The Logic Off Topic list

>Then there is the whole home studio phenomenon and the argument whether this
>improves music by allowing more people get involved or whether it erodes the
>standards set by generations of properly (and I mean self-taught to....)
>trained musicians and producers. Some say this encourages innovation, I
>think it encourages everybody to play the 'me too' game and try to sound
>like everybody else.

Er.  Like the "standards" were not a bunch of producers copying each 
other at the behest of a bunch of artists who wanted to sound like 
(name here)?  Is it just a coincidence that you can hear a tune from 
any of the past five decades for the first time and place it to 
within five or *max* ten years of it's origin?  Are fashions the 
result of some cosmic resonance and not the result people copying 
each other?

Sure there are a billion "me too" artists out there and with the new 
technology they will sound marginally better than they did before and 
remain just as obscure.  The exceptional artists will always be 
exceptional.  Putting more power into the hands of individuals is in 
no possible way a bad thing.

This is like saying that the fact that the economy has improved to 
the point where anyone can buy paint, canvas and brushes has 
destroyed the art of painting.

>Also the availability of good quality (and poor quality...) sample
>libraries - that make everybody sound the same.

Everyone that is but those who put in the effort and take the time to 
sound different.



>Then what napster/mp3.com has done for changing the way people view music
>distribution and copyright.



>Copyright is a good and bad thing. Good in that it allows creators of music
>keep control of their product, but bad in that multinationals can beat
>consumers over the head with copyright as in the latest piracy-protected CD
>scandal (where the majors were shipping faulty CD's that are not meant to
>work in computer CD players).

We'll see what happens in the end but it is pretty easy to understand 
why the high quality copies people can make with computers is 
alarming to rec. companies.

>Time was when people insisted on having an object to hold as they listened
>to music - CD's, LP's etc. are really fetish objects in this context. The
>new objects that people want to have and hold might be MP3 players etc. The
>music itself MAY be secondary, just a sound bite in conversation - 'yeah I
>have the latest from XYZ, downloaded it from nickster.org'.

It will be interesting to see how the mp3 revolution will play out. 
I think the people trying to put that Genie back in the bottle are 
deluding themselves to the point of absurdity.

>Whatcha think yourself?