FSOL Interview, quite funny! (1994)

MarkH · Post by **MarkH** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 10:07 am

I was scanning the 'net for Future Sound of London interviews and found this from Sound on Sound in 1994. The question was in regards to 'Methods of how you write music' and just after Dougan's comment about using samplers and ADAT, here is what Cobain says:

Cobain: "The ideal scenario would be one that we can't possibly have, and that is enough sampling time and a big enough desk to run a whole album at once and be able to effect every sound individually according to what we want. Because what will happen is that we write a track one day that's five minutes long, and four months later we'll come to actually putting it on an album and we'll decide we don't want five minutes of it -- we want a minute of it, and we want to change the sound in the middle of it! And at that point you can't -- so, ideally, it would be nice to have all the sounds for the whole album running live so you could do that. But that's impossible and I don't really know what the answer is. "

Well, here we are 10 years later and with the solution - Ableton Live. Here is the full article if you're interested. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_ar ... ondon.html

Komplex · Post by **Komplex** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 10:12 am

Great find Mark.

People often forget how easy we have it these days and still continue to complain about not having this or that function etc.

Look at the bigger picture

The power we have available these days could only be dreamed about 20 years ago.

MarkH · Post by **MarkH** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 10:19 am

Komplex wrote:The power we have available these days could only be dreamed about 20 years ago.

Or in this case, 10 years ago!

elemental · Post by **elemental** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 10:31 am

THats very true ... its just a shame that the general quality of music has gone downhill, or been diluted with all the new possibilities.

With all the limitations I think a lot of music that came out around that time was amazing. These days I have to search hard to find music that inspires me.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 3:06 pm

elemental wrote:THats very true ... its just a shame that the general quality of music has gone downhill, or been diluted with all the new possibilities.

I think the latter is more correct. I'd be very impressed to find a person who had a complete overview of all the cool music out there. Also record labels have gone overboard with commercial interests and radio stations are going payola

elemental also wrote: With all the limitations I think a lot of music that came out around that time was amazing. These days I have to search hard to find music that inspires me.

I feel the same way. Maybe it's because we're getting more and more absorbed in the music ( and -industry?) and get a better and better understanding of the way music works. How old are you? Maybe it's an age thing. Maybe we were just young and impressionable back then?
---a lot of maybes, eh?

elemental · Post by **elemental** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 3:17 pm

true true, I was 15 back then, now 25 - very impressionable!

But still, I think the infinite possibilities, the lazyness that software allows (e.g. I can save a mix and come back to it whenever I want - b4 it was finish it or start again another time), the digital/software sound, the commercial interests of even the smallest labels and distribution companies, and the fact that so many people can make music now (which is in itself a good thing) are all factors making it harder to find mind-blowing music.

Also, in certain scenes some of the best tracks never see a release - eg there are two tracks i've been looking for for nearly a year, still no sign of a release!

Eza · Post by **Eza** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 3:57 pm

no software = work alot harder = labour of love

lots of software = work alot less for more = disposable music and tons of it!!!!

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 3:57 pm

elemental wrote:true true, I was 15 back then, now 25 - very impressionable!

That explains it - I'm also 25!

elemental wrote: ... and the fact that so many people can make music now (which is in itself a good thing) are all factors making it harder to find mind-blowing music.

Yeah, there's a lot of noise out there... and it ain't good noise.

noisetonepause · Post by **noisetonepause** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 7:11 pm

Paaah. Music is doing fine... Lots of great stuff coming out of London, for instance.

I think the sound quality of music now is worse than it was ten years ago, though. And I blame the software, not the people using it. You may flame

-Paws

peeddrroo · Post by **peeddrroo** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 7:27 pm

noisetonepause wrote:I think the sound quality of music now is worse than it was ten years ago, though.

i think ppl said the same thing 10 years ago, and 20 years ago, and 30 years ago, and... well, you got it...

And I blame the software, not the people using it. You may flame

in france, we say "il n'y a pas de mauvais outils, mais de mauvais ouvriers", which would translate (app) by "there are no bad tools, but there are bad workers"

and i think i definitely agree...

wow, that was a flame!

noisetonepause · Post by **noisetonepause** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 8:25 pm

Je sais parler français

And they have sayings like that in all languages, I think, but in certain cases, they're bollocks:

If the compressor you use sucks all the HF energy out what you pass through it or kills the bass, well, you have a problem. If the reverb you use has two settings, one being 'not there' and the other being 'concrete square cathedral with ten second RT60-time', you have a problem. If the mixer/DAW/virtual rack you use imposes its own brittle, horrible, Swedish;) character on all that passes through it, you will have problems. No matter how good your tunes are. If your synth doesn't output anything below 100Hz or doesn't do attack times less than 50 ms, you're simply NOT going to get a punchy synth bass out of it, no matter who you are or how good you are. And I believe that all of these problems exist in certain modern audio software - hence we get some crap sounding records.

Like trying to record a symphony orchestra with two SM57s - yes, some will do a better job than others. NOONE will be able to get the right sound without proper tools.

i think ppl said the same thing 10 years ago, and 20 years ago, and 30 years ago, and... well, you got it...

Yeah, I suppose it's down to preference. But my preference is IMHO better than the average noughties electronic music producer's

-Paws

Martyn · Post by **Martyn** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 8:26 pm

noisetonepause wrote:Paaah. Music is doing fine... Lots of great stuff coming out of London, for instance.

I think the sound quality of music now is worse than it was ten years ago, though. And I blame the software, not the people using it. You may flame

-Paws

I'm not sure it's the software, although the old Atari stuff concentrated FAR more heavily on groove which imho has been kind of forgotten about lately. In the olden days people used to produce with less emphasis on maximisation and mix loudness. There was more emphasis on dynamics and more experienced producers actually finishing the tunes.

Being forced to finish a tune by not being able to reset a mixing desk every five minutes was probably a good thing.

peeddrroo · Post by **peeddrroo** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 8:52 pm

noisetonepause wrote:Je sais parler français

And they have sayings like that in all languages, I think, but in certain cases, they're bollocks:

If the compressor you use sucks all the HF energy out what you pass through it or kills the bass, well, you have a problem. If the reverb you use has two settings, one being 'not there' and the other being 'concrete square cathedral with ten second RT60-time', you have a problem. If the mixer/DAW/virtual rack you use imposes its own brittle, horrible, Swedish;) character on all that passes through it, you will have problems. No matter how good your tunes are. If your synth doesn't output anything below 100Hz or doesn't do attack times less than 50 ms, you're simply NOT going to get a punchy synth bass out of it, no matter who you are or how good you are. And I believe that all of these problems exist in certain modern audio software - hence we get some crap sounding records.

Like trying to record a symphony orchestra with two SM57s - yes, some will do a better job than others. NOONE will be able to get the right sound without proper tools.

i think ppl said the same thing 10 years ago, and 20 years ago, and 30 years ago, and... well, you got it...
Yeah, I suppose it's down to preference. But my preference is IMHO better than the average noughties electronic music producer's

-Paws

well, you had your anti-flaming suit well and ready

well, on the sound engineering part of it, i agree with you. there are now such high standards on sound recording quality, that it's difficult to make something good with crap equipment.
but on the creative part i disagree: there's plenty one can do with very little, in terms of equipment, and still being hugely interesting, even if THE sound isn't there. as an example i saw 3 days ago a band with 2 female singers playing guitar and some toys synths, and a beat box man, they made something very moving and interesting with very little.
and i think that swedish softwares are sometimes too much...

and i guess that if someone released now something from 10 years ago, you would say that it's not very interesting...

let me know put my anti-back-flaming suit on...

noisetonepause · Post by **noisetonepause** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 8:54 pm

Haha. I came up with that reply ages ago and have been wanting to get into this argument ever since

But I think we more or less agree.

-Paws

Amberience · Post by **Amberience** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 9:23 pm

elemental wrote:THats very true ... its just a shame that the general quality of music has gone downhill, or been diluted with all the new possibilities.

Thats just a reflection of how mediocre our world is. The more people have software (software that is easy to use) the more shit music we get as a result of someone noodling around in their bedroom.

This is no bad thing, because the amount of good music also goes up. This is why people should make music for the love of it, and not for money, because if people make music for money, then they're A: flooding the world with what is highly possible to be shit music and B: wasting their time if it is shit music, because no-one will want to buy it.

My advice is to follow your heart and not your greedy nature.