maybe the real topic is not analog vs digital anymore, but good usability vs. bad usability.
an example of good usability is the yamaha qy700. having played with that for years, it has become clear to me that this was designed with musicians in mind. it is the most intuitive sequencer i have ever played, it was great fun and sounded very good (this is debatable, but for my kind of music, it nailed it) - and it’s digital. and it never, ever crashed or went berzerk
another topic is the old “form follows function” phrase. if a teapot looks elegant but spills hot tea all over the ambassador’s wife’s dress, then you have yourself an incident.
a different example for usability can be found in a different field: professional translation. there are software packages that translators use in order to facilitate translating repetitive phrases and sentences when translating software products and the relevant documentation. this is to ensure consistency in terminology and enables translators to get their work done faster.
using these tools makes sense in technical translation projects. in poetry or song or literature, this kind of software is out of place. why? we are human beings. and where emotion plays a role, the device used to transport an emotion should allow the user to concentrate on the task at hand.
if someone uses a machine translation tool (such as babelfish), no one can guarantee that the results will be acceptable. try it out.
it’s important to note when discussing professional translation tools, that they do not translate automatically. the thinking, the research, the experience - that’s human.
i am pretty much convinced that in music tools, things work pretty much the same. tools are tools. you can take a cashew nut and paint it black and yellow, put an oscillator inside and make it buzz. but you are unlikely to get the thing to collect honey.
there are music programs out there that generate random notes. just as with things like babelfish for language, this is useful for getting an approximation of something useful, or you can laugh for a few seconds, or maybe even use it for certain stylistic accents. but so far, only the human spirit is able to invent an aesthetically pleasing (or terrible) piece of art. the important part of the equation is human taste and willpower. it’s in our nature to express our needs or dreams, anxieties or obsessions. machines are programmed to do things. nothing more and nothing less. no true emotion is involved in a program. it is our perception of the audible world, our manipulation of the things around us that turn things into art.
when creating music, a musician must decide to which degree he or she wants to give up or retain actual performance values. a classical violinist won’t have to ask that question most of the time, but in the electronic field, the temptation to cut corners is much more prevalent, as we all know.
whether we use analog or digital sources, or if we write poetry with a pencil or a word processor, the key word is usability. if the pencil is broken and the lead breaks off all the time, or if it’s too dang thin or small or the eraser tears up the paper, what’s the use of the simplicity you thought you’d have? you’ll throw the thing away and say things you won’t want your mother to hear. if a computer is slow, we may go nuts. we probably all saw the video of that guy in the cubicle who smashes his unwilling workstation on the ground. not a clever thing to do at the workplace - but don’t we sometimes sympathise with the poor chap?
no matter at what level a certain technology is, if it has not been developed according to design and usabilitiy criteria that the users and consumers need, the result will suffer.
i worked as a video game tester for a couple of years. i checked functional and linguistic errors in truckloads of games.
video games are all make-believe worlds, right? i have never heard so many swear words being uttered in any other job. the anguish sounded quite real to me. and sometimes, the frustration wasn’t even about the game itself but about the controllers, the interface, the sound levels, the visibility or other factors of usability. i learned that in every project, bugs slip through the net. no amount of testing can rid a project of all errors. the death sentence for any well-written game is a huge list of “release as is” bugs. c’est la vie.
by the way, the simple childrens’ games were way cooler to test - not because they had less bugs, but because they were easier to use. why? because the publishers want kids to learn how to use games so they can buy more complicated games later. it’s quite fascinating to see how kid’s games focus on encouragement and adult games focus on frustration.
i fully understand now why some users adore older synths. many of them seem to ecourage music-making more than many new-fangled multi-featured devices. unless they are well-made and thoroughly tested and ironed out, they won’t give the users much pleasure. i love my casio vl1 but could never warm to a korg m1. n matter how great it sounded, it blocked my musical mojo. why? usability, again. the sequencer was a few thousand notes only, there were hardly any controls, the display was minimal, and you had to program the thing. it was frustrating. the vl1, that white toy, on the other hand, was a charmer. those crappy little keys, the rhythms that went tik-tshsh-tik-tshsh, the adsr ‘synthesizer’, the cheesiness, the coldness, the playfulness, the way you could use it as a claculator or flatten cookie dough with it. somehow it blended with my life. but the m1? it went out the door. access denied.
or take the rogue: my simple rogue was such a pleasure to play. despite the crackly pots, the sliders, the lack of midi. it sounded good, you could dial up a sound in seconds. it looked funny and smelled of smoke of the previous owner. it had charm and life. i sold it, the qy700 and many more of my beloved items, in order to buy a voyager. i won’t go into details about the trouble i had with it because the subject makes me sad and angry.
the voyager essentially is a good instrument. and it resembles the minimoog from the outside. it has more functions and features than the old mini. but think of this: snowflakes, when the temperature is near zero, tend to be big and fluffy and wonderful. but no matter how nice and big they are, their physical properties don’t help a lot when you cross-country ski on sticky snow. the less impressive-looking flakes that come down when it’s colder and dryer are much more useful: you glide faster and don’t have to wax the skis.
just some thoughts.
(Maybe I can post some pics). It’s very untamed and definitely needs EQ to sit in a mix.