For those of you who blinked at my last post in bewilderment, this one is related but a bit more of general interest. It started mulling around in my head while making a quick dash to Coles before closing time. I began to wonder… how much do people actually want to discuss or hear how an artist’s music is made? Do you actually want to know that I may or may not be using Glitch VST in my music when you listen to a track?

You always get snippets and pieces of information about musicians and how they do their thing, and I guess that’s natural to a point. But when you’re a musician talking about your how your work is assembled and performed, is that really what you want people associating with your music? And, conversely, is it what the listeners want to know?

At its heart, I guess what I’m asking is “is it all about the music, or is it about the process that made it?” (I hope the answer to this question is obvious)

I know that for musicians I admire, I frequently am aware of how much I don’t know about what they do, and I’m kind of grateful that it’s not all out in the open as I fear it would kind of take a bit of the magic away.

Some cases in point: I’m pretty certain that Efterklang used Glitch VST on their Under Giant Trees mini-LP, and it does kind of feel different listening to the programming now. Panda Bear’s Person Pitch album artwork opens up to show his desk with a couple of samplers and a microphone – and I definitely visualise him singing into samplers as I listen to the music now, whereas before I bought the disc (illegal! illegal!) there was none of that associated with it. On some of his releases Squarepusher puts some of the functions and algorithms that he created his music with in his liner notes, and you can’t help but think about numbers and routines when you hear some of his stuff (I really dig Squarepusher, but you’ve got to admit that doing that is kind of wanky…)

In a nutshell: does what you know about a song’s creation alter how you experience it?

Some music seems to be more about the gear by nature. Take, for example, the latest string of AFX EPs which were a deliberate effort for a recording made up entirely of analogue synths. Really, when I’m listening to an album like this there is a sense that I’m almost enjoying Richard D. James’ synth-bending prowess as much as I am the music he’s actually creating. The fact that the only “interview” he conducted was a couple of posts on a synth forum kind of confirms this.

But then there’s all the music in which the actual creation process is mostly a mystery. I don’t know how The Books, or Amon Tobin, or James Holden create music, for example. That’s kind of nice – and although somewhere while listening to their stuff my brain is idly imagining how they might be making it all happen, really what I experience is more about the music and less about being aware of the processes that made it occur.

I kind of relate to what Dan Snaith (aka Caribou) was saying in this short interview clip where he said “I don’t want my albums to sound like it was made in this room or like it was made on a computer” although, sure, computers have a tremendous impact on what our stuff sounds like

(side note: talking about engineering is an entirely different matter, and I’m entirely grateful that engineers and artists talk in such a dizzying amount of detail on sites like SoundOnSound.com and GearSlutz as I find this kind of technical info immensely valuable)

What do you think? Is this my tired brain dribbling out trivialities, or do you feel a similar way?

My alarm clock informed me this morning that it’s the 8th of August or, as we would write in short form, 8-08. Which kind of looks like 808. Which just happens to be the name of one of Roland’s better known analog drum machines, the TR-808.

Unfortunately I didn’t have the idea of celebrating random bits of musical history before 3-03, or 6-06 (which also correspond to the names of Roland’s classic bass and drum sequencers) – but we still have 9-09 to come yet.

Interestingly, the reason why it’s better known at all seems to be mainly due its de-facto inclusion into the standard MIDI drum set collection that was also introduced by Roland. As a result, most MIDI devices (i.e keyboards) with built-in drum sounds have samples based on this machine built-in.

It’s got a definitive sound to it – highly reminiscent of the 80s, and often responsible for creating hugely infectious beats – and although pretty much every sound has made its way into the public’s sub-conscious via pretty much any genre that electronic music has touched, a few defining characteristics were:

• a kick drum with awesome sub-bass, which has been employed pretty much everywhere
• really snappy snares
• a rather odd melodic sounding cowbell
• pretty much the definitive electronic handclap sound

Due to its use of analog synthesis (instead of samples), the sounds were substantially tweak-able.

Unfortunately, to get the sound of the 808 most of us have to make do with samples, and many people have done impressive work of attempting to capture the nuances of the numerous possibilities offered for each sound (see below). That being said, it’s still a long way from making a perfect representation of the characteristics of an analog device such as this.

Further reading:

• Wikipedia’s article on the TR-808
• Vintage Synth’s write-up
• A full set of TR-808 samples on Roland Clan