is the computer the greatest instrument of all time?

You first.

using instrument in the broader sense: computation represents the only method for yielding successful reactions to sets of complex logical instructions from any device. it is the base from which we build all advanced instruments, musical or not.

and i think acoustic sound sourcing will become more of a minority activity in the coming decades. like vinyl + all the other digi VS analogue trends.

any other ideas?

The advantage of "Acoustic sourcing" - its portability, immediacy and ease of use is something I don't see being overtaken for a long, long time, if ever.

I think the greatest instrument of all time is the buchla music easel.

I just ran a microphone up the strings of a bass, and it sounded "computerized."

'acoustic sourcing' is not as portable or economic as what we call laptop computers. there is an argument for the immediacy and physicality of picking up an acoustic instrument. a piece of music software is only as immediate as its interface allows it to be.

i'm not sure 'software instruments' can be held up against 'hardware instruments', since all computation is made up of software and hardware elements. like a TB-303 is still a piece of software running on some portable hardware, it's just the hardware is built to run only that one program, and so gives it a physical interface, as opposed to the LCD interface of a laptop.

I like what I write. (Well, duh)

Asking is the computer the greatest instrument is like asking if the resonating cavity of a violin is the greatest, or the trumpet of a trombone.

acoustic and analog instrumentation is fast becoming nostalgia. Akin to the progger's (pointlessly conceptual) spend-4-days-making-a-violin-sound-like-a-guitar phenomenon.

see i think this is the underlying false assumption; synths maybe created the possibility for this but i dont think it's close to realization. with an instrument like a tenor saxophone and to a lesser extent a guitar, the degree of control you have over the tone of your instrument and the phrasing is just dramatically superior to anything a program or even a keyboard w/ a tone wheel.

now, are you asking whether such a degree of control is "relevant" now adays? it seems that there are tons of implicit genre issues in this question as well.

Yeah, OTM, I think.

Anyway:

'acoustic sourcing' is not as portable or economic as what we call laptop computers. there is an argument for the immediacy and physicality of picking up an acoustic instrument. a piece of music software is only as immediate as its interface allows it to be.

Yeah, amazingly enough, I've heard of laptop computers!! There's this thing that we call an "acoustic guitar" for sale, used, in a guitar shop near me. I picked it up and tried it out. It was a nice, high-quality instrument. It was 399 uk pounds. Would you like to spec up a laptop w/a high-quality audio/midi interface and a small selection of software instruments and composer apps for me? How much $$ would that be? What were you saying about "economic"? Plus, if I'd bought that acoustic guitar, I could sit and play it to a bunch of people, or with a bunch of other people by simply picking it up and sitting it on my knee. Now, sure, you could pick up your laptop, and take it anywhere, but you'd also need a speaker set-up of some sort if you wanted to share your music with more than one person at a time, so it's not all that "portable" either, unless you just want to dick about on your own on headphones, which is fun, but still...

i'm not sure 'software instruments' can be held up against 'hardware instruments', since all computation is made up of software and hardware elements. like a TB-303 is still a piece of software running on some portable hardware, it's just the hardware is built to run only that one program, and so gives it a physical interface, as opposed to the LCD interface of a laptop.

I think this is a red herring, and you're trying to move the goalposts. The lcd screen and pointer controller/mouse whatever on your laptop _is_ a physical interface. It is a piss poor interface for creating music on in my experience. like, I have a Wiard hardware modular synthesiser in my studio, but I also have ALSA modular set up in my computer. ALSA modular is a great little app, is sounds onderful, and it does have the big advantage over any hardware modular that you can save and recall pathches, but to be honest, it doesn't see much use. The performance interface on the Wiard blows ALSA modular (or any other software music app I've used) into the weeds. I can reach for any control, and phsycally move it to change the sounds or sequence it's playing. I can move any 2 parameters at once using the knobs & switches, or more than 2 using the joystick. I do not have to configure a hardware controller to be able to do this, nor do I have to remember which parameter is assigned to which controller, nor am I limited to 8 or 16 or even 24 controllers on one "page". It's all there in front of me. What you are saying about the 303 makes no sense, like you can't compare hard and soft instruments, b/c software instruments run on code/hardware, like this 303, which is a hardware instrument WTF? For all the 303 is a limited little piece, nevertheless, it has some advantages in that I can switch it on and be creating music on it while you're still looking at your bootup screen. Plenty of hardware instruments don't have any software element at all, like my wiard modular, which is ready to go the minute you switch it on, and also quite portable, as it happens.

"brains" is OTM about the degree of control one has over tone and phrasing, w/sax, guitar etc. I started on synthesisers and computers, learned to play and write music on them, got into using the computer for music w/the zx spectrum and yamaha msx box and so on, but when I got my rickenbacker 12-string and learned some facility w/playing it, I learned this. As expressive tools, many of these old-fashioned, out of date etc machines still have the edge. It's a shame, and an ideologically unsound admission in some quarters, but it's true in my experience. VERY few electronic instruments can come close to this level of control. Perhaps the CS80, or the Yamaha VL-1 w/breath controller, possibly some of Buchla's more advanced designs, like the thunder or the marimba lumina, but I can't think of much else, and I've used plenty.

Haha, of course, nothing at all like the idm-er's (pointlessly conceptual) spend 6 mths drawing control curves in logic/design yr own "instrument" in max/msp, then release a record that no-one except other laptop artists will listen to, eh?

-- brains (Jacob.Becke...), April 18th, 2004.

No!
Wrong!

The amount of real time control is much better with a sax or guitar, but in non-real time with a computer you can control sound down to microsecends, microtones and microdecibels.
The interface to do that in a practical way is slowly inproving.

Buy second hand it it'd be about the same. You could even afford one of those battery powered amps to make it portable and audible.

If I had to choose between my acoustic instruments (guitars, bass, drums) + cassette four track, or my computer as a means of making music I'd take the non-computer stuff without even needing to think about it.

And guitar is by far my favourite real-time way of making sounds.

Likewise, it poss sounds like I'm taking the non-computer side, and I'm not. The computer has been a tremendous aid to my musical creativity over the years, and continues to be so. Still, right now, if I had to seriously shrink my setup down, it'd be the 8-track, the Wiard and the string machine that'd stay.

With non-computer stuff you need real people to help you!

(unless you like solo singer-guitarists or their equivalents, which I mostly don't)

And...

The main bad thing w/computer stuff is the amount of time it takes, though, isn't it? I mean, many, many times, I've spent hours fucking about in Cubase's drum edit page (hours despite having a good facility w/cubase hackage), moving drum hits around, WHEN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN 10X QUICKER TO JUST PLAY THE PART IN AGAIN!! Plus, surely the getting real people in to help bit is a good part of the process too? Working on ones' own, one loses perspective easily, and spends lots of time on stuff that doesn't matter, or working on a piece which is poor, and not realising it.

I think what it comes down to for me is that good computer music sofware is an excellent tool for recording, production, arrangement, but as an instrument, IE something I would use to kickstart the creative process, it doesn't make it for me at this point in time.

well now it seems like it's being argued that the computer is not an instrument but a sort of compositional device - is there a difference?

WHEN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN 10X QUICKER TO JUST PLAY THE PART IN AGAIN

That's fine, but only if you can play the drums, a lot of people can't.

Plus, surely the getting real people in to help bit is a good part of the process too?

Yes! Which is why I'm currently avoiding using computer/doing stuff just on my own and finally getting into bands etc.

Plus, another thing arisies in my mind, which is when you play different instruments kbd, guitar, bass in my case, it forces you to approach music from a different perspective as well, IE you write differently on guitar than you do on keyboard, etc. piano-roll editor and controller curve drawing doesn't do this.

You can still think and listen to the parts you construct differently for different instruments you're programming, but I agree, having different interfaces to the sounds (bass fret board, keyboard etc.)makes it much different.

I really like the step sequencer interface in Fruity Loops, or perhaps better in a similarish program called 'Making Waves', and would consdier them to be in the same general class of things as fretboard, keyboard and so on.

For one thing, they largely do away with the concept of music being in a certain 'key', a concept I think is pretty stupid and culturally programmed.

I don't have to make a choice, I like computers I like toys!

-- Pashmina (pashmin...), April 18th, 2004.

That's totally valid, different people will always prefer different instruments.

When you say 'at this point' you make it sound as if it may do in future, is there something you think computers could offer that would make them more appealing to you in future?

Would a breath controller, perfectly tracking midi guitar, or a different software interface make a difference?