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BrufordFreak View Drop Down
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    Posted: July 01 2023 at 14:52
Just wondering if you know of any advances in sound technology that have been made in the 21st Century (besides music streaming)--things that have changed the sound that bands can deliver on their most recent albums. I'm thinking of DDD/digital, sampling/wave treatments, MIDI/synthesizer plug-ins, DIY computer technologies, GarageBand/Waveform/LogicPro/Audacity.

And then, part two of the discussion I wish to generate, do you think these technological advances have improved the quality of the sound on the albums that you've accumulated over the past 25 years or affected them negatively? That is, in your opinion, has technology been good to progressive rock music or detrimental?
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I see that as an improvement. It's a matter of how you use those tools.
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It seems the digital age is always trying to come up with something new, more defined and certainly more precise. Some things get lost, but new things always come up to life. That's the nature of technology. As Hrychu said, if they are used properly, they can make a positive impact in music. I think is up to the artist to use these improvements properly, to create a better listening experience for their fans. 
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Although digital sampling and MIDI took off in the early 80s, and the first DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations, computer applications to produce and edit and mix music digitally) were released in the mid 90s, the real revolution has indeed taken place in the last 25 years.

The impact is huge. Magnetic audio tapes have almost gone into history in recording studios, everything is made with DAWs. 

Now it is possible for anyone with a limited budget and a decent knowhow to produce quality music in his bedroom.

Musicians thousands of kilometers apart can produce joint music by recording each in his own home studio and exchanging the digital audio files.

VSTi (virtual instruments) are widely used for making the demos but also to complement the music recorded with real physical instruments, and VSTfx (virtual effects) can be used without needing the more expensive physical effects units (which are still widely used for live playing).

AutoTune has been another revolution and despite its bad reputation, I'm pretty sure even many prog artists use it in their recordings.

As already said, the technology is only a tool and it's great to have it, it's the way it is used which may be good or bad.

I believe that nothing can replace the chemistry of a band being together in a secluded place to compose and make their music. This can not be replicated if the musicians are physically apart and each composing in his home and then exchanging the music files.

If you allow me some self-promotion, the transition from analogue audio to digital is reviewed in my book "The Musical Instruments of Progressive Rock; An Illustrated Guide".
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Originally posted by Hrychu Hrychu wrote:

I see that as an improvement. It's a matter of how you use those tools.


Exactly As Roger Waters once said - you give a man a Les Paul and he doesn't become Eric Clapton.

Even back in the 60's and 70's artists were experimenting with mellotrons / synthesisers etc... with varying results.
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AutoTune is the single worst music-related technology development ever.

As for the other tools, I started using midi keyboards with Cakewalk (which ran on DOS!) back in the 90's. Now we have VSTs and more powerful DAWs, and I appreciate it all.

Now they're using AI to bring John Lennon back from the dead. I think that's too much.

Technology as a tool to make life easier for the musician is good. Technology to replace the human features of music (e.g. autotune, AI vocals, etc) is not.
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I think that the more tools the artists have, the better. It's up to them to use them wisely, and up to the listener to decide whether they like it or not. One definite problem with many of the new technologies is that the recordings the artists produce in the studio are increasingly difficult to reproduce on stage. 
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I stopped being a musician once I entered Jr High, never got to a point of recording or using any tools. That was a long time ago.....LOL

For the most part it seems the advancement in tools have been a positive impact on music creation. Literally anyone can make music, anywhere......Whether it's good music or not is up to you. 
Auto tune is horrible, it has allowed people who cannot sing, do not know anything about vocals be a lead singer on a recording. It has mechanized harmonies and made vocals unnatural in all cases.

The introduction of digital technology has changed the world of music forever, for the good and the bad. What to me is clearly missing in recordings today is the human connection, the emotion of creating something in person as a band in a studio. Working diligently to create a pc of music, if it's not what the band wanted then you re-record, back in the day....With all the ProTools stuff now, you can simply go in and "fix" it without any additional work. Emailing, uploading samples, bits and pcs and putting it all together and calling it a song that you recorded is without any human emotion.

All of this has also led to very bad, inexperienced so called sound engineers......In general music today does not sound as good as it did back in the day.
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Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

...
What to me is clearly missing in recordings today is the human connection, the emotion of creating something in person as a band in a studio. 
...

Hi,

I also thought, that perhaps having that extra person that is not a member of the band, making suggestions as to possibly improve something is very important ... in film and theater, it is a "director", but in modern days in rock music, there really is no person outside that can offer suggestions as to how something might be improved. 

The DAW is not at fault ... the folks using it are, and the options are so ridiculous, as to it pretty making it easy for you to "do everything yourself" which is nice, but we don't really know many "musicians" that made that work right ... Vangelis, Mike Oldfield, and a few others ... but in general, I think that all of this is not exactly about the "technology" as much as it is about the PERSON in it, and this might be the difference.

The other part that bothers me, and I really don't know how to answer it, is ... "whether its good music or not, is up to you!" ... and here is the huge elephant ... if you are looking for "fans" you might change this or that so it suits "their ears" and "styles" ... something that for our tastes has taken a lot of the "flavor" of progressive music since the early days, not to mention the being together in a studio and dedicating your time to it. At home, in a DAW ... you will make your sandwich first, watch this or that ... and maybe get back to it tonight after the ..... whatever! You couldn't do that in the early days, as studios were expansive, so your concentration was valuable. 

Does it all make things better or not? Hard to define and decide. I don't write for anyone's version of what they like ... I write for WHAT I SEE, and it is very different than when folks get upset or think I'm being cross because it is different. I can't help being born, green, blue or black ... but yep ... there it is ... being racially marked. 

The only thing that bothers me, is that the "record companies" these days, are fans on the Internet that have this idea that it is "their band" and what they want it what is supposed to happen ... I am not sure that many people, musicians or artists, will care for that a whole lot, and here things like the DAW just make it all much easier to ignore, but also to ensure that you appease those fans. 

Gimme more growl!!!! Wink

In the end, it is not about the technology at all ... it's about US ... 


Edited by moshkito - July 03 2023 at 12:34
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Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

The introduction of digital technology has changed the world of music forever, for the good and the bad. What to me is clearly missing in recordings today is the human connection, the emotion of creating something in person as a band in a studio. Working diligently to create a pc of music, if it's not what the band wanted then you re-record, back in the day....With all the ProTools stuff now, you can simply go in and "fix" it without any additional work. Emailing, uploading samples, bits and pcs and putting it all together and calling it a song that you recorded is without any human emotion.

I'm not sure I totally agree with this, though I get your point. Back in the 1970s, they often "fixed" things by cutting and splicing tape as well as recording overdubs and some musicians recorded their parts separate from each other. And how does one explain artists like Todd Rundgren who perform and record albums almost all by themselves way back in the early 1970s? 

That cutting and splicing of tape is just easier to do today because we don't use tape anymore. Musicians have been recording parts separate from a band gathering for decades. I don't see how (or hear how) emotion is missing from artists that have and continue to record in this manner. 

To further fuel the variability of this conversation, are there not bands that record together that lack emotion as well? Maybe what we're really talking about is chemistry and I think people can have chemistry whether they're three feet from each other or three thousand miles from each other. Likewise, people can also lack that chemistry within close and far distances.
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The prog that most of us grew up on relied upon comparatively primitive technology....guitars with fuzz-tone pedals, Mellotrons, Hammond organs, monophonic synths etc.  Even with this relatively simple kit, our heroes made masterpieces! 

These days, we have MIDI, very powerful synths and computer tools, computerized mixing and recording vs. tape, etc.  For all of these improvements, I've found the advancement in the quality of music to be relatively limited.  

One of the best advancements in my book has been the digitization of the Mellotron!  Using the actual tape samples from old Mellotrons, they now manufacture completely solid-state instruments that sound like the original!  I even have an iPad app that King Crimson used on a tour in 2014.  

Perhaps the most impressive advancement is that an artist can now make very professional music in the bedroom, collaborate over vast distances via Internet, and publish without the need for studio time, recording engineers etc.  

Lordy, Fripp even had a black Mellotron!!! 
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Originally posted by progaardvark progaardvark wrote:

Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

The introduction of digital technology has changed the world of music forever, for the good and the bad. What to me is clearly missing in recordings today is the human connection, the emotion of creating something in person as a band in a studio. Working diligently to create a pc of music, if it's not what the band wanted then you re-record, back in the day....With all the ProTools stuff now, you can simply go in and "fix" it without any additional work. Emailing, uploading samples, bits and pcs and putting it all together and calling it a song that you recorded is without any human emotion.

I'm not sure I totally agree with this, though I get your point. Back in the 1970s, they often "fixed" things by cutting and splicing tape as well as recording overdubs and some musicians recorded their parts separate from each other. And how does one explain artists like Todd Rundgren who perform and record albums almost all by themselves way back in the early 1970s? 

That cutting and splicing of tape is just easier to do today because we don't use tape anymore. Musicians have been recording parts separate from a band gathering for decades. I don't see how (or hear how) emotion is missing from artists that have and continue to record in this manner. 

To further fuel the variability of this conversation, are there not bands that record together that lack emotion as well? Maybe what we're really talking about is chemistry and I think people can have chemistry whether they're three feet from each other or three thousand miles from each other. Likewise, people can also lack that chemistry within close and far distances.

All good arguments to my thinking, and yea clearly double tracking, overdubs existed back in the day but I think in many cases those were originally recorded in the studio together. For sure almost all vocals are recorded separately. I think it's why for many recordings there exist several boxes of tapes, bands recorded several takes and eventually decided on which one they liked.
To me the issue is still evident, back then everything was done in the studio. Even if one day was vocals and drums, the band was in the studio working on it all as a group.....I'm not saying this was 100% the case but for sure it's night day from how things are done today.
Sure chemistry can or may not exist, but it seems as I listen to more and more music from today there is something missing, that's just how I feel since it's not quantifiable....
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Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

The prog that most of us grew up on relied upon comparatively primitive technology....guitars with fuzz-tone pedals, Mellotrons, Hammond organs, monophonic synths etc.  Even with this relatively simple kit, our heroes made masterpieces! 

These days, we have MIDI, very powerful synths and computer tools, computerized mixing and recording vs. tape, etc.  For all of these improvements, I've found the advancement in the quality of music to be relatively limited.  

One of the best advancements in my book has been the digitization of the Mellotron!  Using the actual tape samples from old Mellotrons, they now manufacture completely solid-state instruments that sound like the original!  I even have an iPad app that King Crimson used on a tour in 2014.  

Perhaps the most impressive advancement is that an artist can now make very professional music in the bedroom, collaborate over vast distances via Internet, and publish without the need for studio time, recording engineers etc.  

Lordy, Fripp even had a black Mellotron!!! 

Back then not everybody could or was doing Frippertronics, introduced by Brian Eno IIRC. Again, working creatively to make new sounds. Today, push a couple buttons some plugins and anyone can do it, even if they have no clue what it is....LOL
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I know, as far as synthesizers go, I prefer analog. I own something like 15 or so vintage synths, both digital and analog, and generally I prefer the sounds I can get out of an analog. Although the physical modeling digitals can be good too.
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Just one remark, AutoTune can be used not only for vocals but also to adjust the pitch of guitar or keyboard note bends.

Another dangerous tool is quantizing. Quite a lot of modern music seems to me excessively quantized, which makes it sound cold and artificial. Tempo cadences may be important to give soul to the music but they are less and less used nowadays.

And another one is copy-paste, using one same fragment more than once instead of playing it all with slight differences.
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Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

The prog that most of us grew up on relied upon comparatively primitive technology....guitars with fuzz-tone pedals, Mellotrons, Hammond organs, monophonic synths etc.  Even with this relatively simple kit, our heroes made masterpieces! 

These days, we have MIDI, very powerful synths and computer tools, computerized mixing and recording vs. tape, etc.  For all of these improvements, I've found the advancement in the quality of music to be relatively limited.  

One of the best advancements in my book has been the digitization of the Mellotron!  Using the actual tape samples from old Mellotrons, they now manufacture completely solid-state instruments that sound like the original!  I even have an iPad app that King Crimson used on a tour in 2014.  

Perhaps the most impressive advancement is that an artist can now make very professional music in the bedroom, collaborate over vast distances via Internet, and publish without the need for studio time, recording engineers etc.  

Lordy, Fripp even had a black Mellotron!!! 

Back then not everybody could or was doing Frippertronics, introduced by Brian Eno IIRC. Again, working creatively to make new sounds. Today, push a couple buttons some plugins and anyone can do it, even if they have no clue what it is....LOL

Fripp used the "Fripp Pedal Board" throughout his career.  I've seen it, by today's modern rack standards, it was a piece of junk!  "The cheapest fuzz tone available" said Fripp, a volume pedal, a wah-wah pedal, and that was about it.  All held together with gaffer tape.  This is what produced everything up to "Red."  
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