Technologic

No this isn't another Daft Punk posting. I just got off the phone with an old friend and former band mate from our late 80's New Wave technopop group Reverse. He recently purchased his first keyboard in awhile and wanted some pointers since we had the same model. It got me thinking about technology and how the process has and hasn't changed over the last few decades.

If you look at hip hop, they've been producing on MPCs since they first came out, and still do it to this day. Check out a super cool book called "Behind the Beat: Hip Hop Home Studios" by Raph. MPCs and ASR10s still rule the studios of many Hip Hop producers, although they are hooked into Pro Tools rigs running through SSL mixers.

My first studio consisted of an Atari 1040ST, Yamaha RX11 drum machine, a Casio CZ-101 synthesizer and my Simmons electronic drums. I struggled to try and duplicate tracks like "Axel F" and "Just Can't Get Enough". By the late 90's living in NYC I had walls of synthesizers and racks of effects and modules. Managing a used music and computer store allowed me to get all the coolest vintage gear as well as some newer gear at greatly reduced prices. It got to the point I was spending more time tweaking knobs then I was making music. Now in 2008, I have my Korg Triton and Roland Juno 106 hooked into my Apple Mac Pro desktop running virtual emulations of many of the synthesizers I used to use. Plug-Ins are just easier. Theres the whole issue of convenience, you have the functionality of total recall whenever you go back to a mix, they are usually fully automatable and assignable to a variety of hardware controllers, and they're much cheaper and more reliable then much of the gear they emulate.

And with the slew of workstation software such as Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, and Reason you can get into production at almost any budget. Which in a way sucks for many of us. Back in the day, you had to spend upwards of $6-700.00 on one of the few commercially available music applications. There was Cubase, Logic, and Pro Tools and they weren't widely crackable and you had to be a serious producer or hobbyist to get into it. So those that were producing were part of a community. Labels relied on them. DJs expected great things from them. It was an elite club.

These days, any 13 year old with the Internet can download some pirated version of one of these applications or go to Wal-Mart and buy some $40.00 whack program like eJay (which essentially provides you with generic pre-made loops in a variety of genres like Dance, Techno, and Hip Hop)and make tracks and post them on MySpace or the Internet. This is great for kids to have that creative outlet. Except when an A & R from a label wants me to do a mix on speck because his 15 year old nephew is doing a mix as well, or because professional production tools are in the hands of 500% more people then a decade ago they are willing to do it for free to get their name out it really changes the playing field of music production. Especially for people who want to make a living at it. When you had no choice but to buy a mixer, studio speakers, keyboards and sound modules, effect units and all the cables and learning it was an art unto itself. When everybody and their mother can make professional quality tracks on their home PC it becomes the musical equivalent of playing soccer on your Playstation versus going to a field and getting dirty with a bunch of teammates for real. It's not the same without the bruises and grass stains. At least they haven't come up with a plug-in for those; yet.