h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just thought I'd leave a message to say I wasn't trying to get at you personally on the sampled music thread. And possibly to pay whatever respect you felt you weren't getting. I don't normally do the whole chopping up quotes and backbiting thing, but you did make me a bit cross: I've been making music for about 18 years, out of 27, both playing instruments and sequencing, also producing etc, etc. So if you thought I was trying to belittle the skills of playing a musical instrument you were wrong. It felt like you were trying to belittle the sequencing and production side of this, something that I work very hard at.

30 years of guitar eh?

no offence taken, none intended.

Cracking! So, do you record stuff? What type of music do you play? Am I right in thinking you haven't got a name anymore to make it hard for people to have a go at you?

since the kids came along i rarely play anything. i can't really explain why, but it probably relates to looking outwards rather than inwards as a default.

i was never a professional musician and the only recording i did was jams with friends and my own stuff. i'm talking reel to reel and tape decks now. but you might be surprised how much can be done in terms of mixing and editing even with primitive gear. sgt peppers is STILL mind boggling in that regard.

when i first dealt with digital sound processing it was in the form a VERY simple editing application i used when i set up my fax voice modem a decade plus ago. i was astonished with what i could do with it.

what i could have done with it when i was mucking about in the 80s....

anyway, not to be patronisingly old school about it, but for those of us who have messed about with the old analogue gear, digital sound applications do stand out as amazing creativity tools, hence my belief that high quality music creation is now possible for millions.

the whole handle thing was really about burying this space in a way that broke my, personal, connection with it. i had been using it as a journal in the way suggested by the site owners. after repeated vandalism and negative comments being posted that i had no tools to correct, i moved the entries to another site. i would have deleted everything here if it were an option.

i initially changed my handle to gentle puns of other researchers' handles. people who had been posting flame here and elsewhere. the purpose wasn't to be unknown to the community, but to create a 'discontinuity' in my postings on the conversations. this has now been achieved.

I'm with you on how easy it is to make professional sounding music using computers these days. Especially if there isn't any actual playing of instruments. The only real barrier to it is the price of the software, which is available for free from about a million different warez groups and has been falling in price steadily for the last ten years anyway. Pro Tools cost a fifth now of what it did five years ago.

If you want an example of tape being used creatively look no further than the original Dr Who theme tune. That is a serious Tour de force old school equipment wise. I went through a phase of using soundforge as someone might use tone generators and tape to build up tunes as an experiment in the kind of running with weights on your ankles training method. It was hard and didn't even involve any actual dexterity or glue.

Tomita did some very advanced versions of debussy on analogue synths at a time when a syth was the size of your average bathroom and rose gradually in pitch throughout the day as it warmed up. Snowflakes are Dancing, worth a listen if you like that kind of stuff. Also Tonto, but the music is rubbish, it's just interesting that anyone made a synth so big you had to get in it to play the thing.
http://www.synthmuseum.com/tonto/index.html

You recorded using a fax?

Weird. Mellotron made out of walkmans by some total nutter.

http://mysterycircuits.com/melloman/melloman.html

the work of delia derbyshire has never been properly acknowledged. she doesn't even get a credit in the new dr who series which to my mind is appalling.

the fax modem thing was a result of me having to record messages etc digitally for inbound voice calls. the software that came with it enabled me to do some interesting stuff.

thx for the links.