T-Bone Burnett says that he still prefers using real musicians, and he does not like the overuse of computers in music.
It’s good for things to speed up and slow down and be out of tune. Besides being conceptually correct, it’s also emotionally true. People even try to pro-gram fl aws into the music, but it’s not the same. Once you propro-gram a fl aw, it’s no longer a fl aw; it’s a program.
On the other hand, Manfred Mann, who has been recording using a combination of live musicians and computers for decades, is of the opinion that when records ceased to be played live and started to be built up by overdubbing, a lot of the “feel”
was lost. He told me,
If you do live overdubs on a computer track, the musicians are playing to something that is known to be in time. Before computers, if the basic track was not solid, you were layering discrepancy on top of discrepancy.
For better or for worse, certain kinds of music would not have come into existence without computers. I was fortunate enough to be at the forefront of the application of computers to popular music. It was very exciting to realize I could program parts that would otherwise be impossible to play, and I could program all the instruments without having to be able to play them and without having to have my ideas fi ltered through another musician. Suddenly composers and arrangers were not just the authors of the parts but, for the fi rst time, were fully in control of the performance subtleties. Computers enabled us to separate technical profi ciency from creativity.
Nonetheless, a bad computer track has little to commend it, even if it is technically profi cient.
I think most of us have heard technically profi cient musicians “going through the motions,” playing without communicating. Music has the capacity to commu-nicate many different emotions and moods, although musicians and instruments vary in their expressive capabilities. The human voice is the most expressive instru-ment, which is in part because of its immense fl exibility: There are no frets or keys or tempering, so all notes, scales, microtones, and infl ections are available along with a wide range of timbres. The voice is hardwired to our thoughts and feelings;
if someone is stressed, it is easy to hear it in their voice. Additionally, the human voice has access to language. The guitar and its long line of ancestors and relatives have been popular in many cultures for thousands of years, most likely because of their versatility and expressiveness. Other instruments such as the Hammond organ (with an on/off switch keyboard) are inherently less expressive, but talented and sensitive players such as Jimmy Smith learned to manipulate it to generate emotion-ally charged and exciting music. It seems that a desire to express an inner feeling fuels our drive to make music, and a great musician can articulate emotion using two pieces of wood.
Computers are tools just like the guitar, the Hammond organ, a paintbrush, or a pen, through which musicians, painters, or writers can express themselves.
Accomplished musicians and producers have always used the tools available to make great music. But, computers are not simply another performance tool: They
blur, and sometimes erase, the line between composer and performer. The record-ing, in many cases, becomes both the score and the performance, changing the pro-ducer’s relationship to the composition, performance, and production. This process began decades before DAWs became available but lies at the core of much of the criticism of DAW techniques that involve maximal manipulation.
There will most likely always be some backlash against new technologies.
Sometimes, even younger musicians, producers, and engineers who have rediscov-ered older methodologies and equipment resist new technologies. Many musicians, engineers, and producers who come from the time when everything was necessarily live and analog understand the limitations of that equipment and see new technolo-gies for what they are: new tools.
Miles Davis embraced electronics, computers, drum machines, and synthesiz-ers in the middle of his career, beginning in the ’60s. Rudy Van Gelder, jazz record-ing engineer of the ’50s and ’60s, was an early convert to digital recordrecord-ing. He said,
“I believe today’s equipment is fantastic. . . . I wouldn’t want to face a session with-out the editing capabilities of digital.” 31 He also enjoys the fact that digital offers
“the ability to record without tape hiss [and] very low distortion if you know how to do it. . . .” 32
Herbie Hancock has been recording since his fi rst solo album for Blue Note in 1962, after which he played piano with the groundbreaking and virtuosic Miles Davis groups of the ’60s. He may be better known for his innovative use of elec-tronics (the album Future Shock and instrumental hit “Rock-it”) than he is for his acoustic piano artistry. Hancock covers the gamut of possibilities, using live musi-cians, machines, acoustic instruments, and synthesizers on his records.
“Overall, we record in a very old-fashioned way,” says Jimmy Jam of Jam and Lewis. “We just turn on the tape and go for the gold. That’s how you make those wonderful mistakes that give your song the unique touch you’re looking for.”
However, Jam and Lewis’s sense of the “old-fashioned” embraces the use of pro-grammed drums or beats on their recordings.
Clearly, there is no right or wrong way to make records. There may be, more or less, appropriate tools and processes for any specifi c session, but producers now have many options. Nonetheless, the methodology that a producer employs has a telling impact on the overall sound and the attitude or emotion conveyed, which, in turn, determines how the record is perceived and received by industry and public alike. There are no hard- and-fast rules, but the aesthetic qualities of a production need to complement the commercial and artistic intentions of the stakeholders.
Artists and labels often pick producers by the sound of their previous work or their reputation for a certain style of recording. Understanding your strengths and weak-nesses is useful in fi nding the right projects. As an artist, knowing what end result you want and matching that to the methodology is critical. Some producers defi ne themselves by their sound, which is a product of their methodology and choice of technology. Others embrace a wider range of tools and processes, adapting their approach to the specifi c needs of the project.