Glad you guys liked them!
Oh yeah, that's definitely our favourite comic so far... I think you can tell how much fun we were having, just from looking at the third panel.
polar sky wrote:You'd be surprised at how many pop musicians use analog. I am sure Lady Gaga does too. I mean good god look at how many have used the 808?
I can't work out if you are talking about a specific comment I made in a comic or news post, or just that argument as a whole, so forgive me if my answer is a little broad:
It depends what you mean by "analogue", if you mean "hardware vs. software" (which is what a lot of people tend to mean) then yeah, of course, but if you mean strictly analogue circuitry (which rules out things like the TR-909, for example), then I'm sure that number is a lot smaller- I could be wrong, but I don't hear any user- programmed analogue modular-type sounds in the pop music I've subjected myself to. Sure, I could listen to that one awful Enya song and hear a Roland D-50 preset, but does that count?
According to Wikipedia, Lady Gaga used that god-awful "hoover" sound from the Roland Alpha Juno in Bad Romance, does that mean she uses "analogue synthesisers" (if you go by the "hardware vs. software" definition of "analogue")? It's unlikely her producer recreated that sound using hardware, or even, brought an Alpha Juno into the studio and used the preset. It's most likely that he just downloaded a sample online. Hell, you can even hear a "basic hoover sample" on
it's Wikipedia page, he probably just used that.
So would I go as far as to say that they are "using" synthesisers in their music? As I subscribe to the Detroit Techno school of thought in regards to presets (I think it was Derrick May who said using factory presets in your music would get you kicked out of Detroit), I'd say no.
Also: how much guys actually use an 808 though? I've got a copy of FL Studio that came with a load of 808 samples, but if I throw a cowbell into a track, I'm not using an 808, I'm using "VT_cowbell.wav" (or whatever the file happens to be named).
In other words, if I sample the end of "W32.Mydoom.AU@MM" by AFX (from Analord 11) in a track, can I then say "in this song I used the Fenix Modular"?
But then again, if the music is good, who cares? And that's where the problem lies: most of that music sounds like a very, very cheap imitation of lesser known music, the "underground", if you will.
Also: after listening to the first 30 seconds of "Bad Romance" to make sure she did in fact use the hoover, I can no longer take Gabber Techno seriously... sorry guys.
