jg, thank you.
Thank you for replying with well thought out arguments / counter points and doing so in a civil and well worded way. Unfortunately, that is very much lacking in current internet discourse.

I agree with you on the technical side. Morden techniques provide so many advantages that they’re clearly better, in so many ways.
However, I feel, that it’s nice (fun) to revisit some older ways to make you really appreciate how good we currently have it even more.

In an earlier comment you said “too many musicians today don’t put in the work to physically master an instrument”. I think that various ways of production can be like mastering an instrument.
Going back to the old Fostex, all those negative points you mentioned can be mitigated by mastering and learning all the associated nuances involved with multi track tape recording . Just like it was an instrument.
Is it better than a DAW? Absolutely not!
Can it be a viable alternative? Certainly.

I think we may have to agree with disagree on this occasion.
Not that you don’t make valid points, just I don’t think this was ever meant to be taken to seriously in the first place.

Take care, make music that you like.

i hate the way you hold your mic

>Are you already a bit depressed?

When I listen to stuff that sounds not only terrible, but exactly the same as what I was forced to listen to circa 1985 (because tech was that limited back then)?

Yeah, that is depressing.

Fortunately there are plenty of folks who know how, and are, exploiting the opportunity that modern tech provides us to sound human, nuanced, and complex. That’s inspiring and exciting.

> some people like using an old Fostex multi track for the > fun of using it and the wow / flutter that tape produces.

What’s fun about wasting time having to entirely redo an otherwise good take because you “punched in” record a little too early, and ruined the end of the previous excerpt that you wanted to keep? What’s fun about having to wait for the tape to rewind to the beginning of the take, and then slowly hitting play/stop until you find a good place to start? What’s fun about doing that after every single take? And these are just a few of the many, many limitations/obstacles that tech advancements have rendered irrelevant.

Remember, there are those of us that used that tech to try to do something that sounded good, and so we know how today’s tech makes that so much more achievable.

> effects pedals try to emulate those [1980’s] sounds.

The fact is that too many musicians today don’t put in the work to physically master an instrument, learn music theory, study arranging, experiment with more complex musical idioms such as polyrhythms and poly tonality, etc. And after they get bored making repetitive. 3 chord, “house music”, they look for some easy, quick gimmick to change the sound of said music. The fad today is to run the mix through stuff that inflicts a dated sound. Of course, to someone who never actually used any real 1970/80 tech, this sounds “new”.

But to those of us who have “been there, done that”, it just sounds ugly and depressing.

Tech is not supposed to make playing/writing/recording music easier. Its job is to remove the energy-sapping annoyances (ie, limitations/obstacles) that musicians were once forced to deal with, so that they can instead focus upon the real difficulty of creating sublime music, which itself is the most challenging aspect of this process.

This is definitely one I will store away in my ” one day I will find a use for this” memory bank… as someone who enjoys pseudo generative ideas and mad controller applications , this is right up my street.

Ok Jason 😉

I bet you really light up the room at parties!

In 2 different comments you’ve described the video as “depressing”. How a light hearted video on YouTube can depress you is an unbelievable concept to me. Are you already a bit depressed?
I’m not making light of anyone’s mental health. I’m genuinely curious. If a YouTube video had that effect on me I would be seriously worried for my mental wellbeing.

You also mention about it being 2025 and there’s no need for these antiquated methods.
Respectfully, I disagree.
Many people find that workflow fun.
Look at tape for example. Yes, we can record everything into a DAW and it can sound crisp and clear. However, some people like using an old Fostex multi track for the fun of using it and the wow / flutter that tape produces. In fact there are many, very expensive, effects pedals that try to emulated those sounds.

No, this isn’t ground breaking stuff. Yes, it’s been done before.
Does that matter? To you, for your own reasons, it clearly does. For most we can see it for what it was meant to be.
Fun.

Have fun, make your own music how you want and be happy.

>The MIDI to text… reply to you

Eh?

You’ve been able to do that stuff, faster and easier, for MANY YEARS with existing tools.

In fact, I was making software in the 1980’s that did that. It’s understandable that folks may be unaware of particular software that existed before they were born. But I’m surprised that people have the impression that techniques like this are new (or even notable). Everything in that video could have been done in 1985, except it would sound better when done by someone who knew how to use an Ensoniq Mirage, for example.

That’s depressing. Given the tremendous tech advancements since then, nobody should have to work, and sound, this “primitive” in 2025.

The MIDI to text with an external sequencer was inspiring, especially how he foresaw using it to reply to you

>a fun little side diversion

If that’s all it was, I would have ignored it. But despite the self-deprecating “jokes” and occasional caveats about how this “diversion” isn’t any sort of professional technique, he then goes on about how it can “inspire” something creative and worthwhile, etc. If that’s true, how come his video demonstates no such results?

The “musical demonstration” he gives is some of the cheesiest, fake, worst sounding noise possible circa 2025. Even the cheapest casio flip phone can produce better sound. Did YOU watch the video? Listen to that incredibly obvious, unnatural truncation on _every_ note release. The machine-like sound of the retriggering of a sample. The lack of any dynamics or inflection. Even the most rudimentary hobbyist project on kickstart sounds better. Seriously, this is truly _horrific_ quality sound/playability for 2025.

Doing this is not “inspirational”. In fact, it’s depressing. It’s about time people started applying _accurate_ criticism to the YouTube monster that falsely markets mediocrity as “useful”, “inspirational”, etc.

That was a video of how to sound like you’re limited to 1980’s sampling technology, and yet don’t even know how to get anything musical out of it. I assume he did it _only_ for laughs.

So your random blobs of audio dont click without envelopes/fades and xfade-looping when sequenced?
good luck without those tools 😉

Maybe jg is the “Jason” he was talking about 🙂

The part where he sequences it with the digitakt, the reverses and changing speeds, was really cool, and you can clearly sense the absence of the American flag up his arse.
I think he just became one of my favorites

the funny thing is America thinks it has stuff that the world wants to buy.
poorly build cars that are to big and waste to much energy;
gen manipulated veggies, beef full of antibiotics & testosterone, chlorinated chicken and sweets made out of corn syrup.
who wants to buy that crap?
I dont.