoy music - I'm talking about videos where the monome is displayed and it's only natural in that situation that people are going to try and reconcile the performance they are seeing in front of them with the music. More often than not it just looks like random button pushing to them.
I think that it's the inverse, because of this that people want to know what is happening with all these lights flashing and make the music more interesting, it's natural that people associate the button presses with changes in the sound, if you are not faking, of course :lol:

BTW, I don't have an monome too, I have an launchpad, think it's basically the same, with the addiction of native control of live, 4 modes and half the price. Considering to get another one !!!
:lol: :lol: :lol:

Angstrom
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Re: thinks : is a good faker equivalent to a good performer?

Post by Angstrom » Thu Apr 01, 2010 9:20 am

I disagree that people (in general) want to know what the lights on a monome represent.

I think people on this forum do though. Because this is a music technology forum, and the idea of understanding the function appeals to the type of people that come here.

But most people enjoying music and entertainment are not interested in connecting action A with outcome B, but in the musical entertainment experience.
For a large section of the public this experience only needs validating by the performer acting convincingly like an performer (confident, in control, with personality). Their good time does not need any other validation than that. The idea of : "this experience is real and valid" can be conveyed more easily by tone of voice and posture than by explaining your devices intricate workings!

Imagine explaining to your girlfriend the relative merits of digital versus analog oscillators, or of OSC versus MIDI.
Try explaining to her friends as they dance to an acid tune that a 303 has a distinct filter type which is not a ladder filter like a moog, nor is it a 4 pole lowpass, but is .. amazingly and interestingly ... an 18db/octave or 3 pole filter ! How simply fascinating.
Now - is she dancing more or less?

rsaulo
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Re: thinks : is a good faker equivalent to a good performer?

Post by rsaulo » Thu Apr 01, 2010 10:04 am

Angstrom wrote:I disagree that people (in general) want to know what the lights on a monome represent.
It´s exactly what i saw before, people does not need to understand what happens behind the scenes to enjoy music.

What I pointed it´s that when people see some different gear like an monome or wherever being used by the artist, they (in general) does look and say : "Cool, what is this???", I´m not saying that people will want to know the "internals" of the gear, only that it´s something different, and this is not a bad thing IMHO.

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