JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Recording Studio and Gear Forum Why Learn to Play an Instrument?

I just got an e-mail from Cakewalk and the are coming out with SonarX3 and one of the new additions was a rhythm guitar midi program. Add to that the bass/Drum/Keyboard midi programs why even bother to learn an instrument?

Although it will be sonically perfect won't it just be regurgitated blandness?

Interesting topic to discuss.

Cakewalk has had that line out with the session drummer and bassist etc for a while, to be honest they are awful, toys really.

Drums seem to be the only thing you can get away with using software. Im sure one day, there will be a software that will play the bass part as we hear it in our head, which would be "mindblowing" and would be the chit.

But most of the stuff you see today that plays auto arrangements or sampled lines or parts stink.

They cater to people who like loops and repetitive sections ie rappers.

There is a lot of good sampling software but it still has to be played somehow, usually with a keyboard.

But software will never write anything original for you, not yet anyway. Nothing beats a real band to work with, but hard to come by all the time

I tend to separate samples from loops. To me a sample is a specific sound played by a musician using a controller. Verses the same sounds used to create a loop.

I personally like Session Drummer, but I also use it connected to an electric drum kit as the midi controller and I will play the part just using the sounds provided by Session Drummer. Same thing with keyboards. I use the Steinway sample but use a Yamaha keyboard as the midi controller.

Well,
When pitching songs some artists will want a music track. So what do they do in a live setting? The subtile differences when a recording is made in the studio with live musicians is what made many hits.

While I don't know for sure, when Marty Robbins recorded DON'T WORRY BOUT ME, they blew a tube in the process. It resulted in a good recording so they left it in. I hear a lot of stuff on major labels was using programs for the background music. Sometimes it showed. Making demos is one thing, master recordings for release to the public is something else. Of course dealing with musicians and the musicians union is something else.

Analogy: the difference between an artist�s painting and an amateur�s paint-by-numbers.

John

I think it is a different type of creativity.

I've been playing guitar and bass for over 40 years. Most people who know me consider me primarily a bass player. I've also had some piano lessons and play some keyboards. I even tried my hand at mandolin on my most recently recorded song, "Rain Barrel Boogie." Most of the songs I've recorded I'm doing all the singing and playing all the instruments except drums, which are usually either programmed by me or samples, though occasionally I'll play a simple part.

But I do also have lots of samples and a couple sample editing programs, like ACID. I also have Jammer, which is a program like Band-in-the-Box, which will create the accompaniment to your chords in whatever music style you choose. I find these tools fun to play with. I've even used these tools in some of my recordings.

For example, "Cool Is For Posers" is entirely ACID samples except the vocals and bass guitar. It was an experiment in which the result I was happy with.

A song I'm really happy with is "Mr. Henderson We Meet Again." I'm playing the guitars, bass guitar, and many of the keyboard parts, and singing most of the vocals. The rest is samples. But it is a more modern and somewhat experimental style that many here may not be able to relate to.

I've used Jammer also, mostly for piano or orchestra parts. But I don't think I ever used its output straight. It usually sounds too mechanical to me. I usually have to tweak the pattern generation parameters and then edit the resulting MIDI files and even add some live played parts to get them to sound right. An example is the piano in "Na Na Baby Goodbye."

"He Who Dies With The Most Toys" is a mixture of everything: Live guitar, sampled guitar, live bass, Jammer bass, live vocals, some vocals samples, Jammer piano, and tons of other samples. It is a more experimental style song.

The point is that these are tools. You can use them effectively and you can abuse them. They can inspire you. They tend to be more effective if you already have decent experience playing a musical instrument and a good knowledge of music theory.

The songs can be found on the website linked below.

I see it as comparing a person who has learned the 5 different pen and ink styles to the person who uses photo shop effects.

It is cheaper and very few people care anyway.

Never went beyond Audacity for overdubbing. I got a free cakewalk trial when I ordered an external sound card.
From what I could do that would not crash my system it goes back to analog times with my synyh.
I can suck being original but I would rather have what is presented represent me.
Gadget software tends to get in the way of that.