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Re: [microsound] RE : [microsound] the politics of digital audio




Personally (I'm a 1 individual statistic), y feel a little bit tired>> of
certain paradigms surrounding digital artists nowadays:

1_The increasing lack of physicality

Yes much discussion has transpired about performers staring at laptops etc.. do video projections help or make it worse, etc??

For my most recent performance I considered attaching a guitar strap to
a piece of equipment that would normally be rack mounted so I could
"jam" on it. But I was in a rush and had to skip it until the next
time.


Live drums or similarly physical elements help a ton:
My stuff is very percussive, so I have a Simmons SDSV (Usually kick and snare) mounted on a stand with a Roland SPD11 drum pad dingus.
The SPD11 is connected to a midi merger so it can share a maxed out Emu e6400 racksampler with either the standard Oxy8 or a Korg Kontrol49.
I've thought about slinging the oxy8 on a strap like a keytar - your comment (and the recent acquisition of a Dremmel tool, heh) has pushed me over the tipping point towards doing that. Also on the list, dbeams or similar proximity controllers. Yum.



2_The increasing lack of conceptual and/or ideological content

My biggest issue here is how to do this without requiring the listener, especially a live audience to have a large amount of knowledge about ones concepts or idealogies in order to understand it or recognize it. Of course some performers may only play to those that they expect to have this knowledge.

Being that I work in video professionally I tend to try to juztapose
concepts from one on the other.


I use whispered/screamed/grated lyrics to convey additional context along with vocal samples (usually speech, but sometimes speech sounds or formants).
Usually these are either self made or pulled from obscure sources - no bloody Blade Runner or Evil Dead or Full Metal Jacket crap.




3_The increasing importance given to tools

Personally this is why I avoid the laptop.. seems too easy to get trapped by the software.. even though I know that there is great possibility in the software ..I have to I prefer to write my own tools even if they are written in inappropriate languages.


I usually jam things out on both hardware and software, then lay it out all pretty in software, and then hack it all up and recreate it live on hardware.
Feels more immediate, more control, closer to its roots. *shrug* To justify itself, a laptop or rackmount computer would have to really add sonic and visual and physical aspects, even if that just means tweaking stuff with a touch screen or some dbeams or something.


~ !J!
http://www.endif.org
http://www.crunchpod.com
http://www.thirdwavecollective.com




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