RE: Real-time category

[Warren Sirota <wsirota@wsdesigns.com>]

> 
>      Apologies to anyone who's feathers got ruffled.  I 
> myself have a gut understanding of what Kim and Travis and 
> others are trying to say.  Let me put it yet another way.
> 
>      If I own a set of Roland V-drums, I would expect a RTOS 
> engine to be driving them.  Latency is not so much the issue 
> here, any latency within reason can be adjusted to, whether 
> consciously or otherwise.  But if there is an occassional 
> strike that causes a note to sound at anything less than when 
> I expect it to sound based on all the other notes I'm 
> playing, this will definately erode my sense of being able to 
> use this machine to play in a groove.  I would develop an 
> innate distrust in the machine and whether or not I realized 
> what sort of OS it contained, I would eventually sell it on 
> eBay where I got it in the first place and move on.
> 
>      Some uses of Loopers have a requirement that is similar 
> to what I just mentioned.  Other uses have no such 
> requirements.  I myself use Loopers in both ways.  I intend 
> no insults to anyone who uses software Looper X or hardware 
> Looper Y.  Please understand that I am not trying to pick any 
> sort of fight.


Well, OK, but you are (as Kim originally did, IMO, although it was less 
true
when the RTOS statement was first displayed on the LD web site, years ago)
setting up a "straw man" so you can knock it down - who here has a sw 
looper
which experiences weird perceptible delays in response? I would throw such 
a
thing out myself. Computers are so fast these days that the issue is moot,
IMO, unless you're running an old, underpowered computer or just running 
too
many programs on it at once. It just doesn't happen (someone contradict me
if I'm wrong). No-one would suggest that running an audio program on a
computer not equipped to handle it is a good idea, "real" musician or no.


> 
> subtlety.  If these words irritate you, I apologize as that 
> is not my intent.  At the same time, an intellegent discourse 
> on this whole subject would be all the richer if such views 
> were allowed.
> 

OK, let's talk. I still find your distinction specious. A master is just
someone with a basic talent who keeps at it for a long time and has good
teachers or mentors. In other words, among the time-impaired members of 
your
marimba ensemble, some of those people may be far better players than you 
in
10 years. Or they may be far better at ambient sounds or punk rock or
hip-hop production right now that you are. We're all somewhere on a path
(actually, multiple paths). Could you hold your own on a stage with, say,
Chick Corea and Gary Burton? If not, I might say that you don't qualify as 
a
master musician (or at least as a master jazz player) - but it wouldn't
necessarily make me think that you weren't a "real" musician. (and then the
question is, could either of those masters handle a looper and find things
to do with it as well as, say, *I* could? Maybe not. So mastery is rather
genre-specific, no? Could you, with your subtle timing and all, play in a
classical orchestra? Can you read music fluently? Are you allowed to be a
Real Musician if you don't read? Who says so? And wouldn't really being a
Real Musician mean that you could play at least one woodwind, one stringed
instrument and one percussion instrument? And isn't it likely that an 
Indian
tabla master would find that all western ideas of rhythmic precision were
sloppy, so you'd need to at least raise yourself to the rhythmic
sophistication of such a master? Where does it end? Where does it begin?) 
To
me, being a Real Musician has a lot to do with your attitude towards other
musicians... If being a Real Musician means being able to function at a
professional level in classical, jazz, rock, world, electronic and 
bluegrass
environments all in the same week, well, then I gotta agree with you, they
are few and far between, and I'm not one of them. If it means less than
that, what does it mean at all?

At any rate, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the vast majority of
the people contributing to this list have pretty advanced musical
sensibilities and a pretty precise sense of timing (just go listen to some
of the music), so that premising a conversation on the assumption that a 
lot
of the people here just may not be so demanding seems kind of ridiculous. 
I,
too, have indeed met some "musicians" (in post-grad studies in music) who
couldn't count to 32 (to hit the *one* supremely important stroke on the 
big
gong that defines the end of the Balungan in Balinese music), and it has
made me snicker ungenerously at them behind my hand, or roll my eyes - but 
I
don't talk to a crowd like this assuming that many are like those poor
misdirected souls.