Gordon

Gordon

45p

80 comments posted · 0 followers · following 0

14 years ago @ Synthtopia - Free EP - Colonial Spa... · 0 replies · +1 points

Good point. It's the old 'easy come, easy go' thing: one tends to value or appreciate things to the extent that one has invested in them, be it in terms of time, effort, money, learning, overcoming obstacles or whatever. Why else do rare records etc. go for inflated prices? Because they're difficult to get hold of and so to do so is an achievement. I suppose the counter argument is that this only holds if people know that there's something to hunt down in the first place. Personally, I think this marketing-led culture we're living is a great deal worse than it might otherwise be. Says I, typing a message on the internet which is pretty much free to use due to... advertising ;-p

14 years ago @ Synthtopia - Moldover Live · 0 replies · +1 points

I got his super-duper theremin CD months ago and... still haven't played it!

14 years ago @ Synthtopia - Roger O'Donnell Demons... · 0 replies · +1 points

I'm curious that he records the Moog as live audio into Logic, rather than first using MIDI so notes can be quantized or otherwise shifted around. I guess you could use Melodyne to quantise the audio now... Anyway, interesting to see how someone else goes about this as this is precisely what I plan to do tomorrow - playing with Moog + Logic... What strikes me about the Voyager is that the sound it makes in real time is an essential component of the melodic line* because it's also a timbral line, so I get what he's trying to do...
*universally true but perhaps even more so with such a synth

14 years ago @ Synthtopia - Vangelis Blade Runner ... · 1 reply · +1 points

Yeay! The return of Mik300z. The only person who does Vangelis 'covers' that I enjoy as much as the originals.

14 years ago @ Synthtopia - Get A Free Symphonic O... · 0 replies · +1 points

Some have commented on the wav files and that this suite doesn't do anything much with those sources that one can't set up on another sample player. However, I am not at the stage of setting up my own cross-fades, key-switches, stacks and so on and so the fact that this is all done in a ready-to-play style suits me just fine. As a free download, it's an excellent addition to my plug-ins. The orchestral sounds aren't huge in variety but have a nice sonority, to the extent that I loaded up a couple and just played and was content. Quality some way upscale of my EXS orchestral patches and more towards Vienna Instruments. Excellent!!

14 years ago @ Synthtopia - Open Thread: What'... · 0 replies · +1 points

How appropriate to get a TI snow on a white christmas ;p
I have one and they're awesome! In fact, I'm going to switch it on right now to hear that smooth, rich sound =D
My own Christmas is what I plan on doing upstairs over the next few days. Musically, that is. In a corner of the room, I've set up a Moog Voyager next to a Schlagzwerg semi-modular drum machine and a Mono Evolver. Monophonic analogue noise-fest!! And, just in case harmonised oscillators don't give me enough grunge-Mantovani, I dug out an old Ensoniq SQ80 for some polyphonic aftertouch lusciousness...

14 years ago @ Synthtopia - have yourself a merry ... · 0 replies · +1 points

awww... bless 'er. She's the real deal there :)

14 years ago @ Synthtopia - Boots builds a Laser H... · 0 replies · +1 points

Well, to give credit where it's due, at least she didn't get where she is merely by being a cute blonde. Although, true, she is a cute blonde...
But what I find so irritating, or depressing, is that she genuinely has talent and skill and dedication and musicality and then I see her slowly but surely transformed into a plasticky, gimmicky, shove-'er-down-yer-throat, product. I can see money in it, but not much dignity.

14 years ago @ Synthtopia - Boots builds a Laser H... · 0 replies · +1 points

I guess the thing about marketing is that one knows when one is *not* being targeted. Which is fine if the figures stack up but for those outside the target market the opposite occurs: *alienation*. It's a bit like being forced to watch children's television. Not this video, just the whole concept. I like music. I like to listen to it. I like other musicians. I'd just prefer it if the money men left their gallumphing great muddy boots outside and leave Little Boots and us, to music for music's sake.
Not that I intend joining the website to watch the rest of this piece but, even though it superficially resembles a nice, geeky, radiophonic-workshop-on-holiday operation, I have such a lingering cynicism about the whole Little Boots showboat that I'd see it as some sort of shallow gimmick. Which it probably isn't. In fact, I'll bet it isn't. But that's what marketing campaigns and hype and celebrity do: they distort stuff. Ruin stuff. Spoil reality.

14 years ago @ Synthtopia - The Dead Guys Won&rsqu... · 1 reply · +1 points

I disagree. Or, sure, the millions seem excessive, but to label humanity's past as 'dead' culture is to be tremendously short-sighted. Human beings are, apparently, unique in being able to learn, consciously, from our collective past other than by evolution alone. The whole point of high art is that it still has plenty to say. It endures. OK, so perhaps Wagner isn't so prescient about right here, right now, right this minute as, say, Beyonce but... perhaps he is.
And anyone with an inkling of the Hollywood system knows, bums-on-seats isn't a mark of relevance, depth or quality, but the result of the investment of ever greater sums of money wisely spent advertising. Economic arguments and artistic ones don't mix.