The Transformation of the Recording Process

Back in the good old days (or bad old days, depending on your point of view), before the age of digital recording, recording to tape was usually straightforward. After many hours of technical set up, the artist would play a song repeatedly until a brilliant take was in the can. After weeks of tedious overdubs, effect processing and mixing, the artist would have a completed triumph and owe bags of money to the studio and the record company.

Paige, D. (1980). A Day In The Life Of A Rock Musician. Troll Associates.

Fast forward to 2015. The record industry of 20 years ago is long gone. Ironically, technology, which was the very thing that most contributed to the destruction of the old record industry, has also empowered musicians. Musicians can make professional recordings without relying on the elite studios. For the artists, the way records can be made is versatile thanks to innovative software. Of course, apartment recording can't entirely replace a big recording studio, but artists can be much more involved in the process. For those who are interested, recording itself can affordably be part of the songwriting process and the studio can be an instrument. 

Sampling

The most innovative tools available for recording have evolved from the art of sampling. Sampling is the ability to record a any sound to use and reuse it in a musical way. 

Chamberlin

Arguably, the first sampler was called a Chamberlin. It was, essentially, a keyboard that triggered tape loops when played. The tape loops contained sound effects, trumpet, flute, organ, violin and a female voice. These sounds could be chosen with a simple control panel. The Chamberlin's more famous cousin, the Mellotron, was featured on countless records in the 1960s and 1970s, perhaps most famously by the Beatles and Moody Blues.

Chamberlin: Ancient Sampler. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/ym7uN3QiTIs

The Sampler

Although, technically, the Chamberlin and Mellotron play recorded sampled sounds because the machines used pre-recorded tapes, they aren't samplers. The sampler, as we know it today, allows the user to record his or her own sounds, as well as pre-recorded sample "packs" provided by 3rd party developers. These sounds can range from recordings of orchestras, synths, voices and percussive instruments to traffic noises. In effect, anything that makes sound can be recorded with a sampler and played back. When attached to a keyboard, sampled sounds can be played as notes. As digital technology has evolved since the 1970s, storage has expanded allowing users to play more sounds at higher quality. The Fairlight CMI launched the sampler revolution in 1980 (Leete, 1999). Throughout the 80s, samplers came out in all shapes and sizes. The E-Mu Emulator II, used for nefarious purposes in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, cost $8k to $10k at the time and used floppy disks for storage. Needless to say, this was beyond the reach of your average teen from the era. By the end of the 80s, prices for samplers dropped significantly. The accessibility of this instrument was essential in the development of Hip Hop and crossed over into a number of other genres throughout the 1990s.

 Akai MPC2000 / MPC2000 XL 

Fast forward to 1997. Akai, arguably the most successful manufacturer of samplers, released a new model of Sampler. This model was interesting, because it included a grid of pads. These were quite useful for playing percussive sounds. No longer was the user forced to use a piano keyboard or play a cumbersome electronic drum kit. The shape changed the nature of how samples might be played. It has continued to appear on instruments, and, subsequently, software for recording. The era of clip launching was about to begin.

Akai MPC2000, introduced in 1997. Image retrieved from http://www.vintagesynth.com/akai/mpc2000.php Ableton Live Before Ableton Live, samplers were primarily used as an standalone instrument. After Live's introduction in 2001, entire pieces of a completed and arranged song could be a sample. Live enables musicians, in real time, to launch sections of music randomly without falling out of time. This enables users to rearrange entire pieces of music and mix and match parts. Alas, users can disassemble songs and reorganize them on the fly, creating a masterpiece or a monster. Since Live's introduction, multiple apps and digital audio workstations have included some form of this clip launching ability into their recording suites.

Ableton Live Session View - Clips and tracks can be launched with the touch of a mouse.image retrieved from http://createdigitalmusic.com/files/2012/10/Session-Automation-Recording-Curves.png

Session View, or Clip Launching, in action

This video from thesoundtestroom is great, because it demonstrates an old fashioned song with a blues structure but the recording itself has become the instrument. Because the song is divided into clips, similar to those of Ableton Live's Session View, tiny or extensive portions of the song can be launched at random, allowing the user to create an infinite number of combinations. Effects can be added to single clips or entire sections.

thesoundtestroom: House Of Blues Sound Pack Demo for Launchpad, Brilliant

retrieved from http://bit.ly/1bIToRa

Chance Operations

The benefit of being able to record in chunks and rearrange songs for musicians is that it offers the opportunity for artists to to shuffle the music in a way that will allow them to gain some objectivity about the arrangements and sounds. John Cage typically composed music that may be unpredictable or surprising when he heard it. Perhaps, by shifting how your recorded music is played, your perception will change. When speaking about music with Joan Retallack, Cage (1992, pg. 220) said this: "It's very curious with music, because things change enormously if you're using material that already exists, that is to say, source material that you're treating with chance operations. What happens to it varies greatly according to how much time is spent, or how many notes, or how many measures are going to remain, or be used." He was referring to live performance, but now the same idea can apply to recordings, which have been liberated from their static, linear existence and are now a live performance as well. Take advantage of those possibilities.

References

A brief history of Ableton Live. (January 13th, 2011). Music Radar. Retrieved from http://www.musicradar.com/us/tuition/tech/a-brief-history-of-ableton-live-357837

Ableton Live Session View. Retrieved from https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/session-view/

Akai MPC2000 / MPC2000 XL. Vintage Synth Explorer. Retrieved from http://www.vintagesynth.com/akai/mpc2000.php

Cage, J., & Retallack, J. (2011). MUSICAGE: CAGE MUSES on Words* Art* Music. Wesleyan University Press.

E-Mu product history. Retrieved from http://www.creative.com/emu/company/history/timeline/ 

Ferris Bueller's Day Off [Motion picture on DVD]. (1986). United States: Paramount Pictures 

Leete, N. (1999). Fairlight Computer. Sound on Sound. Article retrieved from http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr99/articles/fairlight.htm

Paige, D. (1980). A Day In The Life Of A Rock Musician. Troll Associates.