grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Nate, yours is the story of progression. It sounds very similar to my own journey except that I've not moved to computers, I operate a 12 track digital standalone. I use the computer to house my virtual instruments.
McMetal says that he doesn't understand the purist thing, but I think I do. Many purists look to what they see as having been a kind of golden period that they have loved and understandably see no reason to deviate from the instruments, gear and techniques that netted those sounds. I have no problem with purism as long as it's not imposed on those that don't agree with it. Which it too often is. Some of the best known artists in the last 60 years were terrible purists when it came to music. Some of them had the good sense to modify their positions when it was clear the majority of the record buying public weren't on their wavelength.
Anyway, on the recording front, I've sometimes made the point on these pages that the moment Les Paul developed 'sound on sound' recording {ie multitracking}, the game of recording purism was up for ever and progression and diversity were going to be in forever. I have no clue what the recording future holds, but currently, what we see is the latest chapter. Since Les Paul, developers have pushed technological boundaries and there have always been artists, producers and engineers happy to test out and adopt the new technologies. I would actually say that the history of music recording has also been the story of developing musical technology.
Technology in music has generally been about getting an easier result than currently exists. So for example, ADT {artificial double tracking} meant that artists didn't need to do more than one take {assuming, of course, that they got it in one take !}, the mellotron meant studios didn't have to hire 120 piece orchestras, reverb units meant that a whole room didn't have to be cordoned off to act as an echo chamber, the bass guitar meant that the double bass didn't have to compete with loud drums and guitars, more tracks meant that you didn't have to have band, orchestra etc in the studio at once.......it goes on. There's zillions of examples. Made life easier.
As the technology developed, musicians were able to create their music in different ways. A song like "Penny Lane" or "A day in the life" wouldn't have existed before it's time, whereby the song was not worked out before recording, actually recorded with big gaps in which what was to go there hadn't been worked out. And the new way of creating songs also partly inspired the kinds of instruments and arrangements to be used..........which, fast forwarding somewhat, brings us to now. Until very recently, if you were into recording at home, if you had ambitious creations with say, sitar, mellotron and trombone in mind, you were stuffed because unless you knew someone that played those things, the best you could hope for were synthesized versions on keyboards. Even the top of the toppest of the top range sounds were shit. Organs ~ OK. Electric pianos, hmm, some passable. Pianos and synth sounds, OK. But violins, trumpets etc, forget it ! Even the early days of MIDI left alot to be desired. Like with digital per se, it's very easy to look at the early versions of something, be highly critical of it and characterize the entire history and fleet that same way. The first decade of CDs left alot to be desired. Harsh, brittle, tinny, jumpy.....but they've improved greatly since then and it's actually quite a surprize when someone says 'oh, CDs are so cold in their sound' these days.
The tools for making music have moved on. The great thing about it all is that now, we have tremendous scope and choice. Many people have hybrid set ups either instrumentally or recording wise or both. I used to be an instrumental purist. I had the usual guitars and bass but I sought out and bought a mandolin, Fender Rhodes electric piano, Hammond organ, double bass, clarinet, cello, Hohner clavinet, upright piano, sitar, tambura, drumkit.....I got great joy using these in my stuff {the sitar led to me having a finger operation !}. But the arrival of kids meant that most of these had to go because space was an issue. When I discovered VSTis, it was like a voice from God because housed within a computer were more instruments and a greater range than I had ever imagined. There was a time when I thought of approaching music colleges to see if they had students that wanted recording practice by playing on my stuff or even sax playing buskers in train stations {before the mayor outlawed them and made them have to apply for licenses} ~ virtual instruments meant I didn't have to do this.
Yes, if you are using samples, it is recording because you are still the one that has to play the sample. But the samples aren't those shitty synthesized horrors from the 80s. They're, for the most part, real instuments played by real people in a variety of strokes and blows and hits to be mapped onto the keyboard for you to play as you desire. And besides, that kind of thing has happened in studios since the 60s at least. The brass band in "Yellow Submarine" was cut from some obscure piece and pasted in. The solo in "Tomorrow never knows" is the solo from "Taxman", sped up, cut up, spun in backwards and played randomly. In the Stones' "We love you", some of that music at the end is the B side "Dandelion" spun backwards. The mellotron was the first sampler, recordings of orchestras or individual players onto a tape that played for 8 seconds when the key was pressed.There's lots of examples I could give but these ones spring readilly to mind because I'm approaching middle age.
My point is that cheating has been part of record production for at least 5 decades now and that it's actually 'creativity'. I don't deny that it can go too far, that entire songs can be be made with virtually no human input, but man, a different version of that happened in the 60s too with sessionists playing and singing the tracks but it going out as someone else and some of Donna Summer's disco tracks were just her singing to the synth and drum machine and well, let's not get into the saga of Milli Vanilli ?
In our game, you do the things that need to be done to get the required result. If I've written a song but I can't reach the notes, is it morally repugnant if I slow it down a semitone so I can sing it to record it ? To some, maybe. To me, it ain't. Do I feel dirty because I edit and sometimes use a drum phrase from one verse to repair a bit that the drummer got wrong in another ? Nope. Or should I be flung into the wilderness with wild bears because most of the bass drum has come out weak but there are one or two strong thumps that I take and put in place of the weak ones so an otherwise good drum performance is preserved ? These are merely tools that aid the creation of music and help make it fun.
All I'd say is don't overcompensate and dismiss your analog roots. It's actually quite interesting that even the hard nosed flame warriors here can be sentimental about their roots, first guitars, how they got started, first recording rigs and the like.
