By Margaret Wong
Amon Tobin is a European musician of the new age. His music closely
resembles noises, but it a strong emphasis of bass, rhythm, and how
the different sounds in our daily life comes together and makes something
a little more than just noise. Popular since 1997, Tobin is not a
rookie, and his site shows he means business. The web site developed
by www.hi-res.net houses incredible
Flash work and a very interesting entertainment section called Supermodifier
v.1.0. Named after his new album, Supermodified, the Supermodifier
is a keyboard of beats and sounds, waiting for the viewer to create
new music.
Though Supermodifier lets the average Joe sample with musical material
and create his own music, the interface is only capable of sampling
and nothing more. There is enough material there to inspire amateurs
to play with different sounds and beats to create a special rhythm
of their own. But there is nothing there to capture a musical segment,
import or export other materials. Though it is not the intention of
Amon Tobin to create a portal for such musical creation, Supermodifier
has already provoked the curiosity of what could be.
High bandwidth sites promoting fan-fiction-like material, such as
the amateur music videos or film-shorts, are on the rise. The promotion
of music creation should be right along with that tide. As the Supermodifier
has shown, it does not take much to create music. Given a selected
number of beats, rhythms, and noises, anything can be created. In
some ways the Supermodifier is acting as a simple mixer, waiting for
amateurs to take given material and create "music". This
can drastically change how music is transported in the future.
If not only on musician sites, where their own music is promoted,
but also on music sales sites, a version of Supermodifier is implemented,
music sales should sky rocket. The ability to create your own music
right on the site, using free or paid segments of musical material,
will generate a huge amateur music making market. The issues might
come down to who owns this music if it is created on this site, but
solutions could involve paying for a download, or paying for a recording.
There are many issues that come with music creation but Supermodifier
has shown the endless possibilities of amateur music creation. Just
as film has been made amateur by digital video equipment, amateur
music will continue to thrive through the introduction of electronic
music interfaces. It is making the self-produced music, made on the
computer and sold via CD-R's, more realistic every single day in this
technologically advancing society.