More thoughts on MIDI

Because there's so many instrumental layers to "Escapade" (the song), I'm taking a slightly different approach to producing it compared to the previous 6 tracks.  Rather than starting with just my keyboard parts and a few placeholder "guitars" and "basses", I've opted to start by programming all the parts, drums and all, and replace them one by one.  That way, I have a basic idea, right from the start, of where every instrument should be placed in the mix (in terms of gain and pan positions).

So as it stands, it doesn't sound very good!  In fact, it currently comes together as a shrill, expressionless, synthetic cacophony.  The fact that I don't at all enjoy hearing the song in this state, though, is probably a good thing, considering that my idea of a "polished studio sound", applied to my own music, conspicuously used to be exactly that.  Moreover, this has got me thinking more deeply about why I (seemingly) had such a tin ear for production back in the Escapade and Escapade 2 eras.

Like (I'm sure) many people, I found starting out as a composer extremely frustrating.  Time and time again, I'd hear my musical efforts played by real musicians only to be disappointed that it didn't sound at all like it had in my imagination.  It often seemed like I wasn't being taken altogether seriously, although admittedly trying to glorify my student exercises the way I did can't have helped my case.  MIDI, by contrast, cannot say "I'm afraid I can't do that", nor can it question my artistic vision.  Consequently, that shrill, expressionless cacophony of MIDI instruments became, for me, the sound of me being firmly in control of my music.  And so I grew to enjoy it.

Definitely not the case now!  I actually sometimes get a bit nauseous just thinking about the extraordinarily wimpy sound of Escapade.  Sadly this colours my perception of Chronicles of a Dead End a bit, too, particularly on "Days to Midnight", no doubt because that track follows the original arrangement relatively closely.  I find it hard to keep the Escapade and Chronicles versions of the song separate in my mind.

As for Escapade 2, I had become aware by then that the PSR-5700 sounded laughably dated to 2000s-10s ears (it's a 1992 model, by the way), but was still clinging fast to the mindset that the sterile "perfection" of MIDI (filtered through, let's face it, laziness) was a desirable aesthetic for my work.  So while Escapade sounds like it came from a place of extreme confusion (accurate), Escapade 2 just comes off as a massive strop.