What pieces of technology have most impacted music recording?

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dayslikefriday

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Hey, I wasn't sure where to place the question. Hopefully, it's in the right section.

I am curious to see your opinions.

I'm working on a (big) paper and I need to know some answers that I could use to write for like, 12 pages. Broad or specific.

For example, it can be as vague as the personal computer.

List so far:
Personal computer
Pro Tools?
Multi-tracking
Looping
Overdubbing?

Anything more? Or Better? Should I take anything out.


Again, the question:
What pieces of technology have most impacted music recording?

Thanks.
 
"Pro Tools" is too specific of a thing to put on that list, in my opinion. I'd put "DAW" or "Multi-track software".

A few more:
Wav editing
Plugins
Non-destructive editing
Real-time or "live" input monitoring
Lava lamps

Can't think of anything else at the moment.
 
dayslikefriday said:
Hey, I wasn't sure where to place the question. Hopefully, it's in the right section.

I am curious to see your opinions.

I'm working on a (big) paper and I need to know some answers that I could use to write for like, 12 pages. Broad or specific.

For example, it can be as vague as the personal computer.

List so far:
Personal computer
Pro Tools?
Multi-tracking
Looping
Overdubbing?

Anything more? Or Better? Should I take anything out.


Again, the question:
What pieces of technology have most impacted music recording?

Thanks.
Click to expand...


Of that list I can agree that computers have advanced the art considerably. Pro Tools is a sub genre at best, which as explained already, would fall under DAWs or sequencers. Non linear editing to be more precise. I think that's a recent marvel that has changed the way we edit and approach certain parts of production in the industry.

Also, the continued evolution of electronic components, whether SMT or throughhole is giving way to better sounding outboard processing, although there are pieces of gear that still swear by vintage components.

Throughout the years, compared to alot of vintage gear, you're starting to see wider and wider bandwidth ranges, with higher perceived loudness than ever before. I mean shit, an SSL pre that goes all the way up to 100khz? Mastering speakers that can hit up to 30khz and possibly down to 10hz or even 0hz? Headphones that'll blow you're ears before the drivers blow? It's a really interesting time in the industry.

Better and better A/D/A conversion, algorithms, and software design in plug-ins and DAWs is playing a huge part as well. Better dithering is huge in my eyes.

The ability to use more tracks simultaneously seems to be commonplace now, although at 192 simultaneous tracks, I think that's a bit excessive.

MP3 encoding and beleive it or not, the internet has advanced audio production in ways you can't even imagine. To record then transfer a session between London and Los Angeles (as an example) at the same time is truly a sign of our times. You don't even have to get out of your PJs to record an album and hold a bussiness conference anymore (although where's the fun in that?).


Drawbacks in my opinion:

1) mass production policies alot of the companies are taking. More demand for cheap means quality restrictions. Anywhere from cheap parts to cheap labor.

2) the decline of analog tape rather than means to effectively push it more into the industry.

3) Over saturation and distribution of the means to produce a quality recording. It gives everyone a right to be a professional recording and mixing engineer, when traditionaly, the title held prestige because a good and true engineer can do alot more than that.

Either way, the list goes on, but just some worthy merits that are important to me.
 
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electricity was a big one.








but seriously, just the advancements made in hard drive and memory technology.

more room allowed higher samplerates and bit depth.
 
LeeRosario said:
3) Over saturation and distribution of the means to produce a quality recording. It gives everyone a right to be a professional recording and mixing engineer, when traditionaly, the title held prestige because a good and true engineer can do alot more than that.
Click to expand...

engineers used to wear lab coats and stuff, right? it was pretty scientific business. not that it isn't still :)
 
sorry, there was tube gear in the 50s that went to 100khz and maybe higher.

Many would argue that the technology has not improved very much in the last 25 years.

but, whether the gear is tubes, transistors, chips, magnetic tape, or data, does that really have an impact on "music recording" ?

my picks would be the multitrack recorder, the portable recorder, radio and television. I might also throw in equalization and bias, which are really what make all of this possible.
 
mikeyhasnobones said:
engineers used to wear lab coats and stuff, right? it was pretty scientific business. not that it isn't still :)
Click to expand...

On a serious note, it really was. There where notebooks full of precise ways of micing, mixing, temp, etc. And you used to build your own pres, mixer, etc.
 
Compression, EQ, and digital recording in general. Think about it, we have things like Undo buttons and copy/paste in a single click. Do you realize how freaking huge that is in scope. I mean shit, 25 years ago, you had a guy that just operated tape and did nothing else, and if he screwed something up... fuck it, you just trashed expensive tape and some poor musicians song. That's huge. with the introduction to digital recording, you introduced basically everybody on this forum to being able to afford and use equipment with little or no instruction beyond a simple manual here and there. Back in the analog days, that was not the case. Even if you were rich and could afford the equipment you needed I hope your a genius as well, or have even more money to pay somebody to record for you all the time.
 
89gtsleeper said:
with the introduction to digital recording, you introduced basically everybody on this forum to being able to afford and use equipment with little or no instruction beyond a simple manual here and there.
Click to expand...
Afford, yes. Use? I don't think so. And that is why I'd agree that inexpensive digital technology has had the greatest impact. But I'd argue that that impact is a double-edged sword; the impact is as negative as it is positive, IMHO.

The average rig run by the average member of this forum is in many ways far more sophisticated and - in many ways - far more capable than your average brick and mortar studio of a few decades ago. MBCs are only about a decade old. Non-linear editing not much older than that. FIR room modeling. Digital sampling and looping. Quality pitch correction. etc. Hell, effects automation and even track level and pan automation were pretty high-end stuff until fairly recently; now any goon with a modem can have all that for free in a matter of seconds.

Contrary to what your average LimeWire affectionado would like to believe, this stuff doesn't drive itself, nor does most of it have a shallow or easy learning curve to learn how to drive well. It's putting full-blown Indy race cars in the hands of people who have only learning permits where the ink is still wet. While I love the democratization of the technology, the human factor has a lot of catching up to do, which is why forums like this one are sorely needed.

Until that catching up is complete, the race track is going to be filled with a lot of broken gear boxes, spin outs, stalls, crashes and even dead bodies.;)

G.
 
Wow. Big topic. Where do you want to start?

Shall we go back to Edison and his wax cylinders? How 'bout the fancy magnetic tape recording machines that were captured from the Nazis at the end of WWII? Maybe Les Paul creating "sound on sound" overdubbing, or Bing Crosby financing the first 8 track recording machine? Or maybe condensor mic technology? How about the transistor or Integrated Circuits?

There is a LONG history that most people aren't aware of- and don't need to be.

We also need to define impact. The invention of magnetic tape and multitrack machines had a huge positive impact on the length, quality and complexity of recording projects. One might argue that DAW's have had a huge impact in both a postive (low cost, any one can try it out) and negative (LOTS of poor sound quality gear while good stuff [still] is ungodly expensive, lots of people without experience producing stuff) ways.

MP3's exagerate this. Positive: homebrew recording artists have an exposure medium like nothing ever seen before. Negative: very low sound quality, piracy runs rampant.

If impact means something like making major advances or shifts in how things are done:

1) Edison's wax cylinder recording Phonograph. This was the first sucessfully *commercialized* recording medium. It might also be hailed one day as the beginning of the end for live music and the working musician.

2) Radio. Not exactly a recording technology but it DEFINITELY fits the description of "a piece of technology that has impacted music recording" - it created another HUGE venue and demand for recorded music. It also fueled advancements in microphone technology.

3) Magnetic Tape & the many things it made possible (longer recordings, multitrack recordings, higher quality sound reproduction, long lasting archives).

4) Digital Audio. No doubt a huge impact and shift in how music recording is done and how it is delivered. The battle may still be raging in the upper crust of the audio recording world, but when was the last movie scored to analog tape? Analog is not dead by any means, but digital is definitely the King of the Hill.

5) High Quality Audio Compression (mp3 at the moment, but also AAC, wma and my current favorite FLAC) - this, along with ubiquitous internet connections and file sharing software, has COMPLETELY changed the landscape of music distribution. This has rippled upward and outward back to the recording industry and forced many sad changes in the priorities of recording. It has also made remote collaborations a viable way to create music.

That's my list of 5. Its a pretty narrow list as it doesn't even touch things like mixing consoles, advancments in outboard effects and mixing technology, or such thing as electric instruments and amplification...

-C
 
although there are sooooooooooo many single concepts and inventions that can be given consideration, i would have to say that the A/D-D/A converter itself has probably had the biggest impact of any single item

my justification for this lies in the fact that the creation of the A/D converter is what opened the flood gate of digital audio, and brought on the era of ProTools, digital editing, plugins, convolution reverb, etc.

IMO, no single other device has fundamentally changed the manner in which recordings are made, and in as little time
 
my top five are . . .

1 Vinyl pressing
2 Multi-track tape recording
3 The digital era
4 PC recording
5 The web


1 Vinyl pressing of albums was the first major leap into musical mass production, making recorded music easily and cheaply accessible to the public.

2 Multi-track recording changed recording from being replications of live performances to being sonic creations that need bear no resemblance to any performance. It unleashed sonic manipulation in a big way, and particularly shifted a lot of control from performers to engineers.

3 The digital era (notably heralded by the advent of CDs) resulted in unparalled capacity for manipulating and modifying sound, a quantum leap from multi-tracking.

4 PC recording is doing to the recording industry what desk-top publishing did for the printing industry. In a lounge room people can produce, cheaply and easily, recordings of the quality that once only emerged from professional studios. Note, though, just as DTP resulted in publications that were graphical and literary swamps, so does home recording.

5 The internet (e.g. Napster, MP3s and YouTube) has shattered our concepts of production, distribution and copyright, and legal brains are struggling to protect intellectual property in this environment.
 
How about something for "negative impact?" I'm thinking MTV and how it has given many people some wrong impressions about recording and music in general.
 
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