In this age of technology, we can do more with less. But as technology
capable of turning non-musicians into stars becomes a bigger part
of the recording process, how will we know what is “real” or “fake”?
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On the evening of August 7, 2007 Barry Bonds
did what was considered a Herculean feat in sport, surpassing
Hank Aaron for the most career home runs in major league baseball
(at the time, 756). As the ball sailed all 435 feet out of AT&T
Park, I paused to consider the conflicted feelings I had about an
amazing sport and this recent milestone. It’s obvious to any fan
of the game that Barry Bonds is an amazing baseball player, but
his alleged steroid use unfortunately calls into question the legitamacy
of his achievement. FOX’s Tim McCarver said of the event,
“Only time will tell if baseball’s steroid era will result in a number
of asterisks within the record book, but there are already mental
asterisks in the minds of fans. It’s a shame that, after Bonds
breaks the record, the conversation will go, ‘Barry is the all-time
home run hitter, but…’ This record deserves more than that. With
Henry Aaron, there were no buts.”
But I digress, this isn’t an article about baseball or steroids
– although I think there are some serious parallels
between the two.
As a working musician, much like any athlete, I am
always looking for ways to improve my abilities, whether it is
through more practice or by utilizing the latest technology available.
When it comes to your passion, I can certainly sympathize
with anyone who is trying to gain an edge in what they do.
And while I embrace the merging of technology with music, on
the other hand (much like a vast majority of baseball fans), I am
a traditionalist. I starting learning music at a time when computers
were not heavily used, either in recording or instruction. I
took piano lessons when I was very young, and I taught myself
how to play guitar by watching others and looking at books. After
high school, I attended Berklee College of Music where I really
explored the history of music. I honed my craft. I learned what
makes it what it is. And now I have been playing music professionally
for over ten years now – I have been in a position to
witness the explosive expansion of technology and how it has
become a mainstay in today’s music business.
The Tech Boom
No matter where you stand on tradition, it can’t be denied that
many of the things that have come out of this technological boom
have improved the quality of music and made musicians’ lives
easier. A few of my favorites are the now ubiquitous iPod; Pro
Tools and the wide variety of available plug-ins, making recording
faster, easier and limitless; new keyboard technology and the ability
to manipulate sounds with almost limitless variation and little
sweat; virtual instruments, allowing you to have an orchestra at
your fingertips; and non-destructive editing of sound files. All of
these product innovations are amazing, inspiring and aid in our
abilities to create and enjoy music.
Of course, as with any great innovation, there is the inevitable
downside. All of these products are insanely powerful, capable of
creating amazing musical miracles. Perhaps it was
said best by Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben in the
comic
Amazing Fantasy #15, “With
great power, comes great responsibility.”
The manufacturers of these
technologies are constantly
and simultaneously loading
them with more features
and making them easier
to use. Now, a person
who takes the time to
learn and manipulate
these products can create
something that sounds
unbelievable with little
or no human input – in a
historically unique moment,
it is now possible to make a
record or create music without
the playing of any instrument! With
the help of modern technology, you could
take an average voice off the street and make it
sound like Pavarotti. If you’re honest with yourself, do you really
believe that Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan can sing?
That being said, there is no doubt that technology can be inspirational.
Pete Townsend’s visionary approach to sound gave us
seminal tracks like “Baba O’Reilly” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
Quincy Jones blended cutting edge technology and live musicians
to create
Off the Wall and
Thriller. There are many producers and
musicians doing innovative work in today’s music, such as Dr. Dre
and Timabland.
But the question inevitably becomes, where does the line
between what is natural and what is fake get drawn? Is there a
point where asterisks should be placed next to album tracks, next
to artist names?
There is definitely a talent to working with Pro Tools and the
myriad related products. Like graphics programs such as Adobe
Photoshop, it takes real skill to coax the potential from these applications.
The biggest qualm I have, along with many musical “traditionalists”,
lies with a new generation of musicians – and certainly
not all of them – who are using technology to compensate for
a lack of talent and originality. Tuning programs like Antares Auto
Tune and Melodyne can create a vocal performance that would
never have been possible from the singer’s own voice (more
about these later).
From a rhythmic perspective, if you were to
“grid” a classic Rolling Stones song in Pro Tools
or Logic, you would discover the time is shifting
all over the place. The click track might go
out the window, but the song would still groove.
There are also several programs
designed to place music in the exact
right time by using a grid. Quantizing
programs like Beat Detective allow the
musician (or non-musician) to play “out
of time” and magically have it sound
in time. Eric Robinson, a producer,
engineer and artist in Los Angeles
summed it up, saying, “Technology
enables processing that used to be
impossible or incredibly time-consuming
to be done at light speed and easily repeated. This is where
many people lose sight of what they are working on and rely on
technology to fix what they either can’t do or don’t want to spend
the time to make right.”
Correcting the Pitch
Over the last ten years, audio engineers have been perfecting a
technique called “pitch correction or tuning,” in which they take
someone’s recorded lead vocal and “put it in tune” with the use of
various computer programs that allow the note to be altered into
perfect tune. As with anything else, there are good and bad sides
to this. The obvious upside is that if the singer sings flat or sharp,
it can be fixed after the fact. It is a relatively quick procedure and
can save valuable studio time if a singer has difficulty hitting the
right notes – an engineer can do this in a home studio at little or
no cost if they have the right programs. And let’s face it; it also
sounds good. No matter how much of a traditionalist you might
be, no one wants to hear someone singing out of tune.
As the technology has become more widespread, especially in
the past few years, our ears have become accustomed to the
sound of “pitch correction.” The downside of this is that when
you hear an artist singing live, who was “pitched” severely on their
record, you will hear a significant difference. Lead and background
vocals are almost always pitched, creating a homogenized syrupy
sound. In addition, pitching a great singer can take away a lot of
the character of the performance.
The slightly flat notes, awkward
vibrato and odd phrasing are some of
the things we love most about our
favorite pre-Pro Tools records.
If Led Zeppelin were set to record a
new album in 2007, it would most
likely sound nothing like the original
recordings that we love so much.
The undeniable vibe of the four
guys playing together would likely
be tainted with the modern attitude of fixing everything and
making it “perfect.” From a rhythmic perspective, if you were
to “grid” (put the song on a quantized grid that places the audio
into blocks, so you can determine whether something is in time
or not) a classic Rolling Stones song in Pro Tools or Logic, you
would discover the time is shifting all over the place. The click
track might go out the window, but the song would still groove.
The mojo is still there. Mick Jagger’s voice is raw and untainted.
Recording to tape preserved the artists’ original take for perpetuity.
Of course, they would do multiple takes and plucky engineers had
some editing tricks (splicing, doubling, etc.), but there were no digital
enhancements that helped Mick Jagger sing in key, even if he
couldn’t. Back then, you had to perform to make the big money.
Real performers like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett grabbed the
mic (sometimes doing it without one) and just sang. They were
entertainers, and they were able to develop their abilities, but it all
started with talent. There were no computers involved.
I spoke with my friend and record producer, Marshall Altman from
his recording studio in Burbank, California and asked him if he
could weigh in on this topic. Here’s what he had to say:
“As users and creators of technology, we just might be contributing
to the death of rock n’ roll, yes. But as Bruce Springsteen said,
‘Everything dies, baby. That’s a fact. But maybe everything that
dies someday comes back. Put your make up on, fix your hair up
pretty, meet me tonight in Atlantic City.’ Do you think he’d have
written that on an MBox, had the technology been available? I’d
like to think he would have.
“So yes, technology is contributing to the death of music in general,
not just rock n’ roll, and I say let it die. Let it all die, so it can
grow back in to something scarred and beautiful, tragic and noisy,
brave, bold, stupid, smart, happy, sad, life-changing and everlasting.
“Let the major labels die a slow, painful death, and let bold new
record companies rise like roses growing in the cracked sidewalks
of popular culture. Let every band with enough money buy
the gear they want, make a record with too much compression
and not enough heart. Let every singer-songwriter who suffers
from having read too much and not having lived enough make a
record, too.
“Let them all come – put them all up on MySpace. The end is
near! And I can’t wait for the end, so we can all start listening
again. It’s not pretty out there; there’s too much good music
and not enough great music. With the advent of the affordable
DAW, every kid with a dream and a little money can make a
good-sounding record, with some good songs, and some really
good artwork. Good is within everyone’s reach, and technology
has afforded us the easy opportunity to be good, but good is
not great.
“If something is great, the technology used in creating it doesn’t
matter. If there is blame to be cast, it shouldn’t fall on the technology
that has given us the opportunity to be creative. The blame
falls on our shoulders. We listen, we buy, we rip, we steal. We
settle. And out of the destruction of it all will come something
wonderful. I can’t wait to hear what it is.”
Though I started writing this article months ago, I recently caught
MTV’s latest perverse act: the performance by Britney Spears
at the Video Music Awards. Ignoring her lethargic, robotic performance
and the media’s unhealthy obsession with her weight, the
debate centered on her poor lip-syncing skills. As I realized people
weren’t upset by the fact that she was not singing, but instead by
the fact that her lip-syncing wasn’t up to snuff, I realized that the
debate of tradition versus tech isn’t going away anytime soon. It
basically seemed that we as popular music consumers are saying,
“We are willing to buy something totally fake, we just don’t want
you to tell us that it’s fake.”
At this point in our musical and cultural evolution, we have weapons
of mass deception and it would seem that no one cares. If
Barry Bonds juiced, is it still a record? If you can’t sing on pitch,
are you a singer? If our kids cheat in school, will we start putting
asterisks next to the As? If video truly killed the radio star, then
Pro Tools has put real musicians in a coma.
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Jim McGorman is a professional musician who has
worked with a diverse group of artists (Avril Lavigne, Michelle
Branch, Cher, Poison, Paul Stanley, New Radicals, etc.). He is a
singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist (piano,
guitar/bass). In addition to music, Jim currently contributes to a
number of magazines and on line publications.
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