The Digital Age
I now produce music with my laptop computer. There was a time when what can now be done on a laptop computer required a recording studio for recording the initial tracks, the same or sometimes different studios to record overdubs and oftentimes vocals, then perhaps still yet another studio for comps and to mix the tracks down to an unmastered raw finished mix. Once the mix was finished if you wanted to stay competitive you would take your mixes to a mastering studio where final edits, eq enhancement, sequencing and track to track level matching would occur. We’re up to anywhere from two to four or more brick and mortar facilities so far. If you were mastering for a vinyl product the mastering facility would run a lacquer master from which the duplication facility would create a mother from which the stamper parts would be manufactured. And before packaging still yet another brick and mortar facility would be required along with the requisite talent to create the artwork for the liner notes and the album slick. In the 1980′s mastering for Compact Discs became the norm and things started shifting away from traditional mastering techniques. Digital techniques allowed still yet more control over the production of the delivery systems for music. Before the Internet started allowing peer-to-peer file sharing mastering studios were needed to create the formatted files necessary for the disc duplication plants to use to create the glass masters from which copies of the albums could be mass duplicated and then physically distributed.
Paradigm Shifting and the Digital Age
Today if you have a decent laptop computer, the proper software, computer interfaces, microphones, a printer and disc burner you can create the same product from anywhere you can power your equipment. In 1987 I attended the Second International Conference on CD-ROM hosted by Microsoft in Seattle, Washington – not far from their headquarters in Redmond, Washington. One of the buzz phrases I kept hearing at the conference was ‘paradigm shift.’ I did not realize the implications of this phrase until a number of years later as digital technology started being rolled out to the masses. Compact Disc digitally stored audio was the consumers first real taste of digital and computer technology on a wide scale basis. The CD Player became the most popular and successful computer controlled device ever rolled out to consumers. The acceptance of the CD Audio disc paved the way for data discs and only hinted at the mass storage devices which continue to go down in price and up in efficacy. I recently purchased a 1.5 Terabyte Hard Drive for $70 and it is barely larger than a baloney sandwich. Talk about paradigm shifts! Now we can store more information on our desktops than can be stored on paper in all the libraries all over the world. But do we need to? No, not really – simply because now we are in the high-speed Internet age where all that information can be stored on remote servers all over the world and we have access to it via our smart phones. Yes – we’ve gone from multi-facility production to the ability to produce audio and video from smart phones – talk about paradigm shifts. And the hits just keep on coming.
Producers Everwhere
But even though we’ve evolved technologically to the point that audio and video production is possible from a smart cell phone we have not evolved past the need to be in the analog world for the creation and consumption of music. Live music is still best as far as I’m concerned. Technology allows us to do amazing things with sound, music and visual arts, but to consume the final product it must always come back to the analog world. And just because everyone has access to the technology does not mean they have the skills and requisite knowledge required to produce professionally produced music or video.
Back in the day and back to today!
When I first became interested in music I was a very young child – preschool age to be precise. I learned to hold drum sticks from the high school band director in my home town at the age of five. I lived right next to the high school and had easy access to the band room which was a separate building from the main building in my home town. I would wander over to the band room and rag the band director for the opportunity to play a snare drum. He finally acquiesced to my desires and showed me some basic technique then left me alone to bang on the drum in a little room where the drums were stored. I’ve been hooked on music for my entire life. I’ve lived to witness many amazing changes in music and the way music is made, stored, shared and enjoyed. But the basis of music always remains the same. Music starts off in the analog world and ends back up in the analog world in order to be perceived and enjoyed. The differences are not in the music but in the way music is shared with the masses. I don’t think Thomas Edison envisioned the paradigm shifts that would follow his more or less accidental invention of the record business. No, I don’t think he could foresee music evolving from storage on a wax tube to cloud storage accessible to the masses via another offshoot of his labors, the telephone. We may store our music and video digitally up in the clouds these days but it still must be converted back into the analog world before we can perceive it.
