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1999 a glance: in your words

Topic started by Udhaya (@ 205.218.142.217) on Thu Nov 4 15:41:21 EST 1999.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

In this thread I would like people to editorialize their feelings about the state of TFM in 1999. What's the reason for this thread? I'm just craving that time in the Discussion Forum when thoughts were actually exchanged and posts had something to say. I bemoan the current state of discussions that are about clan forming and hurling insults from behind anonymous names. If you want to theorize, you can, if you want to vent you can do that too. Just make them palatable and classy however deep-seeded your put downs get. I prefer you write at length; brevity is for obituaries and classifieds. And please for the sake of progress, use a spell checker.

A simple tip to keep this thread from sinking to the pit: Just write your thoughts about the TFM in 1999. Try not to address another Dfer's post.

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: hari (@ spider-wo083.proxy.aol.com) on: Sat Nov 6 12:26:57 EST 1999
  
  vijay,
  
  As you told deva is undisputed king now for second string of directors and producers. Only SAR is giving him real competition. To me, second string directors can give real break to all the aspiring MDS. All MDS got their break from them. In this aspect, I am not happy with deva and SAR sharing all the work load. FOr all his talent, Vidyasagar never seems to get any consistent offers from these people. It is sad, but excecpt arjun, no one repeated him more than once. Now if you take ARR out of the competition, not much is happening for other MDS, except few chances here and there. I would like to see small group of unit with their own MD, lyricist, and other people, as happening in hindi films,just hoping.
  
  e.hari
  
  
• From: MS (@ 129.252.25.60) on: Sat Nov 6 14:16:11 EST 1999
  
  Seems my good friend vijay is taking some interest in ARR's works - a welcome sign, buddy :-)
  
  
• From: Kamesh (@ hlr-42-11.tm.net.my) on: Sun Nov 7 23:28:44 EST 1999
  
  In my openion 1999 has been to TFM like a cofee made from a filter with no kudai (umbrella). For want of speed ARR has passed quite a bit of kaapi podi. IR's cofee is too watery and Deva and SAR are just making cofee from old dicoction. In my opinion of the second line Vidya Saagar is bound to come up soon. He cant be hiding for so long. Some of his compositions esp Nilavae nilavae etc are quite great. Hope he rises. His melodies are real treats. Hope u all agree.
  
  
• From: Ram (@ 208.244.238.38) on: Thu Nov 11 11:37:38 EST 1999
  
  "antha neram kidaithirunthal nalla anubhavam kidaithirukum" is from Poikal Kuthirai directed by K.Balachander music by M.S.V. That movie is an adaptation of Crazy Mohan's "Marriage made in Saloon fun movie to watch.
  
  
• From: kiru (@ surf0004.sybase.com) on: Thu Nov 11 17:33:38 EST 1999
  
  Re: IR using synth violins - The reason nobody knows what is acoustic recording is :(. I dont blame we do not have good music systems to play them. So it is easy to record synth violins - straight off the MIDI port of your keyboard to your computer. Also, most people associate synth sounds to better recording (thanks to, you know who).
  
  I hate this synth stuff either violin or percussion. Actually, synth percussion annoys the heck out of me. Sounds as though I went to dance club with cheap speakers.
  
  
• From: kiru (@ surf0004.sybase.com) on: Thu Nov 11 17:41:25 EST 1999
  
  YSR seems to understand the POP format very well (like ARR) eg. PKP and UEU . He also seems to be good at digital recording and sound mixing. He is a good find in 1999.
  
  IRs music will not have the same popularity anymore. The market has been fed less musical/but more beatsy/catchy POP. This is not IRs forte.
  
  Even that classic song in TIME will not be a big hit with the public.
  
  His music will continue to lose mainstream popularity just like Western Classical/Jazz to POP here in US or Europe.
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ 216.32.18.74) on: Thu Nov 11 18:11:34 EST 1999
  
  I dont blame we do not have good music systems to play them
  -- Prasad studio has/had some of the top recording console found in the world.
  Pachathan Inn and Media artists have top of the line digital recording consoles, being used properly. Regarding synths I think you heard only the synts found in best buy or circuit city.
  
  If you heard Korg (trinity) or emu systems synths , you would know samples are close to the original
  
  If cat closes it eyes, the world becomes dark.
  --- Applies to Mr.Kiru.
  
  Thanks ram for posting about the MSV song
  
  
  
  
• From: kiru (@ surf0004.sybase.com) on: Thu Nov 11 20:32:54 EST 1999
  
  Srikanth,
  Why did you say "cat closes the eye" applies to me ?
  
  
• From: kiru (@ surf0004.sybase.com) on: Thu Nov 11 20:48:37 EST 1999
  
  BTW,
  I am trying not to get provoked by these personal attacks. Srikanth try not to attack the person. Attack the point. Maintain some parliamentary decorum. Please read what is mentioned in bold in the subject of this thread.
  
  
• From: Udhaya (@ 205.218.142.166) on: Thu Nov 11 21:14:06 EST 1999
  
  Srikanth,
  Come on, man, you should know better than to provoke someone in this thread. Especially, when kiru has made a very sensible even-tempered comment that deserves a better response.
  
  I know you have been unfairly torched before in this forum but this is not one of those times. I adore your technical prowess and eat up all the juicy musical knowledge you impart but there's no need for snide remarks here, man, come on.
  
  Now, don't go fuming off from the forum either, stay and mingle but maintain the peace that has prevailed so far.
  
  Coming to Kiru's point about synthesized drums, I also find it annoying. For example, take "Vaanaththu Thaaragayoa" from "Poonthaottam", definitely one of the best songs of recent times, but the keyboard-drum used for this song sounds like someone banging on an inverted bucket. A thicker bass sound (hey, even Deva knows how to give thick bass beats) would have lifted this song even higher.
  
  A slight excursion from TFM but pardon me if you can pardon endless tangents to Hindi music discussion in the forum. Remember the famous rock'n'roll song "She drives me crazy" by the Fine Young Cannibals from the 80s? I feel songs like that in western music could also do well to use thicker bass beats or real drums. Prince is the only artist to have given great sounding synth drums in western music. Other than Prince I would have to say ARR and YSR give the best appropriate rhythm for each song. Of course, in folk rhythm instruments, IR has never had this problem.
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ dialupi115.sttl.uswest.net) on: Fri Nov 12 07:18:51 EST 1999
  
  most people associate synth sounds to better recording (thanks to, you know who).
  -- I thought he rubbed me on the wrong side!...first.
  
  anyway my intention is have healthy talk.
  sORRY.
  
  
• From: kiru (@ surf0004.sybase.com) on: Fri Nov 12 13:19:40 EST 1999
  
  Udhaya, Thanks for those sensible comments. You are absolutely right about 'vAnaththu thAragaiyO' song. Even the new Eric
  Clapton songs have bad synth drums. I understand that Pop musicians in the US use synth drums because they want the songs to
  sound good when people are listening to their car stereo. Listening in the car is what it seems drives CD sales. B I think IR does
  not care about synth stuff. He is probably leaving it to Karthik Raja who messes it up. YSR is a better guy in these respects, like
  you said. Anyways, I am one of those guys who feel the current digital format (CD) is not very 'musical/smooth'. If that is my
  opinion regarding reproduction of music you will see how much I am against production of music using digital stuff. I am told
  SuperAudioCD is very close to analog that one can get with digital. Anyways, if you want to listen to a good acoustical
  recording, (you probably have heard). check out 'A meeting by the River' by VM Bhatt and Ry Cooder. Label is Waterlily
  acoustics. The main reason behind my original posts was using digital stuff for everything is not the way to go. But this year it
  looks more and more MDs are embracing the digital medium. Very ironical for IR who began his career wanting to start a
  orchestra with hundreds of people.
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ 216.32.18.74) on: Fri Nov 12 14:11:02 EST 1999
  
  Kiru
  2) Can you substantiate you theory of digital recording is poor than Analog and it not smooth for music -- Can you Define smooth sound!
  1) what is synth Drums-- can you explain it more...
  
  
  
• From: Udhaya (@ 205.218.142.166) on: Fri Nov 12 15:43:36 EST 1999
  
  Srikanth and kiru, thanks for bringing the thread back to worthy discussions. I'm eagerly awaiting the synth drums debate.
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ 216.32.18.74) on: Fri Nov 12 17:05:55 EST 1999
  
  As far as I know the digital recording is just a medium, this does not affect quality of the composing in any way. A Dumb composer will sound dump in recording in Digital or Analog,
  E.g.: DEVA or many of the Hindi songs.
  
  It is like a storywriter using MS WORD. How do you feel if you say best is write by hand etc, WORD is tool that makes your work simple and concentrate more on you imagination than worrying about the final output, which is taken care by MS-WORD.
  
  Digital recording offers more quality of sound! What is quality?
  
  Sound without any distortion, recorded as sung or played. There is no loss of data.
  Basically in a digital recording we can easily identify the scratches etc and remove them.
  
  Digital recording is a great boon to any musician, because his work is heard more clearly and heard as produced.
  
  Various formats: If recorded as analog, transferring musical data is not easy, if done in digital format I can transfer from DAT to WAV to DAT to MP3 or Vice Versa
  All these can be done without a data loss, sure we can transfer data from analog spool to DAT, but there will be considerable loss of sound quality.
  
  Tracks: We can record as many tracks you want, you need not bundle 20 sounds in a track,
  We can give a good stereo separation in the recording or in case of DTS or Dolby we can achieve 5/8 track outputs; we cannot achieve this with Analog.
  
  Tools: There are many tools even small timers can have access to them, we can use the power of the PC for recording, the tracks can be cut or punched in very easily.
  A digital sequencer is some thing like a word processor but instead of text we use sound,
  We can replicate, cut, copy, paste, transpose, mix etc.
  
  Sound balancing, since the sound is digitized we can play around with its spectrum, amplitude becomes a parameter henceforth volume can be controlled very easily.
  
  These are few I can remember now
  
  Finally, Digital recording is a medium it does not or cannot dictate the quality of composing in any way.
  
  Kiru it is your turn to for the cons of digital recordings.
  
  
  
• From: kiru (@ surf0004.sybase.com) on: Fri Nov 12 17:47:34 EST 1999
  
  Okay, I am not knowledgeable in music but surely I understand the difference between composing and recording. That said let me get down to the nitty-gritty.
  
  First, let us differentiate between digital recording and digital instruments.
  
  Digital recording is rapidly becoming a popular medium. Even recording engineers who are known to go with the analog medium are switching to digital medium. A recent issue of a recording magazine estimates that for $10000 one can get a good digital recording/mixing setup (I am not sure about the specifics).
  So whats wrong with the digital ? Well, it all depends on the format you are using. If you are using 16bit/44.1Khz. It does not really digitise all the 'music'. Theoretically, it is possible. But because of electronic issues in sampling and digital-to-analog conversion a digitally recorded and reproduced sound lacks the 'smoothness' of a high quality tape master. Most audiophile recording companies still do their masters in tape. So how do we solve this ? By increasing the word size and sampling rate. 24bit/96KHz is the standard now. Sony will soon start making 24bit/192KHz Digital Stream Data. Sony hopes masters will now on be made in DSD and down converted to 16bit/44.1Khz(CD) or 24bit/96Khz DVD-Audio or used as is by its SACD format. You can now listen to 24bit-96KHz Audio-DVDs from Chesky.com and see how it is better than CDs.
  
  Now coming to analog recordings. Most acoustic performances and especially ones which do not need mixing are usually recorded in analog in high quality tapes. The last concert I attended had only two microphones for recording. These high quality analog master tapes are later sampled to the CD standard. Buy any of the Waterlily acoustics label CD you can read how they record.
  The major problem with analog recording is - at every point in the recording process one has to watch out for noise, degrading electronics etc. From mic to preamp to tape. and while mixing from the console electronics as well. And every where you have to use proper cables, good power supply etc. This is the reason digital is winning the war against analog.
  
  Coming back to digital instruments. It is very easy to see that a musical instrument produces not just one frequency but many many harmonics of it. For eg. using a synth drum produces only a few of the harmonics of an actual drum. This is done to get the electronics simpler and RAM requirements lesser. Play a synth violin or whatever from the highest quality electronic keyboard and listen to an actual violin. You will very easily tell the difference. So if the violin were recorded (even digitally) it will sound much more 'nice' to you.
  Playing digital samples maybe better than the sound produced by keyboards themselves. But then again parameters of digital recording determine the quality of the playback. For eg. Steinway is a must for any piano concert, an electronic keyboard will never do. My friend just bought a Yamaha piano for $6000 (he is a software engineer). Why ? because it does not sound the same.
  
  This is one reason you will see people pay $50-$100 to go to an acoustical western classical music concert (the concert is not electronically amplified at all - no speakers). There you will not see keyboards (except for Yanni, but then again it does not replace his string section)
  
  Ofcourse, all these depends on the quality of stereo system you have for reproduction.
  
  
  

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