.. about virtual instruments..

Somewhere around 1995-1996 I was working in a synthesizer store selling only synths and electronic instruments. We had about 150-300 different models in the store, from early 70s moog/arp/oberheim and korg/yamaha/roland synths, to the latest virtual analogue and sampler-technology machines.

At that time, the only choice you had, if you wanted to do a great and interesting "modern" production, was to buy a lot of hardware, or maybe some few but expensive multi-timbral machines (such as the Roland jv-1080 that was a total smash hit when it was released).

Amongst the classic "must haves" were the Roland TR-909 and the Roland TB-303, both was ultra popular, and when we had the luck to find any of these machines, we sold them in a second for about 1000-1200 euros each and people who really wanted those sounds never did hesitate, how could they, they did not have a choice...

That era is dead now, though it built a solid ground for the next thing that was to come. The modern sampling technology took care of the needs for pianos, strings, mellotrons and other "must have" sounds. Novation and Clavia invaded the world with the virtual analogues to replace those, in a midi context, crippled, old classics. Kenton Electronics, did a good job making the old analogue's live a few years more with their midi retrofit-kits, and I actually see Kenton fitted machines from time to time in recording studios, even if they seldom are connected to the working rig, since now, you don’t even need midi anymore.

So what happened?

Well, computer technology has always been developing fast, and for the last 10 years, faster than ever. Moore's law* never seems to fail, and the computers are getting faster, better, faster and yet better, for every year that passes, and price is still about the same.

Today you connect your USB-keyboard to the laptop, open your host of choice, create a new track, open your preferred virtual drum plug-in, and create a groove in less than 10 minutes, containing your favourite sounds picked from the hard drive direct. Then you add a bass, either a real one plugged right in to your sound card (or a sampled that sounds like a real one) and run it through a virtual amp so you can change the sound during the working process if needed, or you choose one of thousand virtual synths and tweak it until you get the synth-bass sound you love. And the same with pads, pianos, strings, you name it..

And all of this for almost no money at all, compared to what you had to spend 10-15 years ago to get a result even close to what you can achieve with today’s technology. Not to even mention how easy it is, once you save your project, everything stays the same, and next session you just open the project and continue. No patch bays, no track charts, and no hours of "preparing the studio for today’s sessions"... Oh, and I never even mentioned the rest of the process, effect plug-ins and mixing.. well, that's another post another day.

This is just a reflection, and there really is no funny or ironic conclusion to state here, but I'll end this post with a recommendation on a great modern "big" production were I know that the computer has played a huge role in the process.

Seal - Seal IV, Produced by: Trevor Horn, Sarm Studios London
[seal IV, itms]

And here's a quick video tutorial for you who started with computers and missed the entire "machine" race.
[sonic state - synths top20]


* Moore's Law
[moore's law]


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.. about reel tape..

I read today about Quantegy, the classic reel tape manufacturer formerly known as Ampex.

As some of you might remember, about 2-3 years ago, they went bankrupt and disappeared from the market, due to the fact that computer-based recording systems are very much dominating this industry now, yet the world was holding their breath and on more or less every pro-audio forum on the Internet you could read posts like: "Have we seen the last reel tape now??"


One year after that, Quantegy anounced that some of the guys working there decided to give it a chance, they restructured the company, opened the tape factory, and they were back in business again. Reel tapes was back on the market, and a lot of studio owners with tons of money invested in refurbished vintage reel tape recorders, could now relax.

But for how long..

So, today I read some sad news about Quantegy again, due to lack of orders they have to discontinue a huge part of their product line, including some of their reel tapes as well, and the question is, for how long time will they be able to survive this time?

As a contrast, or possibly as a logical extension of a now soon to be dead reel tape culture, a few weeks ago, I read a posting on Gearslutz about some engineer that states that he can hear a difference in quality of computer-recorded material depending on if it is recorded using internal SATA drives, or if it is recorded using an external firewire drive!

I really don't know what to say, in my world (growing up with computers) a zero is a zero, and the figure 1 is always a figure 1 and inbetween that there is as far as I know no computer in the world that knows the difference.

Probably, there is no right or wrong here, no matter if you are a vintage reel tape enthusiast, or if you are a total ProTools geek, or if you still cuddle around with your oldschool Akai MPC-60, no matter what - if you make great music, the rest of the process is religion, what YOU believe - is what you hear. And who could ever tell you that it is "wrong"?

Anyway, if you believe in reel tapes, go visit Quantegy now to get some of those tapes before the factory closes again. And for the rest of you, go buy a reel tape anyway and save it as a cool souvenir from the era when the history of "modern music" was created, with discs that contains tunes that we all love and remember, discs that was recorded on low track number reel tape...

[quantegy website]


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