duh / effects and such

[Sean Cooper <scooper@xxxxxxxx>]

sorry to have sent that last message to the whole list.

obcontent: there's been some interesting talk about reverb and effect and
such, so i thought i'd repost a message i sent to the idm list about same.
the artists discussed are only this-listy according to a very broad
conception, but i think the observations about formalism stand.

sc

-----------------------------begin forwarded post:

in the liner notes to kohn's "kohn2" cd is the following description
(pertaining to track 8, a particularly high point of the cd):

"one skipping loop, stereo phasing, and stereo delay going from floating
ambient into a droning ending scene. personally, i am very careful about
the use of delays and reverbs. i try to avoid using such effects. too often
they are used to 'polish' or 'glossify.' in this piece though they are part
of the music. the twinkling sounds and the drone would have been impossible
without the effects."

i'm struck also by the elegance and power with which a similar approach is
used by jochem paap on the second track of his recent "vrs mbnt pcs ii"
(the track is titled "mrg-rvx"). indeed, much of the two fax ambient
releases by paap approaches composition in this way, pairing minimal input
(cycling synth loops, primarily) with specific delay and reverb
configurations in such a way that those configurations actually constitute
or delineate the form of the piece. (solvent's use of delay on rhythmic
patterns also comes to mind, although it is more subtle and primarily
syncopative.) such a a formalist approach to effects i find, for some
reason, very satisfying.

--------------------------end forwarded post.
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