:lol: :lol: You said "geekturd", and about blew espresso all over my lappy!:lol: :lol:

That "EDM/Live pasting snipets together sound" [paraphrasing] had been my impasse in trying to connect properly with *anyone* on the Elektron Forum in specific to the Analog Four, which has great potential for the atmospheric drones and such I am working on as well as ambient/chill.

However, I hate to sound like an ass (probably way too late for that), but ALMOST ALL **so-called user's music** sounds so much alike with absolutely NO SONG STRUCTURE to where it's *nowhere near* being the 'Berlin School' type of synth music I make my own take on. Rather, it's maniacal snip-its all chained somewhat together and through chaotic repetition (nowhere NEAR in a Tangerine Dream way, in which I admire and like), it makes me wonder if as seen on this forum quite a few times of recent, people becoming incredibly lazy in making music, let alone in programming and learning TO PROGRAM their instruments??!

I will not resolve to saying I am just older...no, there's more CRAP-tastic music out there that I personally find unlistenable but it does not mean I think all those are without talent entirely; just a bit "me too mentality" compilers of clips and samples.

With that said, there IS something admirable about an improvisation process but I guess as they say, "it's just my opinion, and everyone has one".
Perhaps what I am wondering is if there's a lot of people that forgo practice makes perfect, acquired skills, and music theory? Glad to hear other thoughts on this.:confused:

Looks like this one went side ways...AGAIN! Lol.

Says the gentleman NOT enjoying my 6 F on a good day;) Hope you are enjoying plenty of Raves down in your island-ish weather, and it's whatever genre that makes you and crowds very happy! :p

Sideways is the way I 'roll'! :p

I don't know, there are certain types of music where music theory doesn't help, while practice always helps whatever we do, musical or non-musical.

It's not that I believe Skrillex or whoever are skill-less (as coincidentally as a pun might tend to arise from that sentence). I would actually shake the kid's hand and congratulate him if I ever met him, because he is basically credited with inventing a musical genre, something that not too many folks can claim -- it's just that I believe that particular genre is more technical in nature than musical, and if we are in the business of admiring technical skills then the best music producers in the world start to look less impressive up against a mediocre, run of the mill software developer. For me to enjoy their music is a whole different beast, they don't need to create a new genre for that.

However, this thread got me thinking over the last two days. I was trying to identify any musical band or artist that has been formed in recent years that actually got my attention, motivated me to listen to the product of their labor. I really can't think of one in recent years that caught my ear. At first I thought of MGMT, because I thought some of their tunes were decent, but it turns out they were actually formed in 2002, which is just a couple of years before the industry started really imploding. You can see where I'm headed with that -- a talent vacuum stemming from Internet sharing. I'm not talking about decent music emerging from already established bands, I'm looking for examples of bands/artists that were formed after say 2006 or so that are worth listening to. Thoughts?

I am not usually much of a fan of Country Music genre but I *was* pleasantly surprised from a new band I saw last year that appeared and played on David Letterman Show, and is two brothers and their sister, "The Band Perry", insomuch I ordered the CD from Amazon before retiring for night.
it may not be a synth-based band but they play just about every old world acoustic instrument you can think of and the music is damn great. However, I am as well empty of suggestions of newer bands other than this and what's cool is it helped open my mind to that genre, even though I DO realize The Band Perry cross the lines of Pop and Country. here you go:

Live version of first song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWw4wQ1MEtQ

Studio/Video of same song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIdCo_QAz_E

Different song, showing diversity:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NJqUN9TClM

Formed in 2005 though -- that's right at the very end of the tip of the music meltdown and before iTunes killed it completely :)

Yes, but it took them until 2013 to release first CD. More than enough time to refine and hone their distinctively fresh sound. :p They are not trying to be yet another "me too" group and even that music video/studio version of performed live song, "better Dig Two", shows they definitely think outside the parameter box. I at least, find their music refreshing.

It was not my wont to prove you incorrect rather, to be an optimist in showing the glimpse of hope I once renewed by this one example.

Yeah, I know. But my point was just that the lure that used to draw talent to the industry is drawing way less talent -- even though they didn't come out with a CD until many years later, it seems like they kind of made their career commitment before the "real crash" (MGMT is similar in that regard).

Also, a tangential topic since you mentioned Letterman.... Over the last two years I've noticed most of the newer bands that come on his show with a keyboardist or two have shown up with MIDI controllers (presumably controlling soft synths) rather than an identifiable synth. The exception seems to be rap groups (sometimes country ones) that sometimes show up with a Triton, Motif, or similar rompler type workstation. Its gotten really noticeable in the last 6 months or so, usually you see a Novation or Akai controller rather than Moog, Korg, Roland etc on the back of the keyboardists main board.

Buggles should do a new video: "Softsynths killed the Hardware Star"

THAT was exceptionally funny~! it was also incredibly ironic because 'MTV' seemed to pretty much cease doing what they advertise themselves as, "MUSIC television" in the decade prior to your presumed date of things changing.
Things change, I get that. But on a similar note, WTF would there be two hour blocks of "fake wrestling" on the Science Fiction Channel???

What has changed that's making people more amused at totally fake reality shows? Too much radiation? Spiders from space? I digress, but way too late for that.
I was as much annoyed that Keyboard Magazine, of which have been a long time subscriber, has moved onto glorifying the DJ as if they were Keith Emerson himself....again, WTF???!
Speaking of which, people have literally become "Brain Salad Surgery" cases, and no, they would never pick-up on that reference even in same sentence.
Back on topic: Maybe aforementioned dumbing down is the now-aging RAVERS whom took a seemingly popular lab created rave/club drug and they also reproduced!!??:p

I always wanted to believe that it's just me becoming a dinosaur, much like I used to have to listen to old people tell me how great things used to be back in the day. I long ago anticipated that as part of life, it's just that it's turning out much differently than I expected.

An example, watching the ongoing decline of quality of minds in software engineering. It's not that there aren't some smart young people entering the field, it's just that tragically they were never given the chance to develop their brains in the way that developers did 30 years ago. These days, all it takes is a Google search to look up "how do I do this, how do I do that", or they watch a 10 min video on how to accomplish the task ahead of them. In the early days of software development, the programming tools were primitive and horrible and every single time you ran into a challenge you had to stretch your mind to figure it all out yourself, there was no such thing as Googling for the answer and there were not 10 min videos. Sometimes you needed to read 1000+ pages of dense, intensely technical material in a period of a few days to a week before you had enough information to begin to overcome the problem and derive a proper solution.

That's all gone. The newbies don't have a reason or rationale to even begin to learn how to train their brains to think at that level. It's sad really. Most of them have only basic reading skills, enough to pick up the latest Internet meme and feel clever about using it. They don't have the attention span to even survive through 1000+ of dense technical material without having an ADD spaz attack and getting diverted onto something unrelated.

With regard to music, however, I think the issue is similar in the sense that technology changed the landscape (cataclysmically actually) but the reasons and effect are somewhat different.

I never really connected MTV's decline to whatever it is today (wouldn't know, haven't seen it in years, its not even in my list of watched channels) to the same things that closed retail music stores like Internet music sharing, I guess because the changes seemed to happen only after a couple of years after they first came on the air. First it was music videos, then it was inordinately long music videos involving acting and story lines, then by the time the early 90s rolled around they were doing reality shows that had absolutely nothing to do with music, yet the rest of the music industry was still there even if MTV lost their way.