issue10

EMUSIC-L Digest                                      Volume 61, Issue 10

This issue's topics:
	
	Cooperation in the Atomic City studios (part 1 of 2) *LONG!* (2 messages)
	How cooperation went forth in Atomic City endeeavours (6 messages)

Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon .
You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with 
the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text.
 
The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the 
University of North Carolina.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 25 Feb 1994 10:49:34 -0800
From:         metlay 
Subject:      Cooperation in the Atomic City studios (part 1 of 2) *LONG!*

At long last, my promised reply to Mark Simon!

>> I also understand what you've presented by the "division of
>> labor" model, though how do you suppose we close the gap between
>> these two groups, so that each group facilitate each other
>> better, and thus leading all of us to improved music making?
>
>My first reaction is "darned if I know". I would imagine we'd have to
>start by being more collaborative in our music making. Musician X who's
>primarily interesting in programing sounds could team up with Musician Y
>who prefers composing to programing. Assuming their personalities and
>tastes mesh, they could each contribute their specialized skills to the
>finished product, similar to the way that lyricists and songwriters work
>together. Each should know enough about what the other does so that they
>can communicate effectively. Beyond this I think I ought to open the
>floor to anyone else who might have ideas about how a composer-sound
>designer relationship ought to work. I ought to ask Mike Metlay if any of
>his "team" sessions have evolved so that some people have functioned more
>in one capacity or the other. He once posted something to the effect (at
>least this is how I interpreted it) that he was designing sounds for
>other musicians. Is this true, Mike? Please tell us about it. Or did I
>misunderstand?

You did not so much misunderstand as misapply what I said, Mark. I have
two modes of operation, or had at the time I last spoke: one was the
Team, the other was my partnership with David Turner in Pittsburgh for
our duet, The Voice Of Reason. (I understand there's another band out
there that has copped the name; still, it's our working title, so nyah.)

In VOR, the relationship was as we discuss above: I was the "programmer"
and David was the "composer". This is not a totally rigid demarcation,
as I do a bit of composing and playing on our tapes and he has a decent
hand at simple analog patches and sampling, but it's pretty damn close.

When we work, David brings over a sequence he's created by
overtracking parts he's played himself on his instruments (at last
count, a Roland JX-8P analog synth, U-220 rackmount sample player, and
R-5 drumbox, a Casio FZ-1 sampler, and a Yamaha TG77 rack synth). He
uses a Kawai Q80 for transporting samples, and we fly them into Vision
in real time on my Mac, then burst them into separate tracks. I use
Vision to clean up timing and other glitches; I do this by hand rather
than with global quantizing, which I feel destroys a lot of David's
spontaneity. I then listen to his explanations of what he feels the
track lacks, and try to fill in those holes with my own rig (at the
time, Oberheim Xpander, Korg EX-8000, Sequential Prophet VS, and
Roland U-50).

This is where the "bleed" between our jobs becomes vital.  Sometimes
he cannot provide me with a track he's laid down with one of his
synths and say, "Play this back on the ;" he requires that I
play what I feel the synth should be doing, as my soloing style is
very different from his: sparse and very quirky, with lots of
controllers. In return, he must understand the roles and abilities of
my gear, at least to an extent. He regards the U-50 as a slightly more
flexible U-220, which it is, and uses the Xpander for heavy-duty
analog sounds, like pads and effects. He lets me dial in the EX-8000
for difficult roles that don't seem to go with any other synth.
However, the VS gets very little use, as he has not yet grasped what
it does best. We often play little games, like swapping patches around
to try new effects, and so on. Mixdown and effects are my province;
David keeps his hands off the faders and merely tells me what he likes
and doesn't like.

This process is iterated many times until a track is deemed complete.
I should point out that David is a perfectionist of almost Fagenesque
proportions; we have agonized over a single track for weeks because
he just wasn't happy with it. One of my most critical roles is that
of reality check, not only in terms of time spent but also in terms of
arrangements; David has a tendency to build very rich and complex
orchestrations, with as many as two dozen parts at once, and has the
habit of adding more to a mix that sounds wrong rather than removing
tracks. I prefer sparse mixes, and thin down his excesses.

It is, or was, a nice relationship, that produced about 25 minutes of
finished music and the guts of another half hour or so over a year and
a half of hard work. I am insanely proud of the results; I think David
is the second most talented musician I've ever worked with, and I
believe I've brought out the best in him on tape. My moving away put
at least a temporary stop to our work together, but we have survived
longer gaps than this. He has begun working with the TG77 in depth
now, and is using WinCake on his own to learn some of my tricks; I am
improving my chops and arranging skills. When we get together to
finish this project and release it on CD, I think that while it will
not be as electronically interesting as BANDWIDTH was, it will be
musically far superior, in a traditional sense.

Next installment: Team Metlay.

--
   mike metlay    |
   atomic city    | QUOTE OF THE WEEK: From Joe McMahon, moderator of EMUSIC-L:
  p.o.box 81175   |
pgh pa 15217-0675 |         "Whee! "
metlay@netcom.com |

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 25 Feb 1994 13:42:57 -0700
From:         jk 
Subject:      Re: Cooperation in the Atomic City studios (part 1 of 2) *LONG!*

Thanks for putting this together Mike, it's not only enlightening for us,
but also a worthy reference for musical relationships in general.

Your time is appreciated,
                                                      _
-john       ___                                    __/ |
___        |   |     JKrikawa@CCIT.Arizona.Edu    |    |___      ________
   \______/     \__________ Tucson, AZ ___../\./\/         \____/        \____

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 21 Feb 1994 14:18:14 -0800
From:         metlay 
Subject:      How cooperation went forth in Atomic City endeeavours (was re; Cage)

>designer relationship ought to work. I ought to ask Mike Metlay if any of
>his "team" sessions have evolved so that some people have functioned more
>in one capacity or the other. He once posted something to the effect (at
>least this is how I interpreted it) that he was designing sounds for
>other musicians. Is this true, Mike? Please tell us about it. Or did I
>misunderstand?

Glad to as soon as my fever comes down and my brain unfuzzies. Word to
the wise...don't play in your studio if you're not thinking
straight. I just barfed the brains out of my D-70 and I think I've
lost a fair chunk of patches (unless of course those backups DID work).

Fade out mumbling

--
   mike metlay    | Robert McNally fed Carroll's "Jabberwocky" to a Newton PDA.
   atomic city    | Its text recognition software turned
  p.o.box 81175   | "Beware the Jubjub bird and shun the frumious Bandersnatch"
pgh pa 15217-0675 | into
metlay@netcom.com | "Beware the Subjects bird and shred the serious Bandwidth"!

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 22 Feb 1994 01:07:39 GMT
From:         Jason S Hoffman 
Subject:      Re: How cooperation went forth in Atomic City endeeavours (was re; Cage)

In article <199402212218.OAA16890@netcom8.netcom.com> metlay
 writes:
>>designer relationship ought to work. I ought to ask Mike Metlay if any of
>>his "team" sessions have evolved so that some people have functioned more
>>in one capacity or the other. He once posted something to the effect (at
>>least this is how I interpreted it) that he was designing sounds for
>>other musicians. Is this true, Mike? Please tell us about it. Or did I
>>misunderstand?
>
>Glad to as soon as my fever comes down and my brain unfuzzies. Word to
>the wise...don't play in your studio if you're not thinking
>straight. I just barfed the brains out of my D-70 and I think I've
>lost a fair chunk of patches (unless of course those backups DID work).
>
>Fade out mumbling
>
>--
>   mike metlay    | Robert McNally fed Carroll's "Jabberwocky" to a Newton
PDA.
>   atomic city    | Its text recognition software turned
>  p.o.box 81175   | "Beware the Jubjub bird and shun the frumious
Bandersnatch"
>pgh pa 15217-0675 | into
>metlay@netcom.com | "Beware the Subjects bird and shred the serious
Bandwidth"!

I hope that you don't mean you puked on the synth...
Best wishes Mike.  Hope you feel better soon.  I came down with something like
that Saturday afternoon, took a nap, and was better when I woke up.  Spring
fever, I guess.
Looking forward to more on the team.
-MC MAX 1
--
Jason S Hoffman
hirez@iastate.edu

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 22 Feb 1994 15:46:32 -0500
From:         Brian Good 
Subject:      Re: How cooperation went forth in Atomic City endeeavours (was re;

Mike Metlay writes:
>
> Glad to as soon as my fever comes down and my brain unfuzzies. Word to
> the wise...don't play in your studio if you're not thinking
> straight. I just barfed the brains out of my D-70 and I think I've
> lost a fair chunk of patches (unless of course those backups DID work).

So what's the problem?  Just find an ftp site and get some new ones...   :-)

brian good
bgood@sundagger.lerc.nasa.gov

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 24 Feb 1994 16:54:34 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: How cooperation went forth in Atomic City endeeavours (was re;

>So what's the problem?  Just find an ftp site and get some new ones...   :-)

Apart from anything else, when a D-70 barfs its brains, it really does barf
its brains - right out the MIDI Out port. After that it'll only speak
Japanese.


                        Nick Rothwell   |   cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk
     CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance   |   cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 25 Feb 1994 10:52:05 -0800
From:         metlay 
Subject:      Re: How cooperation went forth in Atomic City endeeavours (was re; Cage)

>I hope that you don't mean you puked on the synth...

No,it puked on me. It'll take a while to get the bytes off my pants.

>Best wishes Mike.  Hope you feel better soon.  I came down with something like
>that Saturday afternoon, took a nap, and was better when I woke up.  Spring
>fever, I guess.
>Looking forward to more on the team.

The Team will be the subject of part 2 of this little post set, and
I hope that those members who read EMUSIC-L will put in their two cents'
worth....I know that there are at least three of them here besides me,
two of whom love a good rhubarb. ;)

--
   mike metlay    |
   atomic city    | QUOTE OF THE WEEK: From Joe McMahon, moderator of EMUSIC-L:
  p.o.box 81175   |
pgh pa 15217-0675 |         "Whee! "
metlay@netcom.com |

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 25 Feb 1994 14:30:07 -0600
From:         David Arthur 
Subject:      Re: How cooperation went fo

Mail*Link(r) SMTP               RE>>How cooperation went for
Hi, I've just joined this happy band of electronic music lovers and I would
like to get caught up on the conversation of "teams".A good friend and I
discovered midi about 8 years ago and have been playing music ever since. So
you see I am very interested in this current topic.
D.C.A

--------------------------------------
Date: 2/25/94 1:34 PM
To: David Arthur
From: Electronic Music Discussion Li
>I hope that you don't mean you puked on the synth...

No,it puked on me. It'll take a while to get the bytes off my pants.

>Best wishes Mike.  Hope you feel better soon.  I came down with something
like
>that Saturday afternoon, took a nap, and was better when I woke up.  Spring
>fever, I guess.
>Looking forward to more on the team.

The Team will be the subject of part 2 of this little post set, and
I hope that those members who read EMUSIC-L will put in their two cents'
worth....I know that there are at least three of them here besides me,
two of whom love a good rhubarb. ;)

--
   mike metlay    |
   atomic city    | QUOTE OF THE WEEK: From Joe McMahon, moderator of
EMUSIC-L: p.o.box 81175   |
pgh pa 15217-0675 |         "Whee! "
metlay@netcom.com |

------------------------------
End of the EMUSIC-L Digest
******************************