4 ms·

The RMX16 Sound Lives On

22 points by buserror 11y ago

dmicah 11y ago
This is a pretty awkward article that reads like Vice was paid by Universal Audio to write it, but there is no indication of sponsored content.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10573590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10573590
  - Pyxl101 11y ago
    This is a submarine, then http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html Do publications like Vice disclose whether articles like these are paid/sponsored or organic if you ask them? Vice seems to claim that they value transparency and that they mark sponsored content as such: http://gawker.com/vice-is-very-touchy-about-its-wonderful-work-on-behalf-1535223061 http://gawker.com/vice-is-very-touchy-about-its-wonderful-wo... http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/10/07/vice-media-why-content-marketing-so-much-more-ad-smart-media-buy http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/10/07/vice-media-why-conten... > [Vice must] Accept that with millennials there is no trust. It has to be earned > Millennials have grown up at a time where they were told one thing and shown another, said Adams [SVP and Head of Innovation at Vice Media]. Climate change denial, the financial meltdown in 2008, old media was seen as the harbinger and the bringer of lies. “At best traditional media seems irrelevant,” he continued and “at worst it seems like it’s part of a vanguard that can’t get away with what its been getting away with for too long”. > Vice plays in the middle of this shift, embracing classic programming but also mindful of the tension of new media to craft content that rings true with readers and viewers. “If you’re not open and transparent, you’ll be torn pieces,” warned Adams. However, some statements in this article also suggest to me that Vice is willing to participate in crafting and shaping content for advertising purposes: > [Vice recognizes] An engaged community can be as potent as any media buy. [...] So how does a marketer go about identifying a busting community capable of exponentially amplifying their messages? Unsurprisingly, Adams thinks publishers like Vice and the insights they have into their audiences are key. > “Media agencies can do amazing things but advertisers need to work with someone like us in order to get that initial early adopter curve of anyone who’s going to truly care about that campaign,” he continued. “A campaign should be designed with somebody who really understands content and doesn’t just think about obsessively about CPMs and the efficiency of reach because this will not be the future model.” (emphasis mine)
    - TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
      From the linked Paul Graham blog post: April 2005 Whatever its flaws, the writing you find online is authentic. It's not mystery meat cooked up out of scraps of pitch letters and press releases, and pressed into molds of zippy journalese. It's people writing what they think. That was 10 years ago. How times have changed. Now we have various actors subverting online discourse, whether that's some PR company, rumour mill, TLA (Three Letter Agency), etc. For a moment there the Internet was different.
Hydraulix989 11y ago
I'm more of a fan of the TR-808 and the TR-909.
cbd1984 11y ago
Flagged as spam.
jandrewrogers 11y ago
As someone who has owned some of the really good classical reverb units, this article is ... uh ... not sure what the point is. It reads like an advertisement. Listen, every uniquely engineered reverb has a distinctive sound. Some are more distinctive than others. Most 80s reverbs are terrible except if you are looking for the quirky characteristics that result from their limits. I am one of those people that does not have nostalgia for the limits of those units; their sound is perfectly replicated in modern software units. The 90s reverb units sounded really good. Lexicon, Roland, Sony, Eventide, TC, etc. But in 2015 the available Logic Audio plugins, while they may be a bit different, are essentially indistinguishable quality-wise from the original hardware units. I owned and loved a lot of those units. So what do I use today for reverb? The native Logic Audio plugins and the ArtsAcoustic plugin. These are so good and flexible that they cover almost every use case for the sophisticated hardware units of the past. They sound really good. It is almost embarrassing that you can get audio that sounds that good for that cheap. A reverb plugin on your laptop today is capable of a great many things that were not even possible for reverb hardware in the 1980s. That is worth keeping in mind.
- cnvogel 11y ago
  > ... uh ... not sure what the point is. It reads like an advertisement. It is an advertising - for universal audio's plugin version of said reverb.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    It make function as such, but it's neither marked as an "advertorial" nor makes much sense as one (the target audience of Vice/Motherboard to the one buying UAD plugins has little overlap). UAD doesn't do such deals anyway, that I've seen in any other place; they do regular ads all over the music tech press. So, I doubt it's a paid ad -- looks mostly like an article made up from very little substance, praising a unit they don't really understand, about a subject (music production) they don't know much about. If it IS paid, I don't know what where they thinking. People unrelated with the industry will go out and buy $1000+ hardware units for a specialized effect that's not that enticing even to music gear heads with GAS like me?
coldtea 11y ago
RMX16 hardly defined 80s music sound. There are 100 other boxes equally important for the era. To name but a few: Lexicon reverbs, SSL consoles, Eventide Harmonizer, Aphex Aural Exciter, 808 and 909, the Emulator samplers, the DX7 and D50, and so on... And even the effect he talks about (gated reverb snares) has been achieved with lots of different units in different records.
- erichmond 11y ago
  For me it's all about the lexicon verbssssssssss
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
The Yamaha DX7 , Linn drums and the Marshall JCM800 defined the '80s sound.

22 points by buserror 11y ago

This is a pretty awkward article that reads like Vice was paid by Universal Audio to write it, but there is no indication of sponsored content.

jacquesm 11y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10573590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10573590
- Pyxl101 11y ago
  This is a submarine, then http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html Do publications like Vice disclose whether articles like these are paid/sponsored or organic if you ask them? Vice seems to claim that they value transparency and that they mark sponsored content as such: http://gawker.com/vice-is-very-touchy-about-its-wonderful-work-on-behalf-1535223061 http://gawker.com/vice-is-very-touchy-about-its-wonderful-wo... http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/10/07/vice-media-why-content-marketing-so-much-more-ad-smart-media-buy http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/10/07/vice-media-why-conten... > [Vice must] Accept that with millennials there is no trust. It has to be earned > Millennials have grown up at a time where they were told one thing and shown another, said Adams [SVP and Head of Innovation at Vice Media]. Climate change denial, the financial meltdown in 2008, old media was seen as the harbinger and the bringer of lies. “At best traditional media seems irrelevant,” he continued and “at worst it seems like it’s part of a vanguard that can’t get away with what its been getting away with for too long”. > Vice plays in the middle of this shift, embracing classic programming but also mindful of the tension of new media to craft content that rings true with readers and viewers. “If you’re not open and transparent, you’ll be torn pieces,” warned Adams. However, some statements in this article also suggest to me that Vice is willing to participate in crafting and shaping content for advertising purposes: > [Vice recognizes] An engaged community can be as potent as any media buy. [...] So how does a marketer go about identifying a busting community capable of exponentially amplifying their messages? Unsurprisingly, Adams thinks publishers like Vice and the insights they have into their audiences are key. > “Media agencies can do amazing things but advertisers need to work with someone like us in order to get that initial early adopter curve of anyone who’s going to truly care about that campaign,” he continued. “A campaign should be designed with somebody who really understands content and doesn’t just think about obsessively about CPMs and the efficiency of reach because this will not be the future model.” (emphasis mine)
  - TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
    From the linked Paul Graham blog post: April 2005 Whatever its flaws, the writing you find online is authentic. It's not mystery meat cooked up out of scraps of pitch letters and press releases, and pressed into molds of zippy journalese. It's people writing what they think. That was 10 years ago. How times have changed. Now we have various actors subverting online discourse, whether that's some PR company, rumour mill, TLA (Three Letter Agency), etc. For a moment there the Internet was different.

Hydraulix989 11y ago

I'm more of a fan of the TR-808 and the TR-909.

cbd1984 11y ago

Flagged as spam.

jandrewrogers 11y ago

As someone who has owned some of the really good classical reverb units, this article is ... uh ... not sure what the point is. It reads like an advertisement. Listen, every uniquely engineered reverb has a distinctive sound. Some are more distinctive than others. Most 80s reverbs are terrible except if you are looking for the quirky characteristics that result from their limits. I am one of those people that does not have nostalgia for the limits of those units; their sound is perfectly replicated in modern software units. The 90s reverb units sounded really good. Lexicon, Roland, Sony, Eventide, TC, etc. But in 2015 the available Logic Audio plugins, while they may be a bit different, are essentially indistinguishable quality-wise from the original hardware units. I owned and loved a lot of those units. So what do I use today for reverb? The native Logic Audio plugins and the ArtsAcoustic plugin. These are so good and flexible that they cover almost every use case for the sophisticated hardware units of the past. They sound really good. It is almost embarrassing that you can get audio that sounds that good for that cheap. A reverb plugin on your laptop today is capable of a great many things that were not even possible for reverb hardware in the 1980s. That is worth keeping in mind.

cnvogel 11y ago
> ... uh ... not sure what the point is. It reads like an advertisement. It is an advertising - for universal audio's plugin version of said reverb.
- coldtea 11y ago
  It make function as such, but it's neither marked as an "advertorial" nor makes much sense as one (the target audience of Vice/Motherboard to the one buying UAD plugins has little overlap). UAD doesn't do such deals anyway, that I've seen in any other place; they do regular ads all over the music tech press. So, I doubt it's a paid ad -- looks mostly like an article made up from very little substance, praising a unit they don't really understand, about a subject (music production) they don't know much about. If it IS paid, I don't know what where they thinking. People unrelated with the industry will go out and buy $1000+ hardware units for a specialized effect that's not that enticing even to music gear heads with GAS like me?

coldtea 11y ago

RMX16 hardly defined 80s music sound. There are 100 other boxes equally important for the era. To name but a few: Lexicon reverbs, SSL consoles, Eventide Harmonizer, Aphex Aural Exciter, 808 and 909, the Emulator samplers, the DX7 and D50, and so on... And even the effect he talks about (gated reverb snares) has been achieved with lots of different units in different records.

erichmond 11y ago
For me it's all about the lexicon verbssssssssss

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

The Yamaha DX7 , Linn drums and the Marshall JCM800 defined the '80s sound.