I would venture that most people believe that modern means the latest technology. It’s a safe bet that what ever is the newest thing should be the greatest, right? Well, yes and no. At least in my mind.
Sometimes the older concept can work better. Take the diesel engine. It was originally designed to run on peanut oil. Unfortunately we know how that works now being that it’s been forced to run on a type of fuel that should be cheaper to make (diesel gas), yet now costs more. The smart thing is that a resourceful person can get their diesel engine reworked so that it can run on good ol’ peanut oil. Actually any kind of veggie oil.
Same could be said for film. Digital has started getting very close and the things you can do with digital are amazing. Yet the resolution of film is still superior. However, I’m sure in a couple more years, digital will surpass film’s resolution and that will become a mute point.
One area where I’m a firm believer in digital is in recording. I’m sure there are people who will argue with me about it. How old tape machines are superior. I don’t hear it. I think what it becomes is a preference for what tape does to sound. Digital on the other hand is like a mirror. It gives back what it’s given, so long as the resolution is there. High end audio production usually shells out the bucks to get ever high sample rates. Right now the upper limit for most pro productions is around 192k/24bit. Still the CD is 44.1k/16bit. MP3’s are even lower 128kb/16bit. Myself I tend to push the limit of the machines I use to go higher and higher. To me it’s worth it, despite that it eventually gets whittled down to an MP3. Eventually the world will catch up to the better formats.
In light of cutting edge. The program I use to record – Logic – recently had an update. I jumped on it right away. It’s my thing. I dive in. Because of that, I came across today’s band. They were one of four bands featured in the Logic package. Why would bands be featured in something like Logic. Good question. What Apple did is they got the rights to a song by each band, they included the audio and the Logic file used for the mix. Thus you can see what your peers are doing in Logic to create the sound you hear.
I don’t know much about Plaid, but an initial search on Google did tell me that they have quite a few CD’s available. This particular song however is exclusive to iTunes. Thus you won’t find it anywhere else. Being that I don’t normally showcase a lot of electronica here, the main reason I did was due to the unique way they’ve taken technology and did something cool with it. Stuff you would not easily be able to do with tape. Hence why it’s a modern experiment and a step forward.
While I tend to dig grooves that don’t mix odd meter in them, I can appreciate what’s being done inside this arrangement. Also note the use of the vocoder, the effect that was recently turned into a huge hit for Imogen Heap. Remember, I’m working on a tune for my next CD that will make use of that effect as well. Getting back to the groove. There are odd hits in the song that are technically in time, but groovically out of sorts. Heh, there’s a word – groovically. Could that possibly be a future addition to Websters? I hope so (make sure credit goes where it’s due).
My monday is getting off to a offhand start so this seems like the perfect song to compliment it. How about yours?
(** Disclaimer: If Plaid’s label decides I’m not helping to sell songs Faster, I’ll have to be quick about getting the audio off the server. The post will remain to show that change isn’t always a good thing. **)