Torque wrote:Even though using all the analog stuff sounds romantic, there really is no real advantage to it anymore. Back when techno started it was done with the cheapest possible equipment because most of the guys came from the ghetto and never really had any money to spend.
sorry to pull you up again mate, but you seem like an interesting guy to have a discussion with, so here i go.
i think its you thats being romantic when you talk about ghettos and stuff.
while we owe a big debt to the Detroit pioneers, with respect they arent the only people who have influenced what we now call 'minimal' or even 'techno' for that matter.
back in the eightees there were people all over the world experimenting with drum machines and synths, and there were many strands of electronic music being developed, and i doubt whether many of them came from ghettos.
the fact is that computers werent powerful or clever enough to emulate the machines of the time.
the original electronic dance music pioneers were using 909's 303's Moogs etc. because they sounded better than anything else available. true you could pick them up quite cheaply because they were being discarded in favour of the latest craze 'digital' .but those guys knew that the analogue stuff sounded far superior. how do you account for the fact that many of those people still use 909's etc today. it's because Roland got the design right first time round.
software designers spent the whole of the ninetees trying to catch up, with increasingly more accurate emulations of the real thing.
now that computers can handle it we have much more interesting concepts being tried out by software designers, but many of them go back to the same basic principals of electronic sound design layed down by the likes of Bob Moog, or the early sampler designers.
this is because the basic principals of music and creating it with electronics are universal.
the thing that computers have added is complexity. but hardware nowadays can be equally as complex. most hardware nowadays is software driven, and can be upgraded.
in the end the only real difference between hardware synths and their software counterparts, is the box they come in, and the quality of the components.
i for one prefer a purpose built machine, with an interface designed for the job which will last forever, than overtasking a cheaply built computer with a fisher-price knob box attached, spending most of my time flicking through windows, scrolling and assigning, instead of making music. but thats me. i know everyone is different, and there are some things that can be achieved more easily with software, but most of these things are effects, and i get so much pleasure from designing my own effects by by building complex routings in my hardware setup, that i dont see the advantage.
if you count the cost of a top of the range computer, a quality controller surface, the (overblown) price of all the software you'd need to have a decent set-up, then secondhand hardware doesnt seem so expensive.
as far as the old analogue V digital sound argument goes, i really can hear the difference. just plug a TR909 or 808 kick and any software emulation (or even a direct sample) of same into a club sound system and listen, then you'll believe !! or go into a music shop and compare the sound of moog filters to some software counterpart. theres no contest.
just ask your fellow Detroitians.
