| Computer generated music has always been a | | | | thousands of electronic musicians who are hooked up |
| subject that fascinated me. Practically since the | | | | to online distribution sites of one type or another. |
| beginning of electronics, people have been generating | | | | There are sites like Pandora that let you hear music |
| electronic music. In the early days, people | | | | similar to the stuff you already know you like for |
| experimented with big banks of oscillators, generating | | | | free. There are online Internet radio stations which |
| songs through laborious and complex processes using | | | | will play you hours and hours of interesting |
| analog circuits. The there min, the digital analog | | | | broadcasts at little or no cost. And of course, there |
| synthesizer, and many other interesting instruments | | | | are FTP servers, websites, USENET downloads, and |
| came out of this experimentation. | | | | many other ways to hear computer generated |
| What early electronics did for electronic music, | | | | music, as well as other sounds. |
| however, simply won't compare to what the digital | | | | Nowadays, in fact, the technology has gotten so |
| revolution did. Nowadays, computer generated music | | | | good that it is sometimes hard to know whether you |
| is incredibly sophisticated. People can write, arrange, | | | | are listening to a computer generated song or a real |
| and play whole scores without so much as touching a | | | | one. There are certain instrument effects that are |
| piano keyboard. There are fewer and fewer music | | | | hard to get right in computer generated music, of |
| composers who don't use computers. Almost | | | | course. For example, you can't really synthesize an |
| everyone in the industry uses fancy digital | | | | authentic sounding harmonica. What you can do, |
| synthesizers, computer sound editing software, and | | | | however, is sample, mix, remix, and resample until |
| sophisticated signal processing to get just the sound | | | | you get just the sound you want. Just by using audio |
| they want. | | | | samples which are currently available, you can make |
| Of course, the best way to hear computer | | | | pretty much any computer generated music you |
| generated music has always been through a | | | | want. Sometimes it is more difficult and involved than |
| computer. Nowadays, there are literally tens of | | | | using a real musician, but the option is always there. |