EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

Hendrik Jan Veenstra wrote:
> Ah...  That's interesting...  And kind of funny, in a way.  I mean,
> here we are, all worrying about CPU cycles, and software updates, and
> the fastest RAM, and USB and Firewire, and ASIO vs DIO, and all sorts
> of technical gibberish that most people would find completely
> unintelligible -- and apparently (almost) everyone here knows what
> we're talking about.  And then it appears that this same sort of
> techno-geek-literacy we all share does _not_ apply when it comes down
> to the instruments we play music with...  I mean, that *is* somewhat
> curious, in a way, isn't it?  Not that it matters that much.  Not at
> all in fact.  Still it's a somewhat curious state of affairs imho.

Isn't that just the same with a lot of things?
Take music in general (or Eli's example for a specific technical case); how
many people are there (in the socalled pro league that is) that still know
how to read sheet music, interprete chords or even play an instrument at
all? Less and less. The same might be true for technical experience in other
areas.
Seems as if us ol' handworkers are dying away - and I can even understand
that. Myself, I studied music, know quite a lot about theory, blabla, and
from a technical viewpoint I even know the most hidden screws of any of my
guitars (and I got quite some...). Any of my students would run away if I'd
even try to tell them to wax their pickups by themselves. The same might be
true for synths. People just like presets.
And no, this is no criticism at all. In the end it's just the music that
counts. I could care less whether someone was using presets or not, or
whether someone knows how to arrange something over a Dom7/13/b9 chord.
Actually, that was different in my "fusion years". I was just looking for
those great players - only to find out that in the end they were "musician's
musicians". I learnt to care more about the music itself when playing in a
rather straight rock/pop/grunge band.

Sascha