Hi and thanks
for the comments, always appreciated
My answer may
be a little harsh, sorry for that, but please bear with me, I have the best of
intentions and that is to clarify what my project and approach is, and maybe
give you guys an un traditional view off what sampling could be….;-)
Your posts
arecertainly of great value to me.
I m also sorry
for repeating myself……..
And this an
way to long answer, but I had fun writing it, it clarified some things for me.
I think you
all have missed the whole point with this project by far. As I clearly say in
the introduction video, it's NOT about competing with the real thing which, I
honestly think, it’s (close to) impossible and for me personally, a waste of
time. I'm simply not interested in the idea off striving for performance
authenticity (and to some extent, sound). I'm not interested in the copy! Who
is? Not artists, as far as I know.
Getting the
sound is "right" is of importance and to be honest I think Kaufman:s
mixes are, in a way, authentic and “right”, but very un-engaging, or to
put it bluntly, boring. My mixes is done with a popular music approach
and technique, very subjective, and don’t even try to be authentic. It may be
that this is hard for you to comprehend (like) because it’s, ….unconventional?
I’m not
interested in sound-alikes and performance copying. Version like Kaufman:s
Grieg preludium has never been an inspiration to me. It’s impressive in a way but
not musically engaging. It’s a reproduction a copy and, as far as I understand
from Kaufmans reply to my post, it was never intended to be anything else as he
say "for demonstrating how close we can go to the original with samples
". Mission completed! Can’t argue with that.
I whont comment much on his version of the saraband other than if he wants it
to sound natural, using portamento is not the way to go, There isent a single
interpretation I know of that uses prortament to the same extent as Kaufmans.
To my tast it sound very unnatural and not very musical at all.
Kaufmans
version of the two movements is also limited in expressiveness by his choise of
reverb. Going for a "warmer” room in this conservative type of
interpretation would have been much better, His conservative use of eq sounds
really nice (is there any) My mix
relies heavily on Pultec/Massive-Passive and flux Alchemy plug in processing
;-)
I think
Kaufmans version of the Grieg suit show the huge difference between approaches
as it is a brilliant example of what I'm NOT doing. Kaufman:s version is traditional,
free of anything that sounds like a personal approach to the music, but
achieves what he strives for "a demonstration how.........".
I wouldn’t
dream of criticizing Kaufmans version on any other merits than what he self
states "for demonstrating how close we can go to the original with
samples”, and then he is doing pretty god (except for the, in my taste,
horrible choice of reverb…….).
My version is
about doing something else, something interesting and NEW. Make an artistic statement.
As I said in the introduction video, something that challenges, in a positive
way, real artists and make super expert performers stop and question what they
are doing them self.
My reference group consisted of world leading violinists (4). One of them has
directed one of my favorite recording of the suite, a conductor and a classical
music record producer. I wouldn’t be so sure of myself if I haddent gotten an
unanimous (could almost say overwhelming) positive response. These guys heard
absolutely everything I had done, down to the smallest details, and they were
not interested in authenticity. In fact I had problems convincing 3 of them
that it was programmed, I had to show them the Cubase and VSL files, but then
they where super experts and excellent artists ;-) Some said it was a contemporary
way of interpretation an other sad it went from super delicate to completely outrageous
(after the first listening his firs comment was “This is how music should be
played” J )
If one gets to
“nerdy” one may lose the artistic perspective, very frightening indeed. It’s
like when you start using After Effects you lose a bit of the “wow effect”,
when watching movies, because you know how it was made. It’s dangerous to let
that take over because you lose some of the perspective towards your audience
and the music.
That’s why I sometimes
have a bit of a difficulty with comments like Kaufman.s, They come from the
“nerd” side (I’m also on that side). I have much more confident in my reference
group off real living super experts, artists. Sorry that how I feel. We "nerds"
are used to spot sampling. We are over sensitive about it and that may limit
our artistic judgment. This could be the case with Kaufman, his interpretation
is more to the correct traditional side of interpretation, and to my taste not
very convincing in the artistic department.
Having said
that I have gotten some critique about not having the whole versions online to
make comparison easier, and it should have been, sorry about that.
If you don't like what I have done, it that fine for me, but don't criticize it
for something doesn't set out to be.
If you ask me
(I know you haven't) you could ask yourself, do I really want to make just
copies?
Because that what you saying you are doing:
Servandus:
"you keep doing that until there's as little distance between them as
possible"
This is
probably the worst approached ever if you want to make art. To copy without
adding anything extra……..
Kaufman:
"for demonstrating how close we can go to the original with samples
".
As I said (I
know I’m repeating myself) this is not interesting to me and I would like to go
further doing something that hasn’t been, heard or done.
That’s something completely different than doing a sample demonstration…….
VSL can do sound-alike’s, copies, we know that, its old knowledge lets go
further!!!
VSL is such a
beautiful tool it’s a shame to limit to doing sound-alike’s!
My suggestion is, make something new, personal and artistic or at least try,
in everything you do....:-) !!!!!
But if its copying you like please go on, its up to you.
And to answer
Kaufman:s last question
"Am I wrong?"
Well you completely misunderstood the content of my videos and the project that
I have worked on, but I would say, your question is wrong - What is right?
Servandus
scholarly post I don’t know how to answer, are you a student of Kaufman?
If
you came this far, thank you very much for reading, and please excuse my
sometimes blunt and to the point language. I’m taking about art and approaches
to making art and then its easy to be overly engaged, sorry about that.
I
which you all happy music making with the fantastic tool we have, VSL!