Re: [microsound] 7 points...

[Frank Barknecht <fbar@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hallo,
Graham Miller hat gesagt: // Graham Miller wrote:

> anyway read the whole thing:
>
> from: http://www.bzangygroink.co.uk/wordpress/archives/2005/12/19/ 
> monomachine-vs-walter-benjamin/

Some things are interesting here, some are plain wrong, some are
debatable. So it's a very good list of points. ;)

> 2. We are encouraged to think that computers provide the ideal level  
> playing field; that they are the ultimate transparent medium, and the  
> perfect blank page. This is completely, utterly wrong. In fact, the  
> reverse is true.

I don't quite understand this point: What is the reverse? "A computer
is not the perfect blank page" or "A blank page is the perfect
computer"? I would subscribe to the second interpretation.

> 3. ?Fidelity? is a red herring in sound recording. A recording medium  
> only ever works tolerably well within certain parameters. You never  
> get back exactly what you put in. This applies to digital and  
> analogue recording alike.

This is trivial, of course a recording is just that: A recording, not
the original. However once you recorded something digitally, this
specific recording can be transfered without any loss of information,
which is not true in the analoge realm. But that is trivial as well.

> 4b. While there are some interesting differences between analogue and  
> digital recording media, these are not all that significant. A much  
> more striking difference is between a standalone digital recorder and  
> a computer-based DAW.

Never having worked with standalone gear, I'd be interested to know:
what is this difference?

> 5. A process that requires three decisions to be made will be  
> completed more quickly than a process that requires thirty decisions  
> to be made. A process that requires three hundred decisions to be  
> made may never be completed. 

Nonsense. It will be completed with the same likelihood as the
processes of three or thirty decisions. However if completion time is
limited, then of course any process taking longer to complete than the
available time will not finish. 

> 6. Computer software is designed according to what successive  
> programmers have assumed is a reasonable or rational way of working.
> Their assumptions may have been wrong.

Very true, that's why everyone should consider to become a programmer
her/himself. Your assumptions may be wrong, too, but at least they are
your own wrong assumptions. 

> 7. Computers are a powerful force for rationalisation. Sometimes  
> (e.g. when editing recordings) this is useful. In other  
> circumstances, it may not be. Historically, interesting artistic  
> results have been produced by people who were using technology The  
> Wrong Way. People working exclusively with computers have relatively  
> little opportunity to do this.

If more people became programmers as suggested in 6. they would have
lots of opportunity to create interesting stuff through doing things
the wrong way. This might be one main difference between "standalone
digital recorders" and computer workstations: you can fsck up a
computer very easily, with standalone gear you need to rely on your
circuit bending skillz.  

Ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                 _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__

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