homemade noize

The Internet seems to really be good for a few things.  Besides porn and bad homemade videos it seems to be good for lists.  I used to love ‘em, list that is, but all the Internet lists seem to have burned me out of lists. So, I have resisted as long as I could making a list but a discussion of the worst music making technology overwhelmed me and I just have to make this list.  I refuse to number them though tyhe are generally in order.

The Keytar Mostly Harmless

I am all for innovation.  Taking an old idea and making new again is a wonderful thing.  Except in the case of the keytar.  People had been generally sitting and facing keyboard instrument for centuries and it seemed to be the most natural way to do it.  It was conducive to playing well but when plastic and the microchip made keyboards light enough to sling around the neck someone just could not resist.  The only reason that seems to make sense is aesthetics.  The keytar would allow the keyboard player to jump around strange like the rest of the band and look cool.  Of course this was a horrible flawed idea.  Jumping around with a keytar slung around you amid big poofy hair and a laser light shows of the 80’s made you look like an ass.  They should have known.  Mozart, Fats Waller, Jerry Lee Lewis, Glen Gould, Kraftwerk etc, etc, were cool enough sitting behind the keyboard.  And there have been many keyboard players able to give quite a psychical interesting performance with out every worry about a miss step on stage leading to laser induced blindness.   As cheesy as the Keytar is it never really caught on so it is not that terrible.  I ‘ll rate it using the words of Douglas Adams,  “Mostly Harmless.”

Antares Auto-Tune Unintended Purposes Gone Awry

This of course is had to be on the list four for letters C-H-E-R.  That damn song. It may have not even been Auto-Tune on Cher’s Believe but it spawned countless auto-tune imitators. I can see the point of the software.  It has to be a god sent for the overworked studio engineer.  But it potential for abuse is great so it has to make the list.  This is one of the those effects that can easily be gimmicky rather than musical.  Even if used they way it is supposed to, you have to question the need for perfect.  Imperfection adds charm, character and humanity to music.  I will take a few wayward notes that move me any day.

Vocoder The Robot Takeover

I happen to like the vocoder but like Auto-Tune they have a huge potential for abuse.  The rate higher on the list than Auto-Tune because they have less real practical value.  You can use Auto-tune or a vocoder for similar effect so this is just a guilty.  They can be an amazing effect like in the case of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn but are over abused and gimmicky (see T-Pain.)

Vocal Synthesis Software Not Fooling Anyone

Vocal synthesis can be cool it a retro robotic way like DECtalk Stephen Hawking or Commodore 64 8-bit  kind of way.  It does not sound real but that is cool.  The problem is when it is meant to sound real.  String, wind and brass instruments have been far form mastered by any synthesis so an instrument with even more articulations than those instruments, the human voice, attempts at realistic synthesis have been laughable.  We can hear a person mood, age, or whether they are telling the truth even if they are speaking in a foreign language and out of site.  Human voice is the sound we hear first and listen the most.  Software like Cantor and Vocaliod have fallen far short of convincing.  It is a questionable endeavour to replace the one instrument most of us already have in the first place and unlikely man can improve on nature.

The Mastering Plugin the Death of Dynamics

In truth the Loudness Wars (you can check out my thoughts on The Loudness Wars) started even before there were such plugins but the made it much worst.  Dynamics are dead and it was a death by convenience.  It is just too easy to slap on a plugin with maximizer in the name and squeeze all the dynamics out of it.  I imagine some was watching television and heard one of those used car dealerships commercials that seem twice as loud as anything else for 30 unrelenting seconds and thought wouldn’t be great to do this to music.  That person did us no favors.  The software is affordable and easy enough to use for anyone to use and abuse.  Resulting in most music today having the life squeezed out of it.

The Music Video-Video Killed the Radio Star

The Bungles were prophets.  The video has to be the single worst technology for music making.  No other technology has done as much to remove the focus of music away from music.  The Music Business has always been Show Business so image always has been a component but post MTV image became the only components of in some cases.  I can’t image the talented but ugly artist I never got to hear because of the video.  I hold the music video responsible for the Boy Bands, the Britney Spears types, hair metal, commercial rap, 4th generation gunge and a thousand of other music travesties.  It is great homogenizer of genres.  It is the reason lyrics are not important as how much Ice is on your necklace.  It is the reason that is more important to look the part than be the part.  It is the central cog in the PR machine manufacturing celebrities set to music rather than musicians.  The influence of the music video is so corruptive that even MTV (music television) barely has music on an mainly broadcast “lifestyle programing.”  Music Television is not even about music anymore.