I don't really know what to say or where to start. I've had a few beers, so I can't really be arsed either. If I waffle for a bit, I'm sure I'll get into the argument properly.
Ermm ...
Oh yeah. With electronic music, 90% of the composition, skill and technicality is in the synthesis of your own sounds, and production of your own melodies from scatch. If you want to make something and call it yours, you have to
create something, not just sequence someone elses creations.
What Toady does is put together a jigsaw.
What me and Grim do is make the entire jigsaw from scratch.
Whats more technical and skillful? Drawing the image for the jigsaw and constructing it? Or slotting the pieces together in a few hours? Which is more likely to be unique? A totally original drawing? Or a constructed jigsaw that thousands of people have in their home?
Another key difference is originality. My music comes from thin air. To start with I have nothing except a few drum samples. In a few days I have syntheised lines and sequences of my own creation that are completely unique to me.
Toady misses this step by having these premade for him, and having the same set as thousands of other people who will inevitably create music that sounds almost exactly the same.
How about the vocals in my track? The lyrics I wrote, the melody I composed, and cooperation I had with a vocalist, and the sequencing? Totally beyond the ejay user.
You can liken the two styles of composition to programming in a way. Whos more impressive? Lee, coding DB and then creating a game using his code. Or someone creating a similar game in DB? The answer is Lee, because he also did the ground work. Who has the most freedom? The answer is Lee, because he controls the very backbone of darkbasic, and can shape it into whatever he sees fit. The simple DB user is limited to the boundaries of DB.
Toady, the simple fact is, you haven't got the faintest idea. You are 100% clueless as to the overwhelming knowledge and skill that electronic musicians have over your pathetic ejay sequencing skills. Over years we master composition, sound engineering, sound synthesis, post production, and learn how to understand and control the EQ spectrum, audio compression, LR bias, other audio dynamics, reverberation, chorus, high/low pass filtering, phasers, flangers, noise control, delay, parametrics, distortion, convolution, pitch/time stetching, doppler effects and more. We learn scales, keys, tempos, time signitures.
All of these things make creating electronic music and mastering music electronically a science that takes many years of practice and learning. You could spend a year learning to use one type of synthesiser - to understand the oscillators, the LFOs, filters, preamps, post amps, effects circuits etc.
My point is this -
You may well believe your music is on par with mine. Other people may well agree with you. But there are two main differences between what you do and what musicians such as myself do:
(1) Playing with EJAY is childs play. But creating music electronically from scratch is a science that takes a huge amount of learning.
(2) You will always be limited to the boundaries of your ejay program, mixing the preset samples you have and any other loops you're lucky enough to find.
Electronic musicians with skills in synthesis can create any sound you can possible conceive from scratch, using nothing bus sine wave LFOs. Because of this, we will always have infinite possibilities and the knowledge and tools to do anything we can possibly visualise.
Ejay users cannot.
So while comparing one instance of my music to one instance of your Ejay sequencing may not prove one song is superior, the simple fact that my music is truly my own, has infinite possibility, is original and is not just the rearranging of someone elses work, makes my music, and other musicians music, substantially better than yours.
I know it's hard to admit to someone younger than you, but I am a more skillful musician that you will ever be. So shut your novice hole!
Machine: P4 2200, 1GB RAM, GeForce4 64MB, Audigy Platinum
http://www.breakbeat-terrorism.co.uk
(It's not all about the coding)
