John Parker sent this in by email. Drx also had a follow-up comment that I'll post once I get his OK. --tm
Bullocks! You can certainly abuse digital equipment.
First of all there seems to be: a loose use of the word 'abuse'. I would say 'abuse' is defined as any use that was not intended by the creator of a particular instrument. Intention is the key part of the definition. Sure all consequential sounds are already there, but there are two key ingredients to finding a new sound:
1) A free-thinking human must manipulate the machine.
2) He or she must be interacting with the machine in a way that coaxes the sound from it.
Abuse is a viable way to do that and has a propensity to get at the heart of something more rapidly than the much milder, inquisitiveness.
Too much credit is given to the original creator/programmer if you say that all consequential sounds were intended. A programmer for a digital instrument has to make a series of solutions to particular tasks. No matter how comprehensive the tasks, there will always be phenomena that the digital instrument makes that comes from leftfield, that was unintended, that is a 'crash'. What else could be expected from something that is made by an imperfect human being.
Commercial stuff is enticing for abuse because it is easy to screw with the manufacturer's original intention -- to make an instrument that will appeal to a commercial market. All the interesting stuff can be found in their failings. Softsynths are a fertile resource for new digital sounds. Their many failures in trying to sound real leave behind interesting residue. Also, in a program like Reaktor, all you have to do is change parameters to unrealistic amounts or just randomly re-arrange wires to get some interesting stuff especially if it was intended to sound like a Juno 106 (that's why I like Reaktor better than MAX-MSP). Sure the sound is already there, but without a particular mindset, one would not find it.
My favorite machine, which is the one mentioned in this thread, crashes all the time. Evidently I am not using it the 'right' way by making boring, derivative techno. I don't even have the skills to make that shite. I struggle with it and try to make something that is not boring or derivative. Often my only recourse is to break the rules which causes crashes because I am not working in a predictable way. So now the company is struggling to fix it. Again referencing some arguments made in this thread, if i can push the machine to failure then what I am doing can be termed 'abuse' even if only a playful and gentle sort.
I find in making art either visual or aural, I am more inspired to take something that is already right and make it wrong, to abuse its intention. Sometimes I find something new. And, isn't the opposite just what the entire rest of society is busy doing all the time?
--John Parker, aka jenghizkhan
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Bullocks! You can certainly abuse digital equipment.
First of all there seems to be: a loose use of the word 'abuse'. I would say 'abuse' is defined as any use that was not intended by the creator of a particular instrument. Intention is the key part of the definition. Sure all consequential sounds are already there, but there are two key ingredients to finding a new sound:
1) A free-thinking human must manipulate the machine.
2) He or she must be interacting with the machine in a way that coaxes the sound from it.
Abuse is a viable way to do that and has a propensity to get at the heart of something more rapidly than the much milder, inquisitiveness.
Too much credit is given to the original creator/programmer if you say that all consequential sounds were intended. A programmer for a digital instrument has to make a series of solutions to particular tasks. No matter how comprehensive the tasks, there will always be phenomena that the digital instrument makes that comes from leftfield, that was unintended, that is a 'crash'. What else could be expected from something that is made by an imperfect human being.
Commercial stuff is enticing for abuse because it is easy to screw with the manufacturer's original intention -- to make an instrument that will appeal to a commercial market. All the interesting stuff can be found in their failings. Softsynths are a fertile resource for new digital sounds. Their many failures in trying to sound real leave behind interesting residue. Also, in a program like Reaktor, all you have to do is change parameters to unrealistic amounts or just randomly re-arrange wires to get some interesting stuff especially if it was intended to sound like a Juno 106 (that's why I like Reaktor better than MAX-MSP). Sure the sound is already there, but without a particular mindset, one would not find it.
My favorite machine, which is the one mentioned in this thread, crashes all the time. Evidently I am not using it the 'right' way by making boring, derivative techno. I don't even have the skills to make that shite. I struggle with it and try to make something that is not boring or derivative. Often my only recourse is to break the rules which causes crashes because I am not working in a predictable way. So now the company is struggling to fix it. Again referencing some arguments made in this thread, if i can push the machine to failure then what I am doing can be termed 'abuse' even if only a playful and gentle sort.
I find in making art either visual or aural, I am more inspired to take something that is already right and make it wrong, to abuse its intention. Sometimes I find something new. And, isn't the opposite just what the entire rest of society is busy doing all the time?
--John Parker, aka jenghizkhan
- tom moody 3-07-2005 5:41 pm