It would be foolish to just dismiss the "realness" of an instrument and the skill that is needed to perform well on it as "an old analog history that should be squashed and only VSTi's are the elite rightnow". I'd be making a sad mistake, fact of the matter is that this would be also an "attitude". We all know that it's more physically and motorically inspiring and also demanding to play a real instrument than to build my one man band VSTi by VSTi and and track by track.
But the thing is if I can convey my music in this way, I still feel that I have the talent to do an interpretation on how real players would play the tracks I imagine, and I take a shortcut as it were to come up with the arrangements and emotions and hopefully the result isn't al too bad. But instead of performing 90% of my tracks on real instruments, and do 10% of recording, the way I do it merges it all together, it's like 20% playing on a keystation pro 88 (because I DO want to have that authentic feeling of playing my parts on such a keyboard that feels a bit like a real piano), 50% itteration of the instrumentation of virtual instruments, then 20% production (via effects , automation and mixing) and 10% mastering with emulations of "real" mixing devices and tape decks.
This gives me great satisfaction because I feel I can have control over all the processes involved to make a real song with "virtual" means.
I am jealous of a friend of mine who can play 10x better than me and is more of a performer. But he also respects me and feels the emotion that I want to bring in my tracks. In essence, the water aint deep between us because of these key differences.
I also need a singer sometimes for certain songs I made and upcoming work, There's nothing better than a real cajon player to bring authenticity in a track, but the kind of music that I make doesn't really require everything to be coming from "real instruments".
I actually "want" the electronic touch in it, it makes it filmish and fuzzy somehow, without sounding like "general midi".
]]>Mind you, one of her income-avenues is CDs, and all the uptodate tech going to support *that* is OK. She jumps on a plane as much as she sees fit, no swimming involved, where presumably the rationalising is these things are 'practical' - first cousin to 'real' in her outlook, however present-day modern they are.
So it seems the blinkers pertain only to the instruments. I plan a surprise for her (actually payback for a big favor she did me once with no complaints ever) : buy her Pianoteq (with Bluthner).
Then it's over to her. If she can't get 'practical' out of *that*, considering the sheer convenience of the flexibility to change tunings at a click, say, and which by itself I know she'd appreciate in her profession, then those blinkers are truly a disease.
]]>Just finalized one of the songs going on my new album, and it's heavy on pianoteq 4
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