Music Technology in the 21st Century.

studiorat

Shocking title isn't it.

Anyway I'm looking for a few ideas here. A bit of a brain storm if you will. I've just finished reading a book called music technology in the 20th Century and I'm wondering what the brothers here think are the main developments in the Music Tech area in the past ten years in the 21st century so to speak.

How has the gear developed?

How have attitudes changes?

How has the business developed?

What's going to happen in the future with regards to technology and how we use it and how is the industry going to go?

Thanks.

tweeky

Great post!

1. Most outboard gear is trying to emulate/recreate the Analog sound of old with all the Hiis and distortion we strived to gate and remove in the 80's.
The advance in computer recording is massive with the elastic time/flex time
tools. In the wrong hands I equate this with the advance in the modern kitchen, as in i doesn't all make us chefs.

2. The masses now have the gear and the old studios are dying. This has pluses and minuses, the pros are that people can record in a leisurely and uninhibited manner at a much more realistic pricepoint thus creating some great tracks but the cons are that poorer quality recordings (in a technical sense are rampant). Does this matter, maybe?

3. The business of recording has now passed to the retailer. For most studios with large to middle investment the business is on it's last legs.

studiorat

Thanks Tweeks.
I was thinking about it today. I think now we have a situation where artists are recording Albums instead of demos. The situation that arises here is that a band for instance are blowing maybe three years writing on releasing an album when maybe they should be releasing 2 or 3 singles over the course of a year. 3 singles over the course of a year will get you much more coverage than one album release. As well as that releasing an album is tricky because there's oftn no indication to radio stations on what songs to play off the album. A single release is a no-brainer play the single, most radio stations won't listen to the album as a whole and as far as I can see are less likely to play an album track than a single.

As well as that, there was a time when a band would be assigned a producer for their first album. Now they are doing it by themselves, and therefore in my opinion are loosing out on an opportunity to learn, not to mention realeasing a collection of songs that will most likely go nowhere, missing out on a chance to actually record them properly.

There's also the issue of playing live once more becoming the main earner for an artist with record sales becoming secondary. So the recordings are now used to promote the tours rather than vice versa.