[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> Analog to Digital Dj mixes coded language...

["Paul D. Miller" <anansi1@earthlink.net>]

Hey "Trip" - okay. I'll respond to your two observations separately:

>  >> the likelyhood of multimedia platforms becoming more compact, i 
>think is less likely, due to increased specialization and access to 
>the technology. there will be more toys and bits and bites for one 
>to play with: a confusing melee of digital instrumentation that 
>could make it more difficult to switch between mediums, especially 
>by people who don't understand a device or medium beyond the "on" 
>switch.

response: there's pretty much been a trend towards miniaturization 
for the last several centuries, and if you think about common stuff 
like the fact that your average digital watch has more computing 
power than the early space program that launched people to the moon, 
or sent satellites into deep space, the physical metaphor becomes a 
little more profound. We're just at a cross roads. There's an old 
adage William Gibson used to say "The future is already here... it's 
just unevenly distributed" - I look at that kind of observation as a 
pretty open ended statement about how technics culture works. But the 
basic premise that everyone has to know everything about what they 
use doesn't ring true... c'mon... think about how many really know 
how their toilet works... but most people in the industrialized world 
use one... toilets are networked systems too... and switch mediums in 
those all the time... (just joking, but it is true...)... compactness 
and the ability to handle a wide variety of applications and formats 
are what seem to be the holy grail of the computing industry - places 
like Sudan or China are pretty much skipping the old skool situation 
of "landlines" and going straight into cellular culture, while we in 
the U.S. are overburdened not by new material (in fact, most of the 
cell phones that come to the U.S. compared to Japan and other 
"distributed wireless" communities are downright neolithic... the 
bulk of them are still not geared to do simple things like basic 
e-mail, let alone visual text greetings etc etc but yeah, there will 
definitely be alot more "toys" around. If you're into using the net 
as a compositional tool, check out a spot like www.soundtoys.net

I keep thinking of Adorno and Marcuse's ideas on the 
"infantilization" of industrial humanity, and sometimes when I'm 
on-line, as much as I can't stand Adorno (his critique of "mass 
culture" is pretty much crap), this is one area where I agree with 
him.

question:
>don't you think part of this digital specialization and confusion 
>can be seen even in the attempted categorizations of electronic 
>music? I once talked to someone who thought "trance" referred to any 
>kind of electronic music... by no mistake of theirs: it's just that 
>clarity tends to come through attempts at organisation and 
>definition: something that digital mediums tend to dissolve and add 
>to the grey zones....


response:

>yeah, I pretty much agree... but that seems to be the logic of urban 
>structure in general... there's a great new book by Steven Johnson 
>called "Emergence." Johnson is one of the few "cyber crit" theory 
>critics I respect at this point. His premise is that urban narrative 
>and narrative compression (how many people can fit into a specific 
>geographic space and how many signals can pass through a system) are 
>relative - this is where people like Claude Shannon and Norbert 
>Wiener (it's late and I'm tired... did I spell that right?), but 
>again, that's where stuff like "collaborative filtering" becomes a 
>norm - think about how many options there are for simple stuff like 
>printing a piece of text and take that to an exponential level... to 
>use your phrase "clarity tends to come through attempts at 
>organisation and definition: something that digital mediums tend to 
>dissolve and add to the grey zones...." - can you imagine how 
>someone like a monk from say, 16th century Ireland (one of the first 
>places to vigorously copy the Bible, and thus one of the first "copy 
>right" infringement cultures in the West....) would interpret the 
>wave form functions of say, a track drawn and created in Digital 
>Performer or Metasynth (a software program that lets you draw visual 
>images and translate them into sound) etc etc - the only thing 
>linking a human from the past to what's going on in the present is 
>that essentially our "operating" system - body and mind - haven't 
>really changed that much. What's going on now is simply different 
>interpretations of the same impulses... confusion everywhere, I 
>guess...


anyway, thanks for the inquiry. Sorry about the delay in response. I 
travel and that slows things down.
peace,
Paul D. Miller a.k.a. Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid





>Paul D. Miller" <anansi1@mail.earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>I tend to think that this will create some kind of compact multi-media
>platform that can handle almost all aspects of digital creativity
>within a couple of years...
>
>
>
>    >> the likelyhood of multimedia platforms becoming more compact, 
>i think is less likely, due to increased specialization and access 
>to the technology. there will be more toys and bits and bites for 
>one to play with: a confusing melee of digital instrumentation that 
>could make it more difficult to switch between mediums, especially 
>by people who don't understand a device or medium beyond the "on" 
>switch.
>
>don't you think part of this digital specialization and confusion 
>can be seen even in the attempted categorizations of electronic 
>music? I once talked to someone who thought "trance" referred to any 
>kind of electronic music... by no mistake of theirs: it's just that 
>clarity tends to come through attempts at organisation and 
>definition: something that digital mediums tend to dissolve and add 
>to the grey zones....
>
>---((o))))]]++--- - - - -
>
>tripDixon
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>&&&&+++++ http://www.mp3.com/tripdixon <<<<<<ooooooo
>
>
>
>>From: "Paul D. Miller" <anansi1@mail.earthlink.net>
>>Reply-To: "Paul D. Miller" <anansi1@mail.earthlink.net>
>>To: "nettime-l@bbs.thing.net" <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>
>>Subject: <nettime> Analog to Digital Dj mixes coded language...
>>Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 16:56:21 -0500
>>
>>The whole situation is what I've been talking about for a while...
>>this will bring digital music into a relationship with not only how
>>we create sound but also how we think about file systems, media for
>>data storage, and almost all other aspects of how contemporary
>>culture now is a culture of the "operating system" of networks of
>>discourse... it always makes me chuckle to see kids in Japan and
>>Finland, and even like remote Pakistan have a whole generation of
>>budding cell phone composers and graphic designers... I call it the
>>Bin Laden effect - it makes people improvise their graphic design
>>impulse in response to the social environment they find themselves
>>enmeshed in, but of course, they also want sounds to accompany the
>>process so they  use cell phones to compose music for greetings and
>>to select what kind of people they feel like hanging out with... I
>>tend to think that this will create some kind of compact multi-media
>>platform that can handle almost all aspects of digital creativity
>>within a couple of years... think about how much the use of home
>>computers and consumer audio electronics brought what was usually
>>limited to academics and large corporations into the grasp of the
>>average consumer... the kind of software that's described in this
>>article will pretty much do the same thing for digital sound
>>production, and all that that implies...
>>
>>Paul
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  >
>>  >The New Breed of Digital DJ
>>  >By Yakob Peterseil
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >Record sales are down this year, and the proliferation of digital
>>  >audio files over the Internet is partially to blame.  Since Napster
>>  >burst on the scene in the late '90s and terms like "MP3" and "bit
>>  >rate" became part of the national lexicon, the hard drive has
>>  >rivaled the home stereo as people's most popular means of bringing
>>  >music into their homes and offices.  Home computers equipped with PC
>>  >jukebox programs offer several obvious advantages over traditional
>>  >CD-player stereos: they do away with those bothersome and
>>  >easily-damaged silver coasters, they have tons more storage space,
>>  >and playing any song from a record label's entire catalog is
>>  >potentially only a mouse click away (that is, once the majors unveil
>>  >their subscription services; until then, there's still peer-to-peer).
>>  >
>>  >So it is only natural that the trend away from "hard media" should
>>  >eventually pass from those who play music simply for fun to those,
>>  >like professional DJs, who do it for a living.  After all, if you
>>  >think it's cumbersome loading CDs into your stereo sitting at your
>>  >desk at home, think of the tribulations of a DJ who must load
>>  >upwards of twenty CDs an hour standing and sweating with a headphone
>>  >to his ear high above a dance floor.  For the most part, those DJs
>>  >who previously used twin CD decks have already been converted to
>>  >audio files.  Several new computer programs allow for the
>>  >manipulation of MP3s the same way Pioneer's CDJ-1000 Digital Vinyl
>>  >Turntable allowed for the manipulation of CDs: with a jog dial,
>>  >users can slow down, speed up, or scratch audio files similar to the
>>  >way DJs tweak vinyl.
>>  >
>>  >But a new sound system is sending shock waves through the DJ
>>  >community by purporting to be the digital audio file equivalent to
>>  >the classic DJ set-up of two turntables, a mixer, and a stack of
>>  >vinyl.  N2IT Development, a Dutch company, has developed a new
>>  >technology it calls Final Scratch, a hardware/software package
>>  >designed to work with a Sony Vaio laptop and simulate for users the
>>  >phenomenon of spinning vinyl using digital music files.  Purists may
>>  >scoff, but Final Scratch technology has already made a believer out
>>  >of world-famous DJ Richie Hawtin.  The Canadian is among the first
>>  >people to use Final Scratch professionally, and the professed
>>  >vinyl-junkie can barely contain his enthusiasm over his
>>  >revolutionary new system: "[Final Scratch] opens these floodgates to
>>  >a whole new potential," he told the New York Times last week.
>>  >
>>  >Last Night That DJ's Laptop Saved My Life
>>  >
>>  >The system that Hawtin uses is the vanguard of digital DJing.
>>  >Pioneer introduced their Digital Vinyl Turntable earlier this year,
>>  >which surprised many analog purists with the relatively easy and
>>  >accurate transition from spinning vinyl to spinning compact discs.
>>  >Hawtin's Final Scratch uses audio files in ways that previous
>>  >programs only hinted at.  "DJ technologies have come out to help you
>>  >mix, but those have been relegated to the mouse and the keyboard,"
>>  >Hawtin says. "It's so much easier to skip through the files when you
>>  >are using a needle" (Wired News).
>>  >
>>  >Enter Final Scratch, originally conceived at a hacker convention in
>>  >Amsterdam, which uses existing turntable technology to manipulate
>>  >audio files as if they were vinyl records.  The system is composed
>>  >of three main parts: the classic two-turntable-and-a-mixer DJ
>>  >set-up, a specially equipped laptop computer, and the ScratchAmp
>>  >interface, which connects the turntables to the computer.  Using a
>>  >traditional turntable stylus and specialized Final Scratch vinyl
>>  >records, a DJ can cue up and manipulate audio files as easily as
>>  >spinning vinyl.  The specialized Final Scratch record acts as a
>>  >conductor between the stylus and the audio file: the program
>>  >translates whatever action the DJ performs with the needle to a
>>  >corresponding effect in the audio file.  For example, scratching the
>>  >Final Scratch vinyl at the record's two-minute mark would scratch
>>  >the corresponding audio file at the same spot to within a
>>  >millisecond of precision.  This allows digital music to be used in
>>  >precisely the same way vinyl records are and makes the array of
>>  >techniques and tricks that make up the artistry of DJing no longer
>>  >restricted to using vinyl records.
>>  >
>>  >Those who can forgo the vinyl purist outlook of most DJs will find
>>  >there are a lot of conveniences to be had as a result of Final
>>  >Scratch.  Hawtin has some 900 audio files stored on his laptop, most
>>  >of them encoded from vinyl, which he has categorized and
>>  >cross-referenced so that retrieving them becomes a snap.  Even
>>  >better, unlike the costly dub-plates that DJs use to encode their
>>  >tracks on vinyl and that deteriorate after 15 to 20 plays, Hawtin's
>>  >audio files retain their sound quality indefinitely.  As for the
>>  >notoriously suspect sound quality of encoded files, "a lot of the
>>  >sound systems in clubs aren't that great, so you can't tell the
>>  >difference in quality," Hawtin says (Wired News).  The DJ is
>>  >especially enamored of the fact that with Final Scratch he can use
>>  >actual turntables, which he claims get better crowd response than if
>>  >he were stuck behind a computer clicking a mouse.
>>  >
>>  >Perhaps the greatest advantage of Final Scratch is the fact that
>>  >Hawtin no longer has to lug huge crates of vinyl from gig to gig.
>>  >Except for the hundred or so records he still carries to gigs
>>  >(vinyl-lover that he is), the DJ's entire repertoire is stored on
>>  >his laptop.  "Do you have any idea how much a crate of records
>>  >weighs?" he asked the New York Times.  Hawtin's former setup with
>>  >900 records, one might suppose, weighed a lot.
>>  >
>>  >Please Try This at Home
>>  >
>>  >Over the last two decades, the DJ has become more and more of an
>>  >enviable figure, now rivaling the status of the rock star of the
>>  >'60s and '70s.  Just as there were thousands of amateur guitarists
>>  >aspiring to become Hendrix but rarely leaving their bedrooms, so
>>  >there are "Desk Jockeys"-those who spin records primarily for
>>  >themselves and a few friends.  These home DJs were the first to
>>  >widely use digital DJ equipment and embrace the digital audio
>>  >movement of which Final Scratch is the tail end.  A company called
>>  >Carrot Innovations has offered a shareware program for some time now
>>  >called Virtual Turntables, modeled after Panasonic CD-decks.  The
>>  >program, which is free to test and $42 to keep, works with
>>  >mouse-controlled jog dials and a cross-fader to bring users such
>>  >features as real-time mixing, volume and pitch control, and even
>>  >some rudimentary scratching.  With the addition of a cheap strobe
>>  >light, anyone can now create a dance club in their own home without
>>  >a closet filled with vinyl records.  As more people are allowed to
>>  >create music this way in their homes, look for dance music to become
>>  >more popular and go beyond the club.
>>
>>
>>
>>============================================================================
>>
>>Port:status>OPEN
>>wildstyle access: www.djspooky.com
>>
>>Paul D. Miller a.k.a. Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid
>>
>>Subliminal Kid Inc.
>>
>>Office Mailing Address:
>>
>>Music and Art Management
>>245 w14th st #2RC NY NY
>>10011
>>--============_-1207297906==_ma============
>>Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii"
>>Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>>
>>The whole situation is what I've been talking about for a while... this
>>will bring digital music into a relationship with not only how we
>>create sound but also how we think about file systems, media for data
>>storage, and almost all other aspects of how contemporary culture now
>>is a culture of the "operating system" of networks of discourse... it
>>always makes me chuckle to see kids in Japan and Finland, and even like
>>remote Pakistan have a whole generation of budding cell phone composers
>>and graphic designers... I call it the Bin Laden effect - it makes
>>people improvise their graphic design impulse in response to the social
>>environment they find themselves enmeshed in, but of course, they also
>>want sounds to accompany the process so they  use cell phones to
>>compose music for greetings and to select what kind of people they feel
>>like hanging out with... I tend to think that this will create some
>>kind of compact multi-media platform that can handle almost all aspects
>>of digital creativity within a couple of years... think about how much
>>the use of home computers and consumer audio electronics brought what
>>was usually limited to academics and large corporations into the grasp
>>of the average consumer... the kind of software that's described in
>>this article will pretty much do the same thing for digital sound
>>production, and all that that implies...
>>
>>
>>Paul
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>><excerpt>
>>
>><bold><italic><fontfamily><param>Geneva</param><bigger><bigger><bigger>The
>>New Breed of Digital DJ
>>
>></bigger></bigger></bigger></fontfamily></italic></bold><fontfamily><param>G=
>>eneva</param><bigger>By
>>Yakob Peterseil
>>
>>
>>
>><bigger>Record sales are down this year, and the proliferation of
>>digital audio files over the Internet is partially to blame.  Since
>>Napster burst on the scene in the late '90s and terms like "MP3" and
>>"bit rate" became part of the national lexicon, the hard drive has
>>rivaled the home stereo as people's most popular means of bringing
>>music into their homes and offices.  Home computers equipped with PC
>>jukebox programs offer several obvious advantages over traditional
>>CD-player stereos: they do away with those bothersome and
>>easily-damaged silver coasters, they have tons more storage space, and
>>playing any song from a record label's entire catalog is potentially
>>only a mouse click away (that is, once the majors unveil their
>>subscription services; until then, there's still peer-to-peer).
>>
>>
>>So it is only natural that the trend away from "hard media" should
>>eventually pass from those who play music simply for fun to those, like
>>professional DJs, who do it for a living.  After all, if you think it's
>>cumbersome loading CDs into your stereo sitting at your desk at home,
>>think of the tribulations of a DJ who must load upwards of twenty CDs
>>an hour standing and sweating with a headphone to his ear high above a
>>dance floor.  For the most part, those DJs who previously used twin CD
>>decks have already been converted to audio files.  Several new computer
>>programs allow for the manipulation of MP3s the same way Pioneer's
>>CDJ-1000 Digital Vinyl Turntable allowed for the manipulation of CDs:
>>with a jog dial, users can slow down, speed up, or scratch audio files
>>similar to the way DJs tweak vinyl.
>>
>>
>>But a new sound system is sending shock waves through the DJ community
>>by purporting to be the digital audio file equivalent to the classic DJ
>>set-up of two turntables, a mixer, and a stack of vinyl.  N2IT
>>Development, a Dutch company, has developed a new technology it calls
>>=46inal Scratch, a hardware/software package designed to work with a Sony
>>Vaio laptop and simulate for users the phenomenon of spinning vinyl
>>using digital music files.  Purists may scoff, but Final Scratch
>>technology has already made a believer out of world-famous DJ Richie
>>Hawtin.  The Canadian is among the first people to use Final Scratch
>>professionally, and the professed vinyl-junkie can barely contain his
>>enthusiasm over his revolutionary new system: "[Final Scratch] opens
>>these floodgates to a whole new potential," he told the New York Times
>>last week.
>>
>>
>>Last Night That DJ's Laptop Saved My Life=20
>>
>>
>>The system that Hawtin uses is the vanguard of digital DJing.  Pioneer
>>introduced their Digital Vinyl Turntable earlier this year, which
>>surprised many analog purists with the relatively easy and accurate
>>transition from spinning vinyl to spinning compact discs.  Hawtin's
>>=46inal Scratch uses audio files in ways that previous programs only
>>hinted at.  "DJ technologies have come out to help you mix, but those
>>have been relegated to the mouse and the keyboard," Hawtin says. "It's
>>so much easier to skip through the files when you are using a needle"
>>(Wired News).
>>
>>
>>Enter Final Scratch, originally conceived at a hacker convention in
>>Amsterdam, which uses existing turntable technology to manipulate audio
>>files as if they were vinyl records.  The system is composed of three
>>main parts: the classic two-turntable-and-a-mixer DJ set-up, a
>>specially equipped laptop computer, and the ScratchAmp interface, which
>>connects the turntables to the computer.  Using a traditional turntable
>>stylus and specialized Final Scratch vinyl records, a DJ can cue up and
>>manipulate audio files as easily as spinning vinyl.  The specialized
>>=46inal Scratch record acts as a conductor between the stylus and the
>>audio file: the program translates whatever action the DJ performs with
>>the needle to a corresponding effect in the audio file.  For example,
>>scratching the Final Scratch vinyl at the record's two-minute mark
>>would scratch the corresponding audio file at the same spot to within a
>>millisecond of precision.  This allows digital music to be used in
>>precisely the same way vinyl records are and makes the array of
>>techniques and tricks that make up the artistry of DJing no longer
>>restricted to using vinyl records.
>>
>>
>>Those who can forgo the vinyl purist outlook of most DJs will find
>>there are a lot of conveniences to be had as a result of Final Scratch.
>>  Hawtin has some 900 audio files stored on his laptop, most of them
>>encoded from vinyl, which he has categorized and cross-referenced so
>>that retrieving them becomes a snap.  Even better, unlike the costly
>>dub-plates that DJs use to encode their tracks on vinyl and that
>>deteriorate after 15 to 20 plays, Hawtin's audio files retain their
>>sound quality indefinitely.  As for the notoriously suspect sound
>>quality of encoded files, "a lot of the sound systems in clubs aren't
>>that great, so you can't tell the difference in quality," Hawtin says
>>(Wired News).  The DJ is especially enamored of the fact that with
>>=46inal Scratch he can use actual turntables, which he claims get better
>>crowd response than if he were stuck behind a computer clicking a
>>mouse.
>>
>>
>>Perhaps the greatest advantage of Final Scratch is the fact that Hawtin
>>no longer has to lug huge crates of vinyl from gig to gig.  Except for
>>the hundred or so records he still carries to gigs (vinyl-lover that he
>>is), the DJ's entire repertoire is stored on his laptop.  "Do you have
>>any idea how much a crate of records weighs?" he asked the New York
>>Times.  Hawtin's former setup with 900 records, one might suppose,
>>weighed a lot.=20
>>
>>
>>Please Try This at Home=20
>>
>>
>>Over the last two decades, the DJ has become more and more of an
>>enviable figure, now rivaling the status of the rock star of the '60s
>>and '70s.  Just as there were thousands of amateur guitarists aspiring
>>to become Hendrix but rarely leaving their bedrooms, so there are "Desk
>>Jockeys"-those who spin records primarily for themselves and a few
>>friends.  These home DJs were the first to widely use digital DJ
>>equipment and embrace the digital audio movement of which Final Scratch
>>is the tail end.  A company called Carrot Innovations has offered a
>>shareware program for some time now called Virtual Turntables, modeled
>>after Panasonic CD-decks.  The program, which is free to test and $42
>>to keep, works with mouse-controlled jog dials and a cross-fader to
>>bring users such features as real-time mixing, volume and pitch
>>control, and even some rudimentary scratching.  With the addition of a
>>cheap strobe light, anyone can now create a dance club in their own
>>home without a closet filled with vinyl records.  As more people are
>>allowed to create music this way in their homes, look for dance music
>>to become more popular and go beyond the club.=20
>>
>></bigger></bigger></fontfamily></excerpt><fontfamily><param>Geneva</param><b=
>>igger><bigger></bigger></bigger></fontfamily>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
>>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
>>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
>>=3D
>>
>>
>>Port:status>OPEN
>>
>>wildstyle access: www.djspooky.com
>>
>>
>>Paul D. Miller a.k.a. Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid
>>
>>
>>Subliminal Kid Inc.
>>
>>
>>Office Mailing Address:
>>
>>
>>Music and Art Management
>>
>>245 w14th st #2RC NY NY=20
>>
>>10011
>>
>>--============_-1207297906==_ma============--
>>
>>#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
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>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp



============================================================================

Port:status>OPEN
wildstyle access: www.djspooky.com

Paul D. Miller a.k.a. Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid

Subliminal Kid Inc.

Office Mailing Address:

Music and Art Management
245 w14th st #2RC NY NY
10011

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