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February 15, 2006
Ripping and Burning
I must confess: I read the comics every day on line. Of course, I have my favorites. I always read “Peanuts” even though they are re-running strips from 1959, and I like “9 Chickweed Lane” just for the beautiful artwork.
I usually go to http://www.comics.com for my daily comics fix.
Occasionally I come across a music-themed strip, and today I found an amusing one in “Arlo and Janis.” (Another of my favorites).
This one got me to thinking about when I first started doing studio work, and how much things have changed. A partial list of changes:
1. We used tape. No one recorded to a hard-drive! No one even had a computer in their house in those days.
2. Editing a recording meant getting out the razor blade and cutting the actual tape. (A task which always made me a bit nervous).
3. As a studio musician, you had to play it right, all the way through. There were few things worse than recording as part of the rhythm section, laying down a basic track, getting all the way to the end of the song, hitting a wrong note, and forcing the entire band to go back to the beginning and try it again.
4. If someone sang out of tune, they had to sing it again until they got it in tune. No pitch correction software (no computers, remember?).
5. There were very few, if any, full-service, professional studios contained in someone’s home.
6. Musicians played music; engineers recorded and mixed it. The two roles were almost never combined.
So, here I am today, a musician who is also an engineer, recording to a hard-drive on my computer, in a studio built into my house.
I must admit, though, my 18-year old daughter does most of the ripping and burning.
Posted by leon at February 15, 2006 01:30 PM