The Facile Eclectic

In the late eighties I was fortunate to witness a digital revolution in the making. As a kid I'd been dabbling with recording technology since middle school and I was always attracted to the idea of being able to create a professional recording at home. By the early eighties the standard in pro studios was the 24 track DASH digital recorder. It was capable of 20 bit resolution and automated editing but the cost of such a machine was about $500,000 or more. At this time a 3 bedroom home cost around $60,000, obviously access to this type of equipment was only available to a few. By the late eighties we did have access to some semi-pro analog gear that was good but not up to pro audio standards. The piece of gear we most needed at the time was a good reverb unit. Professional digital models cost several thousand dollars and analog units really hadn't changed much since the sixties.  The cost of digital reverb had to do the complexity of converting analog sound to digital data and applying the sophisticated algorythms required to simulate a convincing reverb pattern. With processor power low a reverb unit was a collection of multiple computers, one to convert analog to digital, one to process the algorythm, and one to convert digital back to analog. Each computer stage had a seperate processor, ram memory, rom memory, and other associated components. In a stereo unit this entire architecture was duplicated. This made these devices very expensive to build. What changed in the late eighties was the invention of two new electronic components. The first was analog to digital converters that were completely contained on a single chip. But the really important device was the DSP(digital signal processor) which performed the complicated task of simulating a complex reverb pattern on a single chip. The result of all of this was the Alesis Microverb. It was a good quality digital reverb and at $100 it cost only 5% of the price of previous units of its quality. It was quickly followed by many other effects units of various types and other manufacturers quickly joined in. Within a few years a musician could have a reasonable facsimile of a $500,000 effects rack for about $3000. The major sea change was the result of another Alesis product, the black face ADAT. ADATs used digital VHS technology to record 8 tracks of 16bit audio on an inexpensive cassette. These units could be linked together to record as many tracks as needed. The resolution was not as good as DASH machines but since CD's are made at 16bit resolution, the end consumer really couldn't tell the difference. For $3000 you could have 24 tracks of digital recording capacity. Compare that to the $500,000 price tag of a DASH machine and you get the idea. When Eddie Brickel and the new Bohemians recorded there first album on ADATs the cat was out of the bag. What followed was an explosion of home studios. For the first time in the record business the means of production was no longer the exclusive domain of the folks with deep pockets.

Posted by Ben Wortham at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In my last post I covered the history of the record industry up to the 1960's. At the beginning of the sixties recordings where still a way of capturing a live performance. Basically you got the band or orchestra in a room along wih the the vocalist(s), miked everything up, and mixed directly to a stereo tape recorder. After the development of multitrack recorders it became possible to do more. You could for instance sing a second vocal part with yourself after you recorded the first. This meant recordings could be made that could not be duplicated live. In this way records evolved into a more complex artform. A few early examples are Brian Wilson's "Pet Sounds" and the Beatles "Sergent Pepper". In addition new technoligies like synthesisers gave muscicians an increasing range of sonic possibilties. By the seventies artists like Stevie Wonder where producing recordings where a single artist performed all the various parts of the piece. This trend led to the conclusion by industry people that sales could be grown by increasingly perfecting and improving recording thechnology and audio quality. This drove up production costs and increased sales where needed to offset those costs. As a result, starting in the seventies, more money was put into promotion. Concert touring took on new dimensions. Even when the tour lost money it was considered a good investment to sell the product, records. When MTV came along it added another expensive layer to the industry business model. This is when sales hit their peak. It all culminated with Michael Jacksons "Thriller". It had all the ingredients, high production values due to Quincy Jones expert hand in the studio, a massive world tour, an award winning video, and even a high profile product endorsment. We will never see it's kind again which in my opnion is not a bad thing. The reasons for this, as most young folks know, is digital technology. If you think I'm talking about CD's you are wrong.

CD's where a big improvement in audio quality and industry folks thought that people would be willing to pay more for that improvement. They anounced the death of the LP record was iminent and would soon go the way of the 8-track. For engineers like myself they where great. For eus the holy grail has always been acoustic accuracy and CD's made that possible for the first time. Now you can hear on your home system exactly what I hear when I'm mixing a project. Other media like LP's and analog tape always lose some acoustic quality in reproduction and aren't faithful to the orginal master recording. The problem is that this sublety is lost on most music lisenters. They really care about a good song or a piece of music that moves them. LP's already sounded "good" and CD's sounded different but not necessarily better. In addition CD's where more expensive than records. The only reason people bought them is because the major record labels stopped making vinyl. CD's became the only game in town. And with the costs of recording, promoting, and production so high, no independent could play the game. The only source for music was the major labels. Thats what really changed and it didn't start with the internet. It really started with musicians. Tune in next time for the conclusion.

Posted by Ben Wortham at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

With bands opting to sell their recordings themselves for next to nothing, and rampant piracy everywhere, its no wonder record companies are in a panic. The old business model of selling an album as the principle product is rapidly disappearing. Many artists have begun to realize that their principle income is derived from the performance of their material and not from CD sales. In any case, whats to lose, since the labels always got the larger share of the pie? I would contend that this state of affairs was inevitable and record labels have fundamentally misunderstood what the principal product they are selling is for a very long time.

A brief history of the record biz. In the early days of Edison recordings the machines where expensive and the drums were difficult to make. They were viewed as a pricey novelty. Things got better with the introduction of flat disks but they were still pricey. At that time most artists made their living from live performances. Records where a promotional tool, something to give away at concerts in hopes of luring ticket buyers who might get an expensive souvenir in a drawing. It wasn't until later, as disk sales increased, that people realised records could make money. These were the golden days when selling a few thousand copies could net you substantial profits. In a time before radio and television many people would pay the substantial price of a recording in order to hear a popular artist who they probably would never hear in person. The performance was still the product, the record was just a means of delivering it to a wider audience. Then came radio and things changed. People now heard their favorite artists for free no matter where they happened to live. However recordings still offered the convenience opf hearing your favorite performer any time you like without depending on the whims of the programmers. The technology was getting cheaper and more widespread as well. As a result record sales continued to grow as did the profits. The record companies continued to inovate their product into the television age. They increased the length of time that could be placed on a single disk while simultaneously making them cheaper. More bang for your buck! Then came stereo Hi-Fi and improved audio quality making it seem more like you where really there in person. Then came the 45rpm single. They we're extremily cheap and the phonographs that played them where inexpensive enough for parents to buy them for their kids. They really where the I-Pod of their day. Bubble Gum Babylon(term for the teenage market) was born. Sales of these singles reached volumes that we're never seen till then. They became the standard by which artist success was measured and gave birth to the Billboard charts. At this point we've arrived at the early sixties. Up till now the record industry had stayed profitable, despite competition by other media, by contniously innovating their product and finding new markets to exploit. Sales levels continued to grow and would for sometime more. In my next post I'll take you to the industries peak and explain why I think it went wrong.

Posted by Ben Wortham at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)