Richie Hawtin: Transitions

[Tyler]

Originally Posted by Jason Roth

Tyler, please don't make the money argument. Once upon a time I owned a Nakamichi Dragon cassette tape player. Do you hear me crying about investing SO DAMN MUCH MONEY in a technology that is outdated? Not at all.

And that's the point. We may be at a point in time when vinyl, as tough as it is for you to hear, is becoming outdated. It's expensive, heavy to carry around, doesn't really loop, etc. Digital music, live programming, these things are the way of the future. You should be accepting them rather than putting them down. So you've used abelton live - am I supposed to be impressed because you used it way way way before a lot of people?

I go out to see Richie Hawtin play music because I want to have fun and dance, but also because I want to hear music taken in a new direction. It also happens to be one of the reasons that I travel far and wide to see Underworld play music.

If that's not a direction that you want to follow, then play vinyl, have fun and rock parties out that way. I still play mostly vinyl myself. But don't knock those dj's and musicians who are pushing the envelope, trying to take the sound to places it has never been before.

Oh I totally agree with you re:vinyl etc. I'm totally on board with the future of music production and live sets, and am definately using all that stuff in my recent sets. I've probably gone down to only about 25% vinyl in sets lately. I think my 'beef' (if you can call it that) comes down more to aesthetic paths that I think this stuff is leading people down that I don't particularly love 100%. I think they're doing a really good job of pushing new technology and trying new things, and it's really exciting to me, the only problem is that I don't think it really SOUNDS great yet. Somebody is going to do it in a really cool way that I like, real soon, though.