ARTICLE: Midi Maestro
The art of making music...
Article written for the Musician's Union and published in the East London branch Newsletter in 1997 and then in the national newsletter 'Musician' in 1998.
Many, many years ago I wrote a song called 'Computers taking over de music'. I wrote of a world without musicians where one central computer would process your social security and tax payments, police you and provide your music. Going to a concert would simply be a case of seeing the computer on a big screen and worshipping its perfect beat, dancing would be unnecessary because no body would have anything to prove. All very Orwellian but that's what I believed computers would do for us. Then I was completely against the whole ideas of computers, now I've come to terms with the new world order. My publisher no longer wants manuscripts, they want a disc. If I ask for an address, nine times out of ten I get an E-mail address and when I ask musicians around for a 'jam' I am asked what programme I am using.
The first computer I purchased was an Atari, I was such a novice that all I could do was program a beat and get musicians to play along with it. Then I was shown all the other wonderful things the program could do and of course I began to experiment. I got more equipment including sound modules, effects units, a bigger mixing console, a voice enhancer and a sampler.
'Samplers' are weird, really it's a machine that's made for the sole purpose of stealing other people's sounds, beats or vocal. Ok stealing may be a strong word because as long as you go about it the right way it's legal and lots of musicians whose careers have run a little dry can earn quite a bit by doing deals on their sampled music, and we live in a world where it's hard to argue against something if it earns someone a livlihood.
This is not a moan about computers taking over the music, it's more about computers taking so much time. It is a fact that the idea that computers were going to make us work less hours is a myth, some people even thought that hard and floppy discs were going to do away with the need for so much of the paper we use and in so doing save our trees, not true. With so many programs, program updates and computer magazines I am sure the effect is the opposite. I have never seen a glossy computer magazine claiming to come from recycled paper.
Not so long ago I was in a recording shop with four other people, we searched for hours trying to find a particular bass drum sound. After going through a whole library of sounds we ended up with the right sound by putting a microphone into a blanket which was then put into the bass drum itself, all it took was a little imagination. I actually heard someone say that they now have a bass guitar sound in their keyboard that sounds like a real bass guitar, yet this person has a bass guitar hanging on his wall like a museum piece.
In the real world we must be prepared to take on the new technology of the digital age but in my humble opinion we should not be fooled into thinking that time is going to be saved by the so-called revolution allowing more time with our families, or that we can do everything musical ourselves and save money. We still need each other and let's face it there is nothing like a bit of imagination and a personality clash between band members to give your sound that rough edge that we used to speak of in the old days.
Today I looked around my studio and it struck me that this midi thing got the sampler talking to the module, the module talking to the sequencer, the sequencer talking to the rhythm composer, the rhythm composer talking to the keyboard and they are all talking to the SIMPTE but none of them have ever asked me how I feel.
