Softsynths and orginality

[Paul Wroth <pixipuxk@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think the decision on whether something ought to be released or not
depends on how much balls the person has. I heard a track a while back
that I swear was nothing but the AudioMulch Sheppard Tones generator
for several minutes. And you know what - it worked - even though I was
familiar with the software that produced the sound, I really enjoyed
the piece. The fact that someone went to the trouble of recording and
releasing it, the fact that an experienced experimental DJ went to the
trouble of playing it , caused a re-contextualization. 

Maybe it wasn't AudioMulch - maybe the creator read up on Sheppard
Tones and laboriously coded a score for Csound and rendered it over two
weeks on their 486. I could have exclaimed - 'Pah! I could have created
that track in less time than it takes to listen to it! No creative
effort whatsover'. I didn't. I don't walk into art galleries and say
'Pah! I could have given paints to a five year old and gotten something
better' either.

We may be over-familiaar with these sounds, and some tracks we hear may
sound identical to what we were doing yesterday, just playing with
granular synthesis and a bit of feedback. The thing is, didn't it sound
cool when you were doing it? What makes you think other people wouldn't
enjoy hearing it too? There are heaps of fantastic releases that
wouldn't exist if the person sitting there playing with his guitar and
FX boxes hadn't thought to press 'record'. The same goes for computer
genrated pieces.  If you think it sounds good, then maybe it is good.

The other thing to remeber is that we should be releasing these kind of
sounds because they will be forming part of our musical history. These
are the sounds that people of today are working with, in a few years
time, things will sound different.

Paul
http://evilpaul.ihateclowns.com
http://www.mp3.com/PaulWroth

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