eggnchips wrote:... Of course we probably have different definitions of soulful music...
This,
But would you say drums and bass has as much soul as a Rhodes?
Saying one is more soulful than the other makes no odds really. Your comment hit the nail on the head.
I am just struggling to think of an electronic tune with just bass and drums that I thought, 'wow thats soulful.'
I think it's really true that everyone has a different definition of soulful.
In some ways for me it's about submission and surrender, of the body, of the emotions, of the mind. That's one way that drums and bass can be soulful as it clears the path to higher states of awareness.
I'd say there is something you could call a "machine-soul". I wouldn't say that this has so much to do with the actual machines but more about a way that they are set-up and used. Something I discovered during the last year is how your studio (if set up right) becomes like a fellow musician that you are having jam with. This can be several things like how your sequencing wors, how your send fx-chains are set up and so on. When setup right whenever you do something (turn a knob, press a key or whatever you do to your insturments) it resonates in the system and turns in to something more. This is almost like improvising in a call and response manner with another musician. In a way I would call this other musician the "machine soul"
This is a very important aspect of making this kind of music especially since it is often made by one musician.
Something I'm less sure of though is how this resonates into the actual track and if one can hear that a track was made together with this "machine soul" or not. Maybe soul in music and in machiens is something thats diferent depending on if you are making music or if you are listening to it, but I'd like to say that these two ways are linked in some manner.
My example of a track with soul would be plastikmans plasticine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RdvooctSWY and one without thats made with very similar machines would be phuture acid trcks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKbLI8EufNo. I have trouble putting words on what makes these tracks diferent and also I can't really relate this distinction to my rant above about "machine-soul".
Edit: I really like acid tracks. So it's not a diference of good vs bad.
JonasEdenbrandt wrote:I'd say there is something you could call a "machine-soul". I wouldn't say that this has so much to do with the actual machines but more about a way that they are set-up and used. Something I discovered during the last year is how your studio (if set up right) becomes like a fellow musician that you are having jam with. This can be several things like how your sequencing wors, how your send fx-chains are set up and so on. When setup right whenever you do something (turn a knob, press a key or whatever you do to your insturments) it resonates in the system and turns in to something more. This is almost like improvising in a call and response manner with another musician. In a way I would call this other musician the "machine soul"
This is a very important aspect of making this kind of music especially since it is often made by one musician.
... Artificial Intelligence It will get much better soon, you'll see.
JonasEdenbrandt wrote:
Something I'm less sure of though is how this resonates into the actual track and if one can hear that a track was made together with this "machine soul" or not. Maybe soul in music and in machiens is something thats diferent depending on if you are making music or if you are listening to it, but I'd like to say that these two ways are linked in some manner.
My example of a track with soul would be plastikmans plasticine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RdvooctSWY and one without thats made with very similar machines would be phuture acid trcks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKbLI8EufNo. I have trouble putting words on what makes these tracks diferent and also I can't really relate this distinction to my rant above about "machine-soul".
Edit: I really like acid tracks. So it's not a diference of good vs bad.
I was thinking of posting plasticine!!
And it is, imo, so related to what you described before. How could you not see it? He completely brought the machine to life. His personification of the machine sounds are different from the personification of himself (the art). Non-human intelligible-expressive mechanisms expressed sonically. Plasticine really glorifies the living machine, imo. I always thought that to be outstanding.
Also, I know he said in an interview he used to jam while recording, until he reached something that he felt sounded like the final version of the track.
Anothe track I think should be mentioned, imo, is Mathew Jonsons's Marionette. If an artificially intelligent machine will feel emotions, that's probably how they might be described. It's different from plasticine, because I think the "machine emotions" are more described, rather than lived.
By the way, Symphony for the apocalypse, on the other hand, is more about human emotions.
Edit: thanks guys for the tracks you posted so far. they're amazing
JonasEdenbrandt wrote:I'd say there is something you could call a "machine-soul". I wouldn't say that this has so much to do with the actual machines but more about a way that they are set-up and used. Something I discovered during the last year is how your studio (if set up right) becomes like a fellow musician that you are having jam with. This can be several things like how your sequencing wors, how your send fx-chains are set up and so on. When setup right whenever you do something (turn a knob, press a key or whatever you do to your insturments) it resonates in the system and turns in to something more. This is almost like improvising in a call and response manner with another musician. In a way I would call this other musician the "machine soul"
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I've come to the conclusion that I have no soul. Both musically and literally. I must have sold mine to the devil at birth in exchange for a shitty life. The only soul that I know, is the arSOUL who lives next door.
Anyway, if you find out what it is ( or isn't ) bottle it and I'll have some.
It will get much better soon, you'll see.
