Mixes: art or product

[Radiophonic]

Over time, I think the quality of virtual instruments will grow, as they start to incorporate performance aspects, and it will be possible to create great performances this way.

Yes, there is certainly potential for improvement. I personally use virtual instruments only for very specific usecases. I find them very uninspiring. How much of this is lack of the feeling of controlling a 'machine'(like a piano or organ) or a piece of gear, but Im certain that is a factor. The physical handsom nature. But i am curious how things will develope in the virtual realm of instruments.

[Drew Stephenson]

My very limited experience of virtual instruments suggests that so much of their realism depends on the time taken to manually programme in those human touches. If, like me, you haven't got a clue where to start on this, then you just select a string bank, choose legato, and bury it in the mix as a pad.
Smarter people who understand how the instruments are actually played in real life can take that knowledge and transform that same set of samples into something far, far more credible.

[Radiophonic]

Also interesting is to look at average the IQ of different places and comparing them:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/count ... by-country
https://brainstats.com/en/average-iq

Doesn't prove causation, but the corrolation is at least an indicator.

It may indicate that whoever designed the IQ test wasn't aware of the social and cognitive skills required to prosper in Africa.

Probably unconscious bias in those who defined the test towards their own culture. It’s well known that IQ tests give higher scores when those sitting them share cultural references with the setters.

I couldn't find the doc I was looking for but this history of 𝑥/Binet tests isn't too far off:

https://www.verywellmind.com/history-of ... ng-2795581

The upshot of this, which I suggest is relevant to the "nature of art" discussion is; if you want to have a useful IQ test you'll have to decide on a definition of intelligence, most of them are easy to pull apart, and you'll probably end up with something localised for prevailing requirements, i.e., why would someone learn how to do mental arithmetic when they have access to calculators? (If this is included then I win in my house).

So - I suggest we are motivated to make art by the same biological drivers (translated into social drivers) as drive us to be economically successful. We each express those drivers in differing ratios, hence Thelonius Monk and The Monkees. You get to choose where you are on the spectrum.

I think an underlying assumption in discussions about IQ is the capability of a populations to build and maintain civilisation and this is closely tied to being able to create "high art" as you see it in peak civilisational states (the greek and roman empire for example). I do believe to accumulate high IQ people in an area would not lead to a functional civilisation, as some might assume. The creation of civilsation requires a spectrum of people with different characteristic, however, not random.

What IQ is useful for, whether or not it describes anything real at all, is it correlates with several factors and therefore can be used as an indicator for how functional a certain population is (order, productivness, etc)

[Radiophonic]

My very limited experience of virtual instruments suggests that so much of their realism depends on the time taken to manually programme in those human touches. If, like me, you haven't got a clue where to start on this, then you just select a string bank, choose legato, and bury it in the mix as a pad.
Smarter people who understand how the instruments are actually played in real life can take that knowledge and transform that same set of samples into something far, far more credible.

What I did is, automation on various parameters producing quick and tiny movments of a random nature to make it sound more alive. That worked. It is quite a bit of work but it can make a huge difference. What is a big obsticale is that a lot of plugins do not like this kind of movement making everything sound worse. I think alot of softsynths are too presice/static on alot of parameters, making them rather flat/dimensionless.

[Watchmaker]

Inappropriate comments deleted - HR

IQ tests suffer greatly from hidden biases and, as pointed out, somewhat lacking definitions of intelligence. This is exacerbated by the fact that there are numerous types of intelligence, athletic, emotional, sexual, heuristic, artistic, social, political, predatory, etc. Any given human will score variously along a number of continua, and which continua are weighted as indicating "intelligence" in any given study often says more about the researcher than the subject...or the topic!

But I'm curious, what's the tie in between putative IQ and art or product? Did I miss that?

[Radiophonic]

But I'm curious, what's the tie in between putative IQ and art or product? Did I miss that?

I do think (im not educated on this), every IQ test measures the capability of an indivdual to think in abstractions. The ability to think in abstractions is a requirement to conceptionalise, which is the basis of art creation I would argue.

[Martin Walker]

My very limited experience of virtual instruments suggests that so much of their realism depends on the time taken to manually programme in those human touches. If, like me, you haven't got a clue where to start on this, then you just select a string bank, choose legato, and bury it in the mix as a pad.
Smarter people who understand how the instruments are actually played in real life can take that knowledge and transform that same set of samples into something far, far more credible.

^^^^ +1 to this info from Drew

Some of my most convincing virtual instruments came from a physically modeled plucked instrument (AAS String Studio) to which I added a handful of automation tracks tweaking various of its parameters in real time, so that every note sounded at least slightly different, just like an acoustic instrument.

It's rewarding, but a lot of work!

[Arpangel]

Over time, I think the quality of virtual instruments will grow, as they start to incorporate performance aspects, and it will be possible to create great performances this way.

This isn’t consistent over time, now, we "think" we have come a long way, but in reality, little real progress has been made in the performance aspect of instruments.

On the other hand, involving other people to play music can take it to a different level of quality.

Depends who you are, I’ve tried all my life to play and work with others, even though it’s been enjoyable "sometimes" mostly it’s been a total failure, I can count the pieces I’ve made with others on the fingers of one hand that to me, have been any good, they have to be stupendous to make me think of them as being worthwhile.
I’m a solo musician, I try and kid myself I’m not sometimes, but I now realise that’s totally pointless.

[RichardT]

My very limited experience of virtual instruments suggests that so much of their realism depends on the time taken to manually programme in those human touches. If, like me, you haven't got a clue where to start on this, then you just select a string bank, choose legato, and bury it in the mix as a pad.
Smarter people who understand how the instruments are actually played in real life can take that knowledge and transform that same set of samples into something far, far more credible.

^^^^ +1 to this info from Drew

Some of my most convincing virtual instruments came from a physically modeled plucked instrument (AAS String Studio) to which I added a handful of automation tracks tweaking various of its parameters in real time, so that every note sounded at least slightly different, just like an acoustic instrument.

It's rewarding, but a lot of work!

In some ways it would be easier to use real musicians!

[Radiophonic]

Depends who you are, I’ve tried all my life to play and work with others, even though it’s been enjoyable "sometimes" mostly it’s been a total failure, I can count the pieces I’ve made with others on the fingers of one hand that to me, have been any good, they have to be stupendous to make me think of them as being worthwhile.
I’m a solo musician, I try and kid myself I’m not sometimes, but I now realise that’s totally pointless.

Interesting. May I ask what kind of music you make? I find the abscense of other musician to be a unique challenge. Playing together you immediatly get the full picture. On your own you got to put all pieces together first to check whether or not they work well together. To an large extend I can predict this, but there are suprises. I would love to hear how you ate doing this. Midi? Demos? Only one instrument+vocals?

In some ways it would be easier to use real musicians!

This is true in my experience. I am always trying to get virtual instruments to do what the real life counterpart would do. Otherwise it very often sits rather awkwardly in the mix. Getting that right is a challenge, and I do believe a good direction for virtual instruments would be modeled instruments with randomness programmed in. Sampled instruments can work well but recording instruments yourselfs you can make sure they fit the whole.

[Martin Walker]

My very limited experience of virtual instruments suggests that so much of their realism depends on the time taken to manually programme in those human touches. If, like me, you haven't got a clue where to start on this, then you just select a string bank, choose legato, and bury it in the mix as a pad.
Smarter people who understand how the instruments are actually played in real life can take that knowledge and transform that same set of samples into something far, far more credible.

^^^^ +1 to this info from Drew

Some of my most convincing virtual instruments came from a physically modeled plucked instrument (AAS String Studio) to which I added a handful of automation tracks tweaking various of its parameters in real time, so that every note sounded at least slightly different, just like an acoustic instrument.

It's rewarding, but a lot of work!

In some ways it would be easier to use real musicians!

In general I agree, but in this case it was a physically modeled instrument that didn't exist in real life, and it was an interesting exercise to see if I could make it sound 'real'. It's the main plucked instrument in this track if you fancy a listen:

https://yewtreemagic.bandcamp.com/track/alchemy

Martin

[Watchmaker]

But I'm curious, what's the tie in between putative IQ and art or product? Did I miss that?

I do think (im not educated on this), every IQ test measures the capability of an indivdual to think in abstractions. The ability to think in abstractions is a requirement to conceptionalise, which is the basis of art creation I would argue.

Well, this seems a bit redundant to me. The ability to think in abstractions is pretty much a universal human capacity. To the extent that one human can measure another's abstractive ability implies that the measurer is capable of abstraction to the point of objectivity. I would not conclude that any human cohort has reached that stage of cognitive ability. I dunno how much science you read, or how far into methodology you go when you do, but in general, much of what gets passed of as science is pretty pathetic.

While there's a massive amount of "science" on abstract thinking, from a multitude of disciplines, I think one of the show stoppers with making pronouncements about some sort of objective conclusion is the apparent fact that reality occurs in the perceivers mind. This is a profound abstraction! If two minds are not possessed of a similar set of referents, how do you construct a meaningful way to determine which one has a greater capacity for abstraction?

[RichardT]

But I'm curious, what's the tie in between putative IQ and art or product? Did I miss that?

I do think (im not educated on this), every IQ test measures the capability of an indivdual to think in abstractions. The ability to think in abstractions is a requirement to conceptionalise, which is the basis of art creation I would argue.

There’s no direct link really. IQ came up tangentially earlier in the thread.

[Radiophonic]

To the extent that one human can measure another's abstractive ability implies that the measurer is capable of abstraction to the point of objectivity. I would not conclude that any human cohort has reached that stage of cognitive ability.

Abstractions are not necessarily linked to reality/objectivity at all, and in practice do seldom even attempt to realisticly model nature cognitvely. The tests you go through in IQ test in most cases are not linked to real life, but to basic abstractions that get increasingly complex or must be operated quickly to get a high score. You can weigh something without having a palstic understanding of the universe. The key question whether something is a useful information is, whether or not it can predict the future better than randomness.

I dunno how much science you read, or how far into methodology you go when you do, but in general, much of what gets passed of as science is pretty pathetic.

I am not well read on the topic of IQ, but I have read quite a bit within the discourse of social constructivism.

I think one of the show stoppers with making pronouncements about some sort of objective conclusion is the apparent fact that reality occurs in the perceivers mind. This is a profound abstraction!

If reality occurs in the perceivers mind, where does the perceivers mind occur?

If two minds are not possessed of a similar set of referents, how do you construct a meaningful way to determine which one has a greater capacity for abstraction?

By testing for the capability to operate basic abstractions.

[Watchmaker]

"Abstractions are not necessarily linked to reality/objectivity at all"

Like quantum physics. Given science's current abstractions around the nature of nature itself, the "physical" world is a set of manifest probabilities which constantly wink into and out of existence, the really messed up part being that they can only wink into existence if they are perceived, so nothing exists without something to perceive that it exists, ergo sentience is an a priori condition for the universe itself. Perhaps the Hindu idea that we are but the dreams of Brahman is more true than we like to think.

Where indeed does the perceiver's mind exist? This is a question that has plagued mankind for as long as we've been able to think abstractly. Newton's early studies focused intensely on this question and provide some harrowing reading! Plato's cave is a great simile for the perceptive experience, but as the mind, whatever that is, is self defining based on its own percepts, it follows that whatever the mind thinks of the outer world, it is simply a reflection of what it believes to be true. Think of sight. You don't actually see anything, you see the unabsorbed light refracting from the surface of the object you think you see, ergo, you see a thing for only what it is not. The inverse of what it actually is.

Cute picture by the way, but as those blocks and holes are not abstractions, I don't see how they can be used to test for the level or quality of an individual's capacity to think abstractly, which an "Intelligence Quotient" test is attempting to quantify.

[Radiophonic]

[...] those blocks and holes are not abstractions.

Eating a potatoe with a fork rather than directly by hand is an abstraction.

I want to come back to the idea of collage, because it seems to be a common theme of producing/mixing in many genres.

Collage (/kəˈlɑːʒ/, from the French: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pastiche, which is a "pasting" together.)

Often this approach is executed in a way, that is supposed to leave the listener with the impression that it is an uncut performance, because a coherent picture is crucial for the artists vision. Other things that come to mind is fixing timing in post. The listener might not be able to tell what is going on, but in reality he does not listen to a uncut performance.

Would like to hear your experinces and thoughts on how the two differ in practice. Another topic that is interesting to me that relates to this is the idea of confronting people with media that communicates to a average listener that it is real, while it is not. It seems to me that this could have a distorting effect on the mind of the listener.

Edit: interestingly the wikipedia article might underestimate how common collage in music has become, unless they are defining it in a way that collage needs to be an obvious aspect of the art.

[Arpangel]

Well, this seems a bit redundant to me. The ability to think in abstractions is pretty much a universal human capacity. To the extent that one human can measure another's abstractive ability implies that the measurer is capable of abstraction to the point of objectivity. I would not conclude that any human cohort has reached that stage of cognitive ability.

To "think in abstraction" is a very varied human activity, some are able to do it more than others, and these people present the world in an unfamiliar way, they may have what we call talent, or a gift, this can be further extended by the use of hallucinogenic substances, which present another way of perceiving the material world, that to some, is just as valid as any other.
I’ll leave this here.

[Watchmaker]

To "think in abstraction" is a very varied human activity, some are able to do it more than others, and these people present the world in an unfamiliar way, they may have what we call talent, or a gift, this can be further extended by the use of hallucinogenic substances, which present another way of perceiving the material world, that to some, is just as valid as any other.
I’ll leave this here.

All thinking is an abstraction. Judgments about the relative quality of that activity are what I quibble with as it is inherently loaded with bias, conscious or not.

Would like to hear your experinces and thoughts on how the two differ in practice. Another topic that is interesting to me that relates to this is the idea of confronting people with media that communicates to a average listener that it is real, while it is not. It seems to me that this could have a distorting effect on the mind of the listener.

Totally agree. Almost all music is collage and every piece of recorded music certainly is to some extent.

But isn't the very act of mixing an intentional manipulation of performance(s) with the goal of having a distorting effect on the listener? Whether that be controlling room artifacts (ambience, noise,) or blending relative amplitudes and frequencies, modulating time, etc. to create a "pleasing" whole, I think that's the art and magic of mixing. Even the greatest performances need some manipulation, first in creating an accurate recording, then transforming that into a simulacrum of that performance to generate an emotion distorting experience for listeners across playback devices.

Also, since like a dog with a bone I can't put it down, eating a potato with or with out fork is not an abstraction because both hands and forks exist in material reality. The fork exists because someone transduced an abstraction into a concrete form, but now that they exist, the physical objects are no longer abstract. Conversely, your hand or my hand, hands in general, are an abstraction because they cannot be referred to without a mind having created a representation of the percept into a form in which the idea can be both modeled in the perceivers mind and communicated to another mind. Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and Representation" can take you down the bunny trail of that rhetoric!

[Hugh Robjohns]

I'm taking the dog for a walk...

[Radiophonic]

[...] eating a potato with or with out fork is not an abstraction because both hands and forks exist in material reality.

Interacting with material objects does not rule out an act of abstraction.

[Watchmaker]

au contraire my friend. The relevant abstractions...

Abstraction (noun)
1. the quality of dealing with ideas rather than events.
4. the process of considering something independently of its associations, attributes, or concrete accompaniments.

OED

[Radiophonic]

au contraire my friend. The relevant abstractions...

Abstraction (noun)
1. the quality of dealing with ideas rather than events.
4. the process of considering something independently of its associations, attributes, or concrete accompaniments.

OED

Yes. This does not contradict what I am saying. Eating with a fork is abstraction in practice.

[Watchmaker]

I cannot demur to your conclusion. It appears the abstract representations of our percepts diverge with respect to the meaning of the referents.

What about this collage notion - how does it play out in your work?

[Radiophonic]

What about this collage notion - how does it play out in your work?

It is a part of my work for practical reasons. I try to avoid it if possible. An uncut performance with a capable musician that stays focused I feel has a different quality than something cut and put together. I feel that sampled instruments make the whole situation even more awkward. I am wondering how the accumulation of these practices impacts quality of art and the lets say spritiual well being of the populus.

I find it to be particularly offputting (conceptionally) when the music is supposed to leave the listener with the impression that he is listening to a coherent performance. I understand that.in certain situations there is the need to make things just work, but I personally prefer to at least start with the ambition to get things right in the performance aspect. Would like to hear your experiences and thoughts.

[awjoe]

I find it to be particularly offputting (conceptionally) when the music is supposed to leave the listener with the impression that he is listening to a coherent performance.

In my world, the concern is not to 'leave the listener with an impression', but to provide the listener with an experience. Not conceptual, but experiential. I don't care about a coherent performance; I want an effective performance, which means inhabiting the music so completely and powerfully that the listener is pulled in and carried along. If by 'coherent' you mean the music has a structure and plan, then yes I want that because I find music without structure and plan pretty boring (think jazz noodling), but structure is only half of the necessary polarity, the other half being improvisation, changing things up in the moment (in the context of the structure and plan). So maybe you and I speak different languages when it comes to music. That's okay - some people speak Italian, some people speak Spanish. Play the kind of music, and play it in a way, that moves you and moves people who hear it. I doubt very much that intellectual analysis of the factors involved helps achieve that. But... different strokes...

[RichardT]

What about this collage notion - how does it play out in your work?

It is a part of my work for practical reasons. I try to avoid it if possible. An uncut performance with a capable musician that stays focused I feel has a different quality than something cut and put together. I feel that sampled instruments make the whole situation even more awkward. I am wondering how the accumulation of these practices impacts quality of art and the lets say spritiual well being of the populus.

I find it to be particularly offputting (conceptionally) when the music is supposed to leave the listener with the impression that he is listening to a coherent performance. I understand that.in certain situations there is the need to make things just work, but I personally prefer to at least start with the ambition to get things right in the performance aspect. Would like to hear your experiences and thoughts.

I think the main things is - do what works! There can be something very special about a complete performance, but sometimes patching things together and editing them can give a result that is actually more moving.

Complete classical recordings quite often include edits where a dodgy part is replaced - and in the past some of these edits were very crudely done (according to my mastering engineer, who used to be a classical recording engineer). Not so much with modern technology, to be fair.

The other angle is - most people don’t have access to the very best musicians, and so comping / editing is often necessary.

In modern pop, vocals are almost always comped and highly edited, sometimes with note by note changes in level, pitch, reverb sends, EQ etc.

Sometimes I think an ethos of sticking with the original performance can take away from the music. A good example is Yellowjackets’ album Jackets XL, which is a great album, but suffers from having some very dodgy notes in solos. There are 3 of 4 places where I really wish someone had said ´we've got to fix that’ - they are real ‘ouch’ moments!

[Radiophonic]

I want an effective performance, which means inhabiting the music so completely and powerfully that the listener is pulled in and carried along.
[...]
Play the kind of music, and play it in a way, that moves you and moves people who hear it. I doubt very much that intellectual analysis of the factors involved helps achieve that. But... different strokes...

Only because my way of presenting my ideas may or may not come off to you as intellectual, does not mean there is no emotionally felt concern behind it.

What has motiviated me to reflect on this topic was the current developement of smartphone cameras. There are very invasive steps smartphones take to output the 'photos' they do. Some of them can not be turned off or the user isnt even informed about this. Things like moving the eyes to look directly into the lense, taking parts of one instance and combining it with elements of other instances (to make everyone smile in the picture at the same time) etc.

There is so much going on that I could list many more things, but I think the idea comes across. The consequence is that smartphone cameras(+AI) are so far removed from what a camera is that photos dont serve as documentation, for example as proof of something. Im a bit troubled what being confronted with so many pictures that are so far removed from what a human evolutionary encountered has negative consequences in the long run.

To be consistent in my concern, taking a critical look at mixing practices is cannot be left out. An one take performance can potentially be more effective than any collage of performances. The direct/honest/real (call it however you want) nature of one performance can not be replicated by a collage.

Another topic that makes me view it so dramatically is the work of Weston Price and Pottenger:

Pottengers cats (to keep it short watch from 10:50):
https://youtu.be/OvQ5F6GCfgI

Weston Price (to keep it short watch 3:20-3:50)
https://youtu.be/_ti3xNltlsM

As is documented here, in the case of diet technical advances (post industrial) have degenerating effects on humans(/cats).

Maybe the developement of post industrial culutral artefacts are no trivial matter? I would like to hear your thoughts.

[Radiophonic]

Complete classical recordings quite often include edits where a dodgy part is replaced - and in the past some of these edits were very crudely done (according to my mastering engineer, who used to be a classical recording engineer). Not so much with modern technology, to be fair.

Thatcis interesting. Do you know when this was first done and when it became common practice?

The other angle is - most people don’t have access to the very best musicians, and so comping / editing is often necessary.

In modern pop, vocals are almost always comped and highly edited, sometimes with note by note changes in level, pitch, reverb sends, EQ etc.

Sometimes I think an ethos of sticking with the original performance can take away from the music. A good example is Yellowjackets’ album Jackets XL, which is a great album, but suffers from having some very dodgy notes in solos. There are 3 of 4 places where I really wish someone had said ´we've got to fix that’ - they are real ‘ouch’ moments!

Yes, there are styles of music that can not be reproduced by a 'raw' performance. There is certainly no clear answers to this. Some styles need to be edited, like those new obiviously autotuned vocals (why this became a thing is beyond me). Other times it is better to do the audiance the service ironing out some bumps. Other times an off performances is working, or it simply must be done in a on point take.

[RichardT]

I don’t know when editing of classical recordings started. I would imagine that as soon as magnetic tape came into use as a recording medium people would have begun editing. But I don’t really know.

[awjoe]

Maybe the developement of post industrial culutral artefacts are no trivial matter? I would like to hear your thoughts.

No trivial matter at all - they are monumental, inevitable and constantly a matter of 'it's how you use the technology, and not the technology itself, that makes the difference between the devil and the saint'.

But sticking to the topic of recorded music, I would say, now that you've elaborated your concerns enough for me to understand them better, two things. First, the new tech is going to doctor and modify recorded music inevitably and extensively. My advice here is to join in the fun (which includes blowing the whistle on stuff which is distressingly fake). Second, go for live performances (both live and recorded). In the case of recordings of live performances, maybe we could have a declaration by the mixing engineer which is similar to the sticker I get on my apples and bananas assuring me that this food was organically produced, something along the lines of 'no digital jiggery-pokery was employed in the making of this recording'.