Fairlight-CMI

This is an interesting one. I see students doing track inefficient things in Pro Tools to do things that we would've achieved more efficiently in the olden days, but would've taken a good bit longer and would be less easy to control. So I take the view that the gigabytes and high track counts are there, so use them any way you like to achieve your vision. The efficiency should be in the time it takes, not system resources.

--- In Fairlight-CMI@yahoogroups.com, Peter Connelly <peter.connelly@...> wrote:

>
> I'm a sound designer (and composer) for video games, starting out in the
> earlier days and noobs have very little idea of restriction. Yes, we still
> work within strict limitations but nothing like it used to be. I do like
> restrictions though, it makes me think outside of the box and even with
> today's lesser restrictions I am quite efficient at saving valuable and
> precious memory. I see some crazy and over complex things being done by
> noobs when it can be done with less fuss if they thought about it
> differently.
> 
> Cheers,
> P
> 
> 
> On 9 January 2011 20:27, Peter Kaye <pdkaye@...> wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> >
> >  Andrew likes being near beer, neither fire, water or plague of locusts
> > could dislodge him.
> >
> >
> > Indeed (ROTFL)! Maybe less Dr. Bombay these days, but more WC Fields. I can
> > imagine him kicking an alligator trying to pull him off a barstool before he
> > is finished with his beer "Leggo my leg you handbag!"
> >
> >
> >  In comparison, the day in day out reliability of the laptop/Logic combo
> > is quite dull.
> >
> >
> >
> > Not to imply the CMI was delicate... all things considered (but then I
> > didn't have 5 of 'em), the complexity, size, weight, heat generation and
> > then often being carted hither and yon, the beautiful beasts were reasonably
> > reliable (a girlfriend of the time called my CMI her "green-faced
> > competition").
> >
> > I can still find plenty with DP, PT, sample culling and software synth
> > tweaking to faff about with if I am looking to procrastinate. And thinking
> > of that, the restriction of 16 monophonic polyphony that Page R provided
> > forced a form of pre-editing that trained efficiency (hold it, let me put my
> > teeth in), lessons that these kids today, blessed with infinite tracks and
> > voices, could use a bit of, me sometimes thinks (gramps is going to bed
> > now).
> >
> > PK
> >
> > 
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Peter Connelly, Director
> Universal Sound Design Ltd
> www.universal-sound-design.com
>

--- In Fairlight-CMI@yahoogroups.com, Peter Connelly <peter.connelly@...> wrote:

> 
> I think in anything you do though, general housekeeping is always a good
> discipline.
Agreed 100%! You have a cool job BTW :)

Tom: I would, of course, agree with you that having the vast overhead is a wonderful thing. But it is interesting to ponder the effect the limitations have on the aesthetic process. I find that my (I like to think natural human) impulse, in a large overhead environment, is always to add something (I have the same problem with frequency equalization ;-P). This tends to make for a dense and sometimes messy surface. I think I may have been very influenced by my kindergarten teacher who taught me the artistic technique of laying down full layers of each colored crayon on a sheet of paper, and then scraping down to the desired color: I tend to put everything everywhere and then sort it out in the mix, a subtractive process. Yet, years later I had the great privilege of co-producing much of an album (Tasmin Archer - "Great Expectations") with the esteemed (Oz) engineer Julian Mendelson. He is primarily a mix engineer and unlike me, has a very protected sense of his "tracks". He liked to have the process so well decided that on mix day you can walk in, push up all the faders (with some relativity) and a twist to the pan, and have the "record". Of course, this would be a perfect case, but it made him a right Nazi as to what he would "allow" on his tracks, and it was a lesson that my procrastinatin' mind really benefited from (left to my druthers, I still tend to shpritz way too much stuff everywhere ;-) ). Curiously, as Tasmin's track's were denser then Page R could hold, I off loaded the original sequencing I did into an early version of Performer (being 1991-2, in a Mac SE30). We found that the sense of groove was so much lost in the process of driving MIDI to the Fairlight (III), that we kept all of the rhythm section on Page R (which really does rock its own tight internal sequences) and only used Performer for the synth/keyboard type parts. The real key is the learning of what are the essential, functioning parts of a sound. I always liken it to Hollywood stage sets: if you are only going to see a front wall with a window and a door, that is all you build. Like learning to actually "hear" what is coming in one's ears (often a process of letting go of all the things you think you might hear) learning to "synthestrate" effectively and efficiently requires a similar type of mental adjustment that limitations help sharpen.

Peter: Wow, would love to hear about some of the problems and solutions you have found in that great (maybe not so, but to me still) new frontier of game design. Do these memory figures represent stereo, or a full surround type?


--- In Fairlight-CMI@yahoogroups.com, "tomulcahy" <tomulcahy@...> wrote:

>
> 
> --- In Fairlight-CMI@yahoogroups.com, Peter Connelly <peter.connelly@> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > I think in anything you do though, general housekeeping is always a good
> > discipline.
> Agreed 100%! You have a cool job BTW :)
>