"The Beach Boys 1985" and "Summer In Paradise" outtakes and studio sessions.

[the captain]

I won't take this too far (in that it would really get off topic), but I don't think there is any downfall in music in using newly available technology. Change, sure. But there was change in music at every other step of the way, too. Did it ruin music, or change music? From changes in instruments, to recording, to multitrack recording, to effects, to analog synths, to digital samples, to programming, to more modern editing...each is just one step. "True rock"? What would that be? If we're to look at what rock 'n' roll began as, any "true rock" would now be a laughable nostalgia trip, not some new, rebellious spirit. What is a new rebellious spirit (which might be considered the equivalent of rock)? Probably what a fan of "true rock" would dislike, due to its very newness.

[Wirestone]

Here's a hypothetical -- which is worse --

1.) Someone actually singing a song credited to them, with their voice autotuned to be palatable

or

2.) A studio pro singing the song, then crediting the work to someone else (like Bruce and Terry for the Rip Chords, for instance. Or Motown ditching the rest of the Supremes for "Someday We'll Be Together").

The point is, whenever there's a quick and cheap way to make slick music for the masses, the folks who make their living selling such music will use it. Has nothing to do with digital or computer programs. Has to do with turning a profit.

As for the truly creative folks -- they will take what they can from the available tech and turn it to their own ends. (As they have always done.) The Flaming Lips, for example, have transformed as band because of such tech. Wayne Coyne can actually _sing_ on their records. It has opened new areas for them.

I also think you have a lot more people doing orchestral pop, for instance, than ever before -- because they can now record it on a laptop in their bedroom. They couldn't have afforded it before. And I'm talking about people on this board!

[adamghost]

I happen to agree that music took a steep nosedive after 1983, the first year that the mega-sequencer/samplers became available like the Synclavier.  Look no further than Stevie Wonder for evidence of that.

I think there's a simple reason:  it became very easy to make something sound like a record.  Before, it took a lot of work, careful playing and arranging around the raw material of a good song, to get there.  Now, with a perfect beat and everything slick and programmed, almost anything you did sounded like it was "finished."  It made it easy to overlook the actual craft of songwriting...moreover, because a lot of people started writing to drum machines, dynamics tended to go out the window...you kept one beat going at the same level and volume all the way through the song.  OR, you went overboard by getting ridiculously polyrhythmic when you didn't need to be.

It's not an overreaction to say the introduction of sampling and sequencing keyboards changed everything not just about how songs were produced, but how they got written and arranged.  The entire process completely shifted.  By the end of the '80s, people started to dial it back and there were some starting to return to a more organic way of doing things...but most of what we hear on the radio today has its roots in the concept of writing and recording that didn't exist before 1983, because just about anything that's got a drum machine, a keyboard and a reasonable method of recording is going to sound like a record...even just a guy talking over it.  And that's cool...but it means far fewer people are going to sit down and actually "write a record" in the Beatles/Brian Wilson sense of the word.  You have to actually TRY to do it that way.  The technology can be helpful, yes, but it also makes it easier just not to bother.

Mind you, plenty of worthwhile music can and has been made using this method, but it makes it much HARDER to get the kind of records that you had previously.  Also, the skill sets of the musicians themselves tended to change, and the bar got lowered pretty far in terms of what you could get away with playing in a band.  Now you're at a point where there are ProTools studios popping up everywhere (I'm running one myself, for Chrissakes), but hardly any of them actually know how to record a live drum kit.

[Sam_BFC]

Ah don't actually have the CD because everyone says how bad it is haha...thats quite interesting because I think Ricky Martin's Livin La Vida Loca was really the first track to be recorded, mixed etc exclusively within PT and this was some seven or so years later...why I asked really.  So thanks.

Sam

This seems unbelievably unlikely.

Well I guess the first major hit anyway which isnt quite the same thing when I think about it.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Ah don't actually have the CD because everyone says how bad it is haha...thats quite interesting because I think Ricky Martin's Livin La Vida Loca was really the first track to be recorded, mixed etc exclusively within PT and this was some seven or so years later...why I asked really.  So thanks.

Sam

This seems unbelievably unlikely.

Well I guess the first major hit anyway which isnt quite the same thing when I think about it.

First #1 to be Pro Tools from the ground up. First commercial version of Pro Tools was marketed in 1991 - 4 tracks, price tag $6,000

[slothrop]

First #1 to be Pro Tools from the ground up. First commercial version of Pro Tools was marketed in 1991 - 4 tracks, price tag $6,000

6 Gs for 4 tracks 

[Andrew G. Doe]

First #1 to be Pro Tools from the ground up. First commercial version of Pro Tools was marketed in 1991 - 4 tracks, price tag $6,000

6 Gs for 4 tracks 

Well, yeah...but you could bounce and ping pong those babies from now until Doomsday with no loss of quality !