Sonic Youth Gossip - Drum Machines are impossible!

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OF COURSE
no I havent, its on my list now (the invisible one)

Quote:

Originally Posted by demonrail666

That's an interesting problem. Far more interesting, as it happens, than this reply. But still. I suppose by 'human' we refer to things like 'warmth' and 'spontaneity' and the capacity for error (with machines representing the opposite of these supposed 'virtues'). These distinctions are obviously a bit cliched, but nonetheless, they do sort of work for the sake of an argument.

what we're talking about here is an attempt to humanize the machine. Part of me wants to reject this whole pursuit. Unfortunately, being human I can probably never do anything but humanize the machines i interact with, but I'm not sure how much I can properly determine 'how human they'll sound'. Somewhere between these two states is an aggregate which, when I think about it, is probably the most fruitfull method when having to deal with these little plastic boxes. As such, it's not about surrendering to their mechanical nature, but nor is it about ever thinking we can make them 'one of us'.

I'm just thinking this through in post-form. No biggie.

I see where you're coming from, and agree in that it's not like you can suddenly humanise the machine itself ( it is a machine, after all), but you can make it sound like it has been stimulated, played etc by a human being, rather than let it do the basic drum patterns in the more soulless and mechanical ways.

Not that the soulless way is something that I am particularly against to, as it does work out in a nice way for some people, it's just that having used machines for so long I know fairly well that trial and error can totally make you forget that you are listening to something thought of as electronic, artificial, constantly similar-sounding to much other music produced in similar ways etc.

What I'm basically trying to say - and I hope that it comes across as vaguely comprehensible - is that what you should aim at with them is finding the proverbial ghost in the machine, and that's something that only the human being operating these things is capable of. We do create these things, don't we?

i love drum machines.

O love them too. especially ones made by elektron

or elekkktron as they should be called

kkk?
the white dwarfes?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sarramkrop

Yes, we do make them although I've never really fully understood the whole 'ghost in the machine' concept. I think I know what you mean though.

I think there are three ways of 'dealing' with something like a drum machine. You can try your best to make it replicate (simulate) an acoustic drum kit. This seems to be where most innovation within the historical development of the drum machine itself exists. You can equally embrace its sheer mechanicalness by actively foregrounding its distance from that which it is meant to emulate - both in terms of sonic and physical differences. Or you can try and think of them outside of any reference to the acoustic kit altogether. This I think is the path that most dance music, and especially Electronica, has taken. It's interesting to see the way that artists in this field often fetishise earlier drum machines (the TB808 and TB909, for example) that sound far less like an acoustic drumkit than many of the latter ones.

I suppose that in the end though, how one approaches a drum machine is reliant on what one is using it for. If (as is the case with me at the moment and, I suspect, most people on this board) it's being used as a substitute for a 'real' drumkit, then the obvious tactic is to try and have it match as best as possible the sounds and rhythms associated with a traditional kit. However, I personally think that the third option - to think of it as a rhythm machine in its own right, without reference to an acoustic kit at all - is probably the most creatively satisfying.

faVE Movie villain.....
oh fuck it drum machines are much more fun
just a thought but if you're recording then maybe try recording each element of your beat onto a separate track, then edit, eq, process and make mistakes at will with each separate component, then edit again as audio and so on until a groove reveals itself. then repeat and go too far and lose it. then cry for a bit. then try again. repeat.