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Hrm.
Okay.
So I'm getting stuff together to jam on for two hours for this art opening.
I have a question for the music folks out there. Or any of you geeks, really...
I've long claimed the operating assumption that using presets and canned beats to excess is, in essence, cheating. Notable exceptions hold, of course, like reiterating existing loops and samples to make something completely new (Zurround did this all the time, so does a lot of perfectly respectable hip hop and other electronic music, etc.), or altering something enough that you've made it your own (I love collage-based stuff like Negativland or Evolution Control Committee), or using something with such an existing camp value that it comes full circle (Trio using the default beat on the Casio Sk-1) But... what about came-with-the-software, plug-n-play, royalty-free jobs, and you're not using it as a scratch pad? I've always thought of that stuff like hostess snack cakes- they're quick, they're convenient, they're cheap, everyone knows what they taste like and they're readily available, but they sure as hell aren't something you'd serve at a restaurant and try to get away with having people think they're a fine dessert, you know? Not that they don't have uses and all, BUT.
Here's the thing.
If I have a musical/programming weakness, it's the beats. Not that I can't find a beat, or play on the beat, or know what I like in percussion, but I have a big ol' block when it comes to confidently creating beats I like from scratch. (The one weird exception to this seems to be nanoloop. I really enjoy programming short rhythmic stuff with nanoloop on the gameboy, but that gets limited in a couple of ways.) Otherwise, it's very picky and time consuming and very rarely are my rhythmic tracks anything I'm *proud* of, necessarily- I find them mostly functional at best. The flipside of this is that I can make melodic/harmonic bits that I like that fuse together right off the top of my head that I find reasonably interesting pretty reliably All The Time.
I got to thinking that maybe this is a weird, self imposed, snotty sort of mindfuck. Is it? If I use the occassional canned loop or preset in "my" music, would you still respect me the next day? Should I rightfully feel cheap and dirty, or is this my classical music snob upbringing rearing its head in a different format and I should just fuck it and quit being so damned uptight?
My best guess is that it's neither here nor there, and the real answer is kinda fuzzy. This feels similar to admitting to liking a "less cool" genre of music somehow, like just having to shout "yes, fuck you, sometimes I LIKE certain progressive trance tracks and dancing around my living room like a total moron, OKAY?" from a proverbial rooftop and just getting it overwith, or like that thing that Jj had with Dolly Parton, but maybe it's not.
Thoughts?
So I'm getting stuff together to jam on for two hours for this art opening.
I have a question for the music folks out there. Or any of you geeks, really...
I've long claimed the operating assumption that using presets and canned beats to excess is, in essence, cheating. Notable exceptions hold, of course, like reiterating existing loops and samples to make something completely new (Zurround did this all the time, so does a lot of perfectly respectable hip hop and other electronic music, etc.), or altering something enough that you've made it your own (I love collage-based stuff like Negativland or Evolution Control Committee), or using something with such an existing camp value that it comes full circle (Trio using the default beat on the Casio Sk-1) But... what about came-with-the-software, plug-n-play, royalty-free jobs, and you're not using it as a scratch pad? I've always thought of that stuff like hostess snack cakes- they're quick, they're convenient, they're cheap, everyone knows what they taste like and they're readily available, but they sure as hell aren't something you'd serve at a restaurant and try to get away with having people think they're a fine dessert, you know? Not that they don't have uses and all, BUT.
Here's the thing.
If I have a musical/programming weakness, it's the beats. Not that I can't find a beat, or play on the beat, or know what I like in percussion, but I have a big ol' block when it comes to confidently creating beats I like from scratch. (The one weird exception to this seems to be nanoloop. I really enjoy programming short rhythmic stuff with nanoloop on the gameboy, but that gets limited in a couple of ways.) Otherwise, it's very picky and time consuming and very rarely are my rhythmic tracks anything I'm *proud* of, necessarily- I find them mostly functional at best. The flipside of this is that I can make melodic/harmonic bits that I like that fuse together right off the top of my head that I find reasonably interesting pretty reliably All The Time.
I got to thinking that maybe this is a weird, self imposed, snotty sort of mindfuck. Is it? If I use the occassional canned loop or preset in "my" music, would you still respect me the next day? Should I rightfully feel cheap and dirty, or is this my classical music snob upbringing rearing its head in a different format and I should just fuck it and quit being so damned uptight?
My best guess is that it's neither here nor there, and the real answer is kinda fuzzy. This feels similar to admitting to liking a "less cool" genre of music somehow, like just having to shout "yes, fuck you, sometimes I LIKE certain progressive trance tracks and dancing around my living room like a total moron, OKAY?" from a proverbial rooftop and just getting it overwith, or like that thing that Jj had with Dolly Parton, but maybe it's not.
Thoughts?
no subject
I've been finding something very helpful for me is sampling a bunch of loops that seem to be at the right BPM, and then altering start points, so that one'll start on the kick, one'll start on the snare, one'll start on an eighth note high-hat someplace. I sequence those as if they were kick, hat, snare that they start with, but then I have the potential of some "fill" left over at the end, which makes making the beat sound complete very easy.
After you play with beats enough, you start to realize that there are only so many ways to chop 4/4 (or any other time-signature, really), that actually work. This'll lose ya y'r guilt, but fast.
I don't think presets are cheating, especially if you make'em y'r own. I've been doing the same thing with the Evolver -- find a preset that's in the ballpark, and then editing to taste.
Another thing to do is the lay down a template (cheap'n'cheesy preset/sample groove whatever), and then when you have available time, if you're so inclined, replace it with something that sounds and functions similarly, but isn't the preset sample.
Some more fun can be had this way: turn on/open whatever rhythm module comes to hand, turn on the arpeggiator on the Ion's first channel, find a likely pattern, and play that. Now, turn on the second channel, turn on the arpeggiation, find a likely pattern. Wash/rinse/repeat. Experiment with triggering arpeggiation on off-notes. Record, sample.
The important part is getting to where you are happy within the constraints (time and artistic) of whatever you're doing. As long as that's the case, fuck whatever anyone else might think -- you're the arbiter.