
The RMX16 Sound Lives On - buserror
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-the-sound-that-defined-80s-music-still-lives-on-today
======
jandrewrogers
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
> ... 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
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?

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coldtea
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
For me it's all about the lexicon verbssssssssss

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

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Hydraulix989
I'm more of a fan of the TR-808 and the TR-909.

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dmicah
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
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10573590](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10573590)

~~~
Pyxl101
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-
wo...](http://gawker.com/vice-is-very-touchy-about-its-wonderful-work-on-
behalf-1535223061)

[http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/10/07/vice-media-why-
conten...](http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/10/07/vice-media-why-content-
marketing-so-much-more-ad-smart-media-buy)

> [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
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.

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cbd1984
Flagged as spam.

