Ableton Forum

noisetonepause wrote:

Spindrift wrote:They rather seem honoured and happy that people appreciate their culture. I would guess that the author of this synth named it out of respect of Hindu culture rather than an attempt to piss take.

You get Iranians who see that Coleman Barks has brought Rumi to the bestseller list and think that he must be their best friend... then they read his 'translations' and realise that it is just another case of a westerner misusing a non-western cultural phenomenon in an (unconscious) attempt to colonise, extort, and burn down. Reduce it to a source of profit or more Disney pictures.

But hey, let's just be California Zen about it. Everything's relative, man...

I think there would indeed also be Hindus that get upset about bad translations of poems or scriptures, but that's quite a different matter.
Calling an instrument after a god is not in any way a misrepresentation of the culture, while a bad translation is.

And like I said, unlike Muslims, most Hindus don't mind using their religious symbols or gods on commercial products.
Your rant about "using a symbol which some hold sacred to market a commercial product" is in this case simply misplaced.
If it's not an issue for Hindus, why should it be one to you?

I think a common misconception about how one actually relates to gods in Hinduism is that they are gods in the same sense as our God or Allah.
In fact Hinduism really only have one God, Bhraman.
All the figures we call Hindu gods is just different aspects of him and is basically a map with symbols representing various forces behind our reality.

The beauty with symbols is that they are open for interpretation, you charge them with any power they might have through your worship and then they become sacred. If someone uses the symbol in the wrong way it doesn't mean that it's less charged for you.
For a Muslim or Christian on the other hand it can become an issue because their God is absolute. If someone does something to offend him, they need to defend him and their own beliefs against that blasphemy.

Machinesworking wrote:

leisuremuffin wrote:oh, i don't think that naming the synth krishna is really all that offensive. but i'm not hindu either.


but i still think that you don't know how many electronic musicians are devoutly religious.

remember that all of the musicians you have met are probably in the same cultural sphere that you are in. The world is a very big place.

and if you take it back to just musicians, rather than electronic musicians, you definitely don't know. I would guess you may be wrong in that case.



.lm.

Honestly, I don't care, I'm just tired of coddling people who hold religion on a higher plane than people. This whole debate against a person naming a synth Krishna is rife with antagonistic people relying on abstract concepts to level swipes at another for no real reason except their outdated myths about an afterlife that none of us really have a single clue about.
It's mind boggling how someone can assume so much when they know nothing, zero.

So far the assumptions are that the creator of this synth is white, blond, blue eyed, not hindu, not religious, not indian, not connected to indian culture, and so on.
It doesn't even matter how much of this might be right, the fact is I bet nobody here has any clue about whether it's the case, it's all assumptions.

My reasoning for the comment about the devout being a minority is in direct relation to the audio plug in community, but for arguments sake, we'll say you have a point in regards to the planet etc. It still doesn't change the fact that people in this thread are acting like jerks IMO.

really excellent post actually. Thanks for that.



.lm.

oh god, people have started calling synths NEXT GEN! now, two words that really piss me off

NEXT GEN and CONTENT, espeically if said by an cherub faced american with a sparkle in his/her eyes when talking about the newest thing!!

Ableton, please give us Live 7. The forum is going mental!

rikhyray wrote:

noisetonepause wrote:The point is that they're using a symbol which some hold sacred to market a commercial product. They're reducing the name Krishna and the Om symbol to a logo like Coca Cola's, or the Nike swoosh, something devoid of deeper meaning except for an association with their product, and the only reason people let it pass is because they happen to not have any emotional attachment to this symbol, simply because it's not part of their cultural background.

If they'd used, say, the name and logo of, say, a major football club, a clothing brand or whatever, there would have been an outrage and a lawsuit, and nobody would have thought that weird. Why is it weird that something that people want to protect things they have emotional stock in from commercial exploitation?

Thanks, on behalf of my community and myself. What you say is exactly the point, I deeply appreciate you insight.

Sorry to butt into this late in the day but.......

when I was in India for 7 months, 8 years ago, one thing I noticed was that a vast majority of businesses used names like "Krishna Travel Agency" or "Ganesh Coaches" or "Brahma Hotel" and such like.

Before you start bemoaning the western 'commercialisation' of the Hindu pantheon of gods, think what the old proverb "people in glass houses...." actually means.


For the guy who named this synth to say after the fact that it wasnt his intention to upset anyone just goes to show that his only life skill is to code. It doesnt take a genius to work out that if you name something after a God then those who follow that God may well get upset about the fact. And it shows a great fucking lack of imagination or that he is too stoned on the smell of patcholi to think of something better than just go with the shallow pool of western eroticisation of eastern cultures. [try reading 'Karma Cola' by Gita Metha to get what i mean].

I finally got the full version of this heretical plugin to work, although very annoying I had to put the 5 GIGs of presets folder in my vst folder. It's fucking up my hard drives feng shui.

I'm actually quite impressed with the sounds which shouldn't be surprising since most of them are a combination of samples and synthesis. I even like them more than the Zebra2 sounds. Much respect to u-he for coming up with a softsynth name that is both unoffensive and nondescript. Although, I am sure there will be chaos in the streets when they release their Giant Panda1 synth.

make wrote:For the guy who named this synth to say after the fact that it wasnt his intention to upset anyone just goes to show that his only life skill is to code. It doesnt take a genius to work out that if you name something after a God then those who follow that God may well get upset about the fact. And it shows a great fucking lack of imagination or that he is too stoned on the smell of patcholi to think of something better than just go with the shallow pool of western eroticisation of eastern cultures. [try reading 'Karma Cola' by Gita Metha to get what i mean].

Once again, since it seems we can find no bio on the coder, you are assuming a lot, and while it's possible you're right, it's in many ways more shallow to assume than to name a synth after a god. A practice that apparently is common in the society that god is worshiped in.
Grow up around liberals with heavy doses of guilt for being white etc. and you get this sort of thing; this desire to bully people into the sort of guilt and shame that the individual bullying feels. I don't know if this is the case here, but it sure seems like it. For one, a small developer with almost no budget is compared through your writing here anyway to cola companies. You assume the guy is a hippy, "too stoned on the smell of patchouli", you assume he's a product of western culture, you assume he hasn't ruled out the possibility that certain people will get offended by the name of the synth.
Of course Devine Machine distributed Lucifer, which had an immediate backlash, christians flat out stated they wouldn't buy it etc. And of course here we are giving free publicity to a synth that might not have created much noise publicity wise at all if it had not in fact been named in a "controversial" way.
I never knew there was a difference between hippies and PC police, but I'm starting to see there is. Like I said before, no god, or man should be viewed as above reproach. Politically correct politics aside.

Man...some people need to chill out and concentrate on living their own life instead of assuming the worst about what the other person thinks and making knee jerk reactions.

It's taking petty things like this too seriously that have the unintended consequence to snowball. Kind of a cumulative effect. Worse case scenario it starts religious wars, etc. Because people reason "I know my religion is right, yours is different so if mine is right, yours must be wrong." Time and time again it happens and repeats itself throughout history.

Isn't it ironic that "religion"...something that is supposed to be universally based on love creates so much tension, violence, and division between people.

icedsushi wrote:

Isn't it ironic that "religion"...something that is supposed to be universally based on love creates so much tension, violence, and division between people.

..........as long as you see things my way, I LOVE YOU

Why is this generation so obsessed about the possibility of giving offense to someone of another culture or religion? I don't expect people to go around wringing their hands about the possibility of offending me.

Perhaps it has something to do with globalization. People are becoming more and more afraid that they could be loosing their culture (= percieved self identity) as the world gets smaller & smaller and more mixed?

So they are constantly on the defense, overanalyzing any reference to their culture/religion as a negative one, or and attemt to try to "convert" them. So they are more easily offended...

Machinesworking wrote:

make wrote:For the guy who named this synth to say after the fact that it wasnt his intention to upset anyone just goes to show that his only life skill is to code. It doesnt take a genius to work out that if you name something after a God then those who follow that God may well get upset about the fact. And it shows a great fucking lack of imagination or that he is too stoned on the smell of patcholi to think of something better than just go with the shallow pool of western eroticisation of eastern cultures. [try reading 'Karma Cola' by Gita Metha to get what i mean].

Once again, since it seems we can find no bio on the coder, you are assuming a lot, and while it's possible you're right, it's in many ways more shallow to assume than to name a synth after a god. A practice that apparently is common in the society that god is worshiped in.
Grow up around liberals with heavy doses of guilt for being white etc. and you get this sort of thing; this desire to bully people into the sort of guilt and shame that the individual bullying feels. I don't know if this is the case here, but it sure seems like it. For one, a small developer with almost no budget is compared through your writing here anyway to cola companies. You assume the guy is a hippy, "too stoned on the smell of patchouli", you assume he's a product of western culture, you assume he hasn't ruled out the possibility that certain people will get offended by the name of the synth.
Of course Devine Machine distributed Lucifer, which had an immediate backlash, christians flat out stated they wouldn't buy it etc. And of course here we are giving free publicity to a synth that might not have created much noise publicity wise at all if it had not in fact been named in a "controversial" way.
I never knew there was a difference between hippies and PC police, but I'm starting to see there is. Like I said before, no god, or man should be viewed as above reproach. Politically correct politics aside.

Its a bit sad that you just quote one part of my post and then try to label me as some sort of PC liberal bully.

to re-emphasise: its a bit shortsighted to name something after someones god then be slightly reticent after the fact but also that in India, many of the patheon of gods are used as names of commercial ventures all over the country so to accuse someone else of it is just as dumb.

Now feel free to be self righteous about what Ive just posted. I wont be posting here again.

pilcrow wrote:Why is this generation so obsessed about the possibility of giving offense to someone of another culture or religion? I don't expect people to go around wringing their hands about the possibility of offending me.

Christ on a skateboard! We agree on something!

I never thought I'd see the day.

pilcrow wrote:Why is this generation so obsessed about the possibility of giving offense to someone of another culture or religion?

might have something to do with all the munitions being dropped on brown people's heads, which you're paying for...

that or we're being pumped full of estrogen

pilcrow wrote:Why is this generation so obsessed about the possibility of giving offense to someone of another culture or religion? I don't expect people to go around wringing their hands about the possibility of offending me.

Agreed!

Sometimes I think it's just an excuse to get all defensive and start whining and blaming. IMO, there are far more serious and important issues to devote time and energy to than worrying about petty name-calling.

"Sticks and stones..."