Re: [microsound] analog|digital or digilog?

[Joshua Maremont <thermal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 03:03 AM 6/28/01 -0400, david turgeon wrote:
> now, analog microsound...  what would that be like?  (is that a
> contradiction?)

Noto, Mika Vainio, and Panasonic seem to be classified (and extremely 
influential) in the world of microsound, and at least in their early work 
their techniques were at an analog extreme - Noto with his oscillators and 
Vainio with his homemade monosynth.  I would also mention some of the music 
on Zero Gravity - Utah Kawasaki and Nagata Kazunao especially - as being 
quite analog in nature while nevertheless being categorizable in the micro 
way.  On the other hand, even if Madonna were to use Reaktor or Max/MSP in 
her production process, I doubt she would suddenly show up on the next 
Mille Plateaux compilation.  And might I add that the lovely Reaktor 
software - often used by those discussed here - is at its core a virtual 
rendering of modular analog synthesis?  I chose Reaktor because I have no 
room in my little studio for a modular giant, and the US$350 for the former 
was a bit more appealing than US$20000 a well fitted out creature of the 
latter species.  Yes, the distinctions are interesting for those of us who 
make the stuff (my friend's Serge modular certainly sounds different and 
operates differently than my G4 with Reaktor, his rack stealing a large 
corner of his room as well), but if we are speaking of oscillator tunings 
and filter settings and clock speeds on both sides of the divide, that 
divide seems more a crack in the pavement than a canyon of sheer rock 
faces.  For a listener, however, the differences are in what is done 
creatively with the tools, whatever they happen to be.  Microsound - as I 
look at it - is an approach to sound; the enforcement of a PowerBook 
lifestyle can be left to Apple's advertising agency.

np - The Millennium "Begin" (thanks to listmember eM for the loan!)

Joshua Maremont / Thermal - mailto:thermal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Boxman Studies Label - http://www.boxmanstudies.com/