Re: [microsound] usefulness of compressors/mastering in experimental music

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@xxxxxxx>]

> In "Derek's academy for computer musicians",
> this exercise would be mandatory ;-) Not only
> for compressors, but for all those different
> kinds of effects where people just download a
> VST and happily twiddle the knobs without
> knowing anything about what happens under the
> GUI.

why not chip design?  data storage architecture?
code/language creation (not merely utilizing
previous codes)?  making an iIl-Logic-based
digital architecture? (a thousand pardons to the
illogik crew in Stockholm now
http://www.illogik.com )

> A while back, someone was aksing if it made
> sense to make your own granulator [for example]
> in PD even where there were "ready made"
> granulators and other effects easily available.
> For me, there is so much more potential in
> knowing how something works because you've built
> it from the bottom up. Software, and the
> especially the visual metaphors of software
> [take a look at Reason, for example, or Flash],
> are so strongly deterministic in making art, and
> there is always some parameter, effect or trick
> which you will want but the person who made your
> program for you never thought of.
>
> So this is my rationale for telling everyone to
> learn some kind of rudimentary programming, even
> if just through PD or MAX. In my mind, it's the
> difference between a software user and a
> computer artist.

Yeah, Derek, rants move your intelligence into
dogmatic spaces that don't compliment it...  What
about a more principled look at this issue?  For
example, why the apparent divide between software
and hardware?  For each machine, Open
source-driven or not, is constructed with
hardware -- the most critical to its formative
architecture being the processor which RIGIDLY
defines what can happen with that tool, and is
most often constructed from a deeper (corporate)
legacy that is eventually traceable to the
post-WWII military-industrial buildup that arose
in the belly of Amurika.  Each and every machine
and code is deeply rooted in this legacy of
controlling the world (to ensure survival of the
owner of the machine).  That legacy is traced out
in subtle and obvious ways, and it is only a
matter of local and limited perception that say
it's better to use one or the other.  Wide-spread
control and the ensuing restrictions on creative
expression, as defined by the hard and soft
architectures of technology are pervasive
features of the landscape we inhabit.  Code, as
one particular construct of language, deeply
conforms to the necessities of the social system
it is embedded in.  And, as code arose deep in
the culture of aggression it certainly carries
paradigms that dis-allow creative expression in
one form or another.

Rather than drawing what seem to me -- based
partly on the above observations to be arbitrary
differences -- exclusionary lines (in what is
really amorphous silica, sand), isn't there a way
to draw the principles that are inclusive?  For
example:  Each instrument has a set of
limitations 'by nature' and by social construct
that determine use.  'Natural' limitations
control the situation -- might be something like
blowing into the 'right' end of a horn -- but
even that is largely a socially coded value --
why not blow into the other end, you get a cool
sound, but it doesn't wake up the troops, and
consequently you, as 'experimental' trumpeter get
your ass pegged to a wall by one of those sneaky
Persians javelins.  It is the social system that
determines the acceptablilty of use.  I would
even venture to make the observation that the
current 'hipness' of Open Source in cultural
circles is a development not completely free of
larger political influence and even genesis
(something that I discovered when researching the
2-decade-old CIA-drenched history of Open Source,
for example!).

Is an individual's creative potential limited by
the tool?  I would say NO, but the eventual
formal characteristics of the outcoming
expression IS defined by the limits of the tool.
It is *merely* the process of forming the
internal expressive energy into the limits and
push that energy through the formative grind, so
that something comes out the other end -- and
inspires the audience ...

This is in no way to dis-value your charismatic &
creative work, but it does that growing legacy a
dis-service...

(oil on fire? or pissing in the wind?)

jh
--
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tech-no-mad::hypnostatic:: in Reykjavík, Iceland in darkness
domain: http://neoscenes.net
travelog: http://neoscenes.net/travelog/weblog.php
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