LETTER OF THE MONTH
Jan 1, 2006 12:00 PM
DON'T PULL THE PLUG
In response to Citizen Vern (“Envelope Filter,” November 2005): First, let me say that I enjoy “modern electronic music” and listen to and create it. But he says that the “greatest musical instrument is (gasp!) the mind”? Don't some people realize that without an instrument, the mind cannot be realized? And in the case of electronic music and computer-based creation, you also need electricity because if all you are playing with are loops, synths, samples, etc., without them you are nothing at all. Pull the plug on your “superior” electronic music, and it doesn't exist anymore.
Imagine (heaven forbid) a world without electricity. I know this is a bit hypothetical, but hell, gasoline won't be around forever, right? Guitars, flutes, piano, clarinets, trombones, string bass, voice — virtually anything that makes a sound acoustically will still exist when electricity and batteries are not available. It's great that the tools are allowing people who “didn't have the luxury of music lessons growing up” to express themselves with no musical training or knowledge. But the reality is that a large percentage of these unskilled “most musically talented minds” that use computers for creating stuff couldn't hold a tempo without the crutch of electricity, let alone perform with others. Thank goodness for quantizing and bpm-matching, huh?
Creative people can make something from anything. There are even people who would go so far as to say that taking a dump and flushing the toilet is a musical creation. Musical genius of the past didn't have the luxury of a huge library of pre-sampled beats, licks, solos, fills, arpeggios and loops — recorded by someone else — to simply paint on a screen and call your music. Citizen Vern better pray that the electricity never ends. I, too, hope it never goes away; I like listening to my recordings on something other than two Victrolas and a megaphone. But, evolving or not, without electricity, you're over.
Brian Hutchison
Seattle, Wash.
For sending in this month's winning letter, Brian Hutchison wins a pair of Stanton DJ Pro 3000 ($199) DJ headphones. If you send in the most inspired correspondence next month — or simply the letter we like the best — you will win a pair, too. All you have to do is send an e-mail to remixeditorial@primediabusiness.com. Please include your full mailing address.
QUESTION OF TIME
I can't tell you how happy I was to see Depeche Mode on the cover of Remix (November 2005). It brought me back to when I was 15 and had a poster with all four — at the time — members on my wall. It also shows how you as a publication are focused on the now as well as the how-the-funk-we-got-to-now.
Everyone making any kind of music with a 4/4 beat and electronic rhythms owes some debt to Depeche Mode. These guys were an integral foundation to electronic music, from Detroit techno to Chicago house and everything in between. They introduced metallic rhythms to popular culture and probably sold a million samplers based on “People Are People” alone.
Thank you all for keeping coverage of urban, dance and underground and being a nice companion to those of us slaving over a hot DAW trying to create the next great sound.
Robbie Ryan
McKinney, Texas
FINAL VOTE OF CONFIDENCE
Don't think the new look of the magazine is going unnoticed by your readers. The November issue is what I expected when I first asked for this magazine several years ago. This is so much better than it has been. Many issues I just passed along after a quick glance through. This time I need to keep this one for a while; I'm not done with it yet. There are a couple doodads in there I might buy, as well. The guy who gets my issues is gonna have to wait. Looks like you guys finally got it.
Mike Owen
Del Aire, Calif.
HEY, WHAT ABOUT US?
I've been amazed by the evolution (or should I say revolution?) of the music-making process over the last 10 to 15 years. Back then my composition tools were a piano, a pen and blank music sheets. Well, no need to go on describing what happened ever since, as you guys already know the story. I would like to say, however, how much I appreciate the contribution of people like the folks at Propellerhead, Emagic, Steinberg, Ableton and others who have brought us the tools and the power to express ourselves in ever more creative ways at a very reasonable cost. They broke the old paradigms of music making to come up with something better.
I live in São Paulo, Brazil, a city with roughly 20 million people. I have been a happy customer of all of those aforementioned software icons for years now. But it turns out that I simply cannot purchase upgrades or updates of their products in a simple and efficient manner in this country. I contacted Quanta, a Brazilian software distributor. They say I must submit my license number, pay and wait for some 45 days until they receive the package and deliver it to me. That applies to the Reason 3.0 upgrade I've been trying to purchase. I have the option of purchasing from the Propellerhead Web site, but that would imply taxes that would more than double the price of the upgrade, in which case I would be paying the price of a full version again. I have also looked for the Logic Pro 7.1 update, which is even more difficult to get in Brazil. Apple Brazil says this product is not registered for sale in the country. The full version of Logic Pro 7.1 is, though. What kind of policy is that? To make things worse, the Apple online store does not sell to Brazil. How am I supposed to update?
The same technology that allowed these companies to revolutionize the way music is made can be used to improve the distribution of their products and therefore increase sales. It is much easier to purchase a cracked version downtown for about $10 than it is to purchase a legal upgrade. I urge software companies to break the distribution paradigm. It would only accrue to their benefit and make customer experience in these “marginalized” markets less frustrating.
Guilherme Paulino
São Paulo, Brazil
OOPS, WRONG CRAZY ROCKER
I'm DJ Pone, and I'm quoted in Remix magazine in the “Frequencies” column report of the Loveparade (“The Love is Right Here,” November 2005). In the third paragraph, it says, “While touring as The Transplants' DJ on the Warped Tour (with Blink 182's Travis Barker), Barker jumped on his drum kit, causing the tonearm on Pone's turntable to jump, too.” Actually, it was Transplants (as well as Rancid) frontman Tim Armstrong who was doing the jumping off of Travis Barker's drum kit onstage. I just want to make sure that Tim gets credit for his onstage antics. Thanks!
DJ Pone
San Francisco, Calif.
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