The increase in/proliferation of hardware and software in the music industry has led to improvements in production practises. Discuss.

The increase in/proliferation of hardware and software in the music industry has led to improvements in production practices. Discuss.

Since the dawn of the computer and the internet, the music industry has expanded at an unprecedented speed due to the ease of access to creation tools and how many people can avail of these tools. Naturally, the big labels still exist and are still pumping out tune after tune as fast as possible for maximum income. However, due to companies making their software and hardware commercially available and not just for the big wigs at the top, thousands of people have been able to become musicians and producers in their own right, with their own judgment of their success.

Back in the mid to late 1900s, the music industry was becoming more public domain. The hardware and software necessary to start creating music was becoming available to the ordinary mortals in the public, and people picked up on. While it was, and certainly still is, extortionately expensive, people still jumped at the opportunity to make their very own music from the comfort of their very own bedroom, or even their very own studio.

Once the hardware and software became more easily accessible, more and more people started creating, producing and releasing their own music. In the 1970s, the genre of electronic music was born with the introduction of synthesisers and sampling. The hardware for this music was still incredibly expensive and only top production studios could afford to have the equipment, such as the studios in the BBC. The equipment was implemented to create things such as the Doctor Who theme song, one of the most iconic themes ever made for a TV show. Things like vocoders and portable synthesisers, used by artists such as Bob Marley, Michael Jackson and Electric Light Orchestra, became very popular and soon other companies began to follow suit with their own portable synths, like the ARP Odyssey. Vocoders are still used, albeit not as widely, but the sound is still alive and well thanks to songs by Pink Floyd, Phil Collins, T-Pain and Daft Punk. As well as these new innovations and inventions, things like effects pedals for electric instruments, more often than not made for the guitar, began making their way into music, with Jimi Hendrix being the most notable user of it. Into the late 70s, things had progressed quite far as we saw the introduction of hardware like the Roland CR-78 drum machine.

However, synthesisers as we know them only came into existence with the conception of MIDI, or Musical Instrument Digital Interface; the new standard for digital equipment. MIDI became the way to connect your digital instruments to your computer to record your music into the computer. MIDI became standardised in 1983 and with it came a wave of new technology that made it easier than ever to create your own music. A few years after MIDI’s standardisation, new, more affordable PCs were released that people could actually get their hands on, the most notable few being the Atari ST, the Commodore Amiga and the Apple Macintosh Classic. All these systems required external hardware to be controlled over MIDI. However, all of this had to go into something.

That something was the DAW, or Digital Audio Workstation. It was the control centre for all the MIDI instruments and effects necessary to make electronic music. The early DAWs, such as Cubase which released in ’89 and worked only on the Atari ST, or OctaMED which released in the same year which worked only on the Commodore Amiga, had few features and were pretty basic in comparison to the modern DAWs that we know and use today. Despite this, it became the cutting edge of music creation technology and the essential tool for creating electronic music. It could take the input from any MIDI instrument and then process it and put it through any amount of effects and distortion and create the exact sound desired. As the technology advanced more complex sounds could be achieved but with a simpler interface. The technology got more advanced, but it became easier to make the music, making it yet more accessible. Many other DAWs followed suit; the likes of GarageBand and FL Studio became incredibly easy to use, however they sacrificed the functionality of their programs. The manufacturers of these programs made an attempt to democratise their programs in the hopes of attracting more people to make music themselves, however in their attempt they angered some of their audience. Many thought that they could not do what they were previously able to do in past versions and that the program had been somewhat dumbed down. While many welcomed the change, there was certainly a backlash. While the programs like GarageBand were good enough for some people to make an entire song or some used it simply to get ideas down quickly, it simply did not offer the high standard of music production that artists had come to expect from it. While FL Studio could still be considered a complex DAW, it has its limitations. Many people who use either FL or GarageBand would still stand mouth agape at the Ableton Live UI. The professional electronic artists would consider learning the UI of a program like Ableton to be a big boost in ability; being able to actually use Ableton would lead to a much wider variety in a newcomers music and allow them to make exactly the sound they are looking for.

However, to actually make these sounds, they need something to make them on. This is where the modern synthesiser comes in. A lot of musicians will have upwards of 10 synthesisers that can store presets and different sounds, all making a unique tone. A lot of the synthesisers these days will also come pre-packed with their own presets. Many electronic artists, such as Kuedo and Machinedrum, will make great use of these presets, either using them as a basis for a new song or building an idea off of them. As Kuedo says “Presets should define the sound of the synth, and they should be built for musicians to practically use.” As well as this, samples can be used to create sounds based off of recorded sounds. Matthew Herbert is a great example of this, as he used creative microphone placement to record different sounds of a pig from its birth to it’s not-so-peaceful death and used the sounds in his song. Samples work by allowing the user to record a small snippet of noise and then modify the pitch, length and other properties of the sound, essentially turning it into a note that the user can manipulate the way it would any other sound. Herbert used the sounds he recorded of the pig and used them as samples throughout an entire album, “One Pig”.

While there are a plethora of new, professional electronic artists popping up all over the scene, there is still a massive underground market of amature, up-and-coming artists, and even those who simply want to play around with the technology that is so easily available to them. Synthesisers are much cheaper and there are plenty of entry level products that are suited to those just starting out in a music career. Things like MIDI keyboards are popular among the newcomers that they can plug into their DAW of choice and manipulate the sound to whatever they want. DAWs are incredibly easy to obtain, with companies like Apple shipping their new iMacs, MacBooks and iDevices with their custom made DAW, Garageband. However, with this accessibility comes a downfall. These DAWs are being redesigned to make it simple and easy for people of any skill level to create music. There is always a danger of becoming too simple and limiting an artist's creativity, and software like Garageband is tiptoe-ing rather precariously along this boundary line.

There is an argument for this simplification of the software, however, and it isn't just Apple doing this, while one could argue that they are leading the charge. These programs are becoming increasingly more democratised and widely available to everyone. This has lead to a vast increase in the amount of women being involved in music production. During the mid to late 1900s, music was very much a man's world. Nowadays, the availability and ease of use of these new DAWs means that it's even easier for women to get into the business and present something, almost as a proof of concept, that can prove that women can make music just as well as any other man can. The music industry is becoming a lot more universal and you can definitely see the increase in female artists, especially electronic artists. The more advanced DAWs still exist, and these new simplified DAWs can be used as a stepping stone into making more complex music, and allowing those who want to get into the industry a chance to see if music creation really is what they want to persue. The ease of use of recent DAWs like Garageband or FL Studio added to the availability of good equipment for good prices means that the world of music production is opened up to everyone; all you have to do is jump in.

So, has there actually been an improvement in production practices? Well, the short answer is yes. The hardware and the software has advanced so far that it has become quick and easy for even the top level professionals to make their music. If we hark back to the 1970s again and think of Delia Derbyshire, one of the main people working on the Doctor Who soundtrack and many others, we think of long, hard, manual labour. The production process was tedious; making exactly the right noise and then recording it and then splice the tape at the exact right time and then sellotape the lengths of tape together to finally create the full song. Nowadays, we click a few buttons on our computer screens, maybe we hit a few keys on a MIDI keyboard or hit a few buttons on a drum machine, and our song is there. In a fraction of the time it would have taken Delia to make a small part of her song, we have a full, listenable tune that we could go on to sell. Overall, there most definitely has been an improvement in production practices, and we will most definitely continue to see an improvement.

Has the internet has entirely been a force for good in the transformation of audience's music consumption habits?

"The internet has entirely been a force for good in the transformation of audience's music consumption habits."

"Listeners are easy to reach but hard to retain." If one quote could sum up the modern music industry, it would be this. In days gone by, record stores would be abound with all types of people buying all types of records. Records eventually ceded to cassettes, which gave way to CDs, which eventually led us to the golden era of the internet and the dawn of digital MP3 distribution. Options popped up left, right and centre, suddenly a whole world of music entertainment was a few keystrokes away.

If we hark back to the 1900s, we think of the age of records and cassettes. Vinyl was available in, quite literally, all shapes, sizes and colours. Even today, some swear by their vast record collection, sometimes 10s or 100s of thousands of records. Some, however, leave them to collect dust in the cold attic as they move on to more up-to-date methods of buying music. There is still something to be said for vinyl and cassettes, perhaps the tangibility of the record sparks a bit of excitement in the consumer, or maybe it's the exclusivity of records these days. Quite a selection of artists still press a small amount of vinyl for those that want it to collect, listen or admire on a shelf. Cassettes are also still made, although not as widely re-adopted by artists. Some may argue that the sound quality is lacking, although if made well and to a good standard they can sound just as good.

Everyone was sitting quite happily with their warehouses worth of vinyl and tapes. Then the internet was conceived and the music industry jumped on board. Music started being produced and distributed through this magical new format and suddenly the hardcore collectors could have their music collection digitally, all in one place. It revolutionised music distribution with the new M-PEGs and now everyone could be a DJ with the ease of access to music. The cost of pressing vinyl or recording tapes didn't need to be included into a song or album and it was even cheaper to get music. Everyone had the ability to become a hardcore collector of music and have just as much music in one night as someone who had spent hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds every month on records to create their coveted collection. As well, sometime around the release of the internet, CDs were released as a new way to physically distribute music. Much smaller than vinyl and easier to produce than cassettes, it quickly became popular for more than just music. They were much more durable than both forms as well.

With the release of CDs came the downfall of vinyl and cassettes. Why buy a massive record when 4 CDs could take up the same amount of space as one record? Records were left in the dust, along with tapes. They became deprecated and the new kid on the block started completely replacing them on shop shelves. However, we've seen the resurgence of the old formats recently for those who love the exclusivity of the record and claim it to be the purest form of music consumption.

Along with the internet came many services to get and manage music. Probably most notably, iTunes. It came with the iTunes Store, which launched in 2003; virtually anything could be found on it. It became the counterpart to the new iPod, which was launched 2 years before hand: a small device to store hundreds of thousands of songs and listen to the collection anywhere. The iPod stood out among MP3 players of the time due to it's capacity and accompanying software. Other competitors, such as the Zune from Microsoft, tried their best to keep up, but especially in the case of the Zune, crashed and burned. The iPod evolved and became smaller and more portable and it became easy to carry a massive music library anywhere.

But then, seemingly from on high came the answer to everyone's prayers and problems: streaming. Why bother buying CDs or vinyl when you can have all your favourite artists and albums in one place, for free. However, this revelation also heralded the era of "freemium"; while you could still access the content on services like Spotify, you were given ads between songs, a limited amound of skips, you had to be connected to the internet to listen and some or all of things added up and weren't an option to some people. Of course, they could always just pay the subscription fee to Spotify and be freed of their limits. Artists got a cut of any profits made. Spotify took about 30% while the artists got approximately 70%. Similar services started appearing, subscription-based or otherwise. Many pay for the premium benefits of Spotify, while others are quite content with the ads so they don't have to pay. Overall, music is incredibly easy to access these days, with an abundance of options.

Although, perhaps it is too easy to access. Piracy was another contributor to the umpteen ways to get music due to the internet. It quickly became popular and had the added benefit of being completely free. Subsections such as private trackers grew and became increasing widespread. Users could get more or less every song under the sun without paying a penny and still in CD quality or better, although users should beware of viruses and malware that lurk within. Companies producing the music took a loss of profits due to the newfangled bitTorrent and its mass userbase. So, they had to fight back. From the suits in a corporate boardroom came DRM, or Digital Rights Management. The be-all and end-all of digital music. This was slapped onto every MP3 that left the studio and prevented the pirates from simply copying the music over and sharing it out for free by the way of some technological trickery. Piracy, it seemed then, was doomed. Until someone cracked the special code on it and the torrenters were free once more. Since then it has been a constant back and forth battle between corporation and consumer to release a new, bigger, better and ultra-secure DRM and crack it.

If we delve into the realms of indie music production, however, one site exists that was made almost entirely for this group: Bandcamp. Bandcamp is the way for the idols of tomorrow to get their music bought and get themselves up and running and get the recognition they need. Bandcamp gives 85% of the profits to the artist, more than other sites are giving. It offers the artists the ability to put up their music for whatever price they want, or even allow the users to pay what they want. They could pay £1, or £1000 if they really wanted (and their pockets were deep enough). It also lets users stream the music that they have bought from a variety of devices and download it in a variety of formats, and for some bigger artists even get a vinyl of the album.

So, has the internet entirely been a force for good in the transformation of audience's music consumption habits? Well, it is still up for debate. Both good things and bad things have came of the conception of the internet, for example, streaming and pirating. However, in my opinion, it has leaned more towards the "yes" side. With the internet came a new way to get music and made it more widely accessible. No matter who you were, you could get the music you wanted and listen to it wherever you wanted. Music became more personalised and you didn't have to wait to get home to listen to your collection. With services like YouTube you could preview albums or songs before you bought them to ensure you weren't wasting your money on an album you didn't like. Almost unintentionally, the internet brought about an ecosystem of "try-before-you-buy". While I personally don't use them, streaming services also made music easier to access and brought about a great way to try new music. Everyone has their individual way to listen to music, and most of them involve the internet at some stage. Everyone's music consumption habits have been changed; and it's hard to argue that it's for the worst.