In the mid to late 80’s, in the audio electronics industry, I recorded several rock bands in a couple of professional recoding studios located in Western Canada. The Northern Pikes were my favorite band for a variety of reasons. From a software technology standpoint, there was little used in audio recording at the time. In those days, it was the peak of analog sound equipment including 24 track (2 inch wide tape) recorders, large physical mixing consoles, expensive sound proofed and tuned recording studio facilities, real instruments/amplifiers/effects, real drums, vocal booths, etc.
The first digital 24 track recorders (from Sony) were just coming on the scene. The only gear that was really controlled by software at the time were a few digital effects processors (for guitars/vocals) and a SMPTE time code controller that synched the 24 track tape recorder to the software controlled faders (i.e. the mixing consoles volume and mute controls) on each track. So when you mixed the sound on the console, you can program the volume, mute, effects on each individual track during playback - yes we used all 24 tracks and heard the song repeated several hundred times. You would build this “program” up over time, sometimes mixing one track at a time and muting everything else, or tweaking while listening to the overall mix. Point being, that was the limit (along with early MIDI recording on Mac’s) of software controlled audio.
During recording sessions, the recording process was called “live off the floor” recording. Meaning the band was spread out in the studio, sometimes in various rooms, but all hooked together through audio headsets so the band could all play together live off the floor. A trick, used by many sound producers before me, was to tell the band that you want them to warm up by going through the song a couple of times before we put it “on tape.” Unbeknownst to the band, I was rolling tape the first time they played the song in the studio (i.e. a first take) and as some would argue, myself included, that the first take has a good chance of being the best take. Meaning you caught the band at their best. This was called a bed track with a ghost (guide) vocal track and then the other tracks would be overdubbed on this bed track ovetime (i.e. more guitars, solos, vocals, harmonies, embellishments, etc.), until all 24 tracks were used. And in some cases, never to be recreated again – meaning a moment in time was captured on tape and no matter how the same players tried to recreate it, they could not come up with the same groove/sound they had the first time they played the song.
The thing of it is, this was millions of dollars of gear to record a live band. Plus operations and maintenance of a professional recording studio shows why the rates can be +$200 per hour to rent the place.
Fast forward to 2009. I purchased Rock Band 2 (on PS3) for my 6 year old daughter. PS3 was $299 CDN, Rock Band 2 was $159, and another controller $59 (for Little Big Planet). I already have several PC’s (being in the software business), Asus 25” HDMI monitor and X-fi sound card with Logitech 5.1 surround sound speakers. I was blown away with the (software controlled) sound processing on the drums, bass, guitar and vocals on Rock Band 2. Sounds just like in the studio! Well, not quite, but for non-audiophiles, most people could not tell the difference.
The point being, the latest (software driven) digital technology used for sound engineering has increased in capability that was not even dreamed of 25 years ago. Look at Band in a Box – audiophile edition is 669 bux (they send you pre-installed software on a 1.5 Terabyte hard drive). Look what it does - a fully equipped, 10 million dollar, professional recording studio, completely virtualized in under $1000 software. Unbelievable!!!
To me, this is witnessing an area of software industrialization that I have been a part of for over 25 years. My conclusion is that over time the technology has exponentially increased in capability and at the same time exponentially decreased in cost (including operating and maintenance costs). What used to be $10 million 25 years ago is now less than $5K to have a professional recording studio virtualized on your computer in your home.
The best part, of course, was being able to play Rock Band 2 with my daughter and watching her play the various instruments and sing.
Happy New Year!