HE home computer revolution may soon chalk up another casualty: the recording studio — that shrine where many a music legend has been born. The old legends relied on their talent but also on record companies to cover the expense of the studios. In exchange, the labels had a say in the aesthetic direction and distribution of the final product. New talent won't need this help. The personal computer is freeing it from the need of both a recording studio and a record company — and, maybe, from traditional musicianship altogether. Of course, saving money is behind this latest trend to mothball the recording studio. In addition to its "state of the art" recording equipment, a good recording studio also requires musicians, engineers, secretaries and janitors, not to mention interior decorators, limousine service and snacks for hungry artists, all of which means additional expense.
Now look at the home computer. Improved music-making technology on the PC goes hand in hand with what could be called the "Blair Witch" phenomenon: using advanced technology to drastically reduce the costs of creative projects, some day maybe even bringing them down to next to nothing. High-tech becomes low-tech. With the right software (some of it free off the Internet), composers of the future won't need a big wad of cash to develop a project. Their home computer, equipped with a built-in CD burner and software for MP3 conversion, sequencing and sampling functions, will still cost less than any decent electric guitar, synthesizer or drum set — let alone a Stradivarius violin or a Bösendorfer piano.
The same expanding technology that improves the capabilities of the PC also shrinks the size of the old recording hardware. Singers can use tiny microphones made of lightweight plastic. The sound quality will get better and you'll soon be able to buy them wherever batteries or blank cassettes are available. The daunting multitrack tasks that once could only be accomplished in the recording studio are now possible at home using innovative music software. Computerized mixing boards can already do more than the giant, complicated boards still found in most recording studios. The art of sequencing and sampling might well become a substitute for musical instruments, requiring a new sort of virtuosity.
Still in an embryonic stage, the making of music on the PC should eventually produce work rivaling that made by today's recording artists and composers — even surpassing them. The use of the PC isn't just a hobby anymore. The musical geniuses of tomorrow won't even have to leave their homes.
The new sounds they create may at first imitate the orchestras, jazz ensembles and rock bands of yesteryear, but in time these artists will find forms of expression to please aficionados of the future — who will, of course, be as fickle as ever in choosing their heroes. Early champions of the home computer have already given us a glimpse at what the future might look like. Composers like Carl Stone have been creating music with little more than sampling equipment for the last 25 years. Until now, the world of electronic music, pioneered by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Morton Subotnick, had the mystique of a complicated technology. By comparison, Mr. Stone and his peers are the new folk musicians, using the new machinery in a simple way and with no illusions about having a vast technological knowledge. John Cage predicted shortly before his death 8 years ago that the newest breed of composer would be a sort of troubadour, making music on the run with portable equipment suitable for anything from carefully plotted composition to fly-by-night improvisation.
Under the category "Electronica" in record stores, one finds veterans like Kraftwerk or Tangerine Dream as well as D.J.'s who have traded turntables for the sampling capabilities of the home computer. The English D.J. Norman Cook, a k a Fatboy Slim, has already had at least one international hit with a recording that, he has said, cost "only the cigarettes and vodka consumed while making it." His success exemplifies the "Blair Witch" phenomenon.
D.J.'s like Paul Oakenfold and Junior Vasquez have similarly transformed the PC from a substitute for a turntable into a musical instrument. They set up computerized equipment when they perform in clubs. Going to a club to watch a D.J. type on a keyboard and move a mouse might not seem as if it's worth the price of admission, but in the hands of a skilled D.J., such computer-generated music can be as exciting as any other kind. In this setting, the computer nerd becomes the computer star.
The club scene in cities like New York is stronger than ever but the virtual clubs springing up in chat rooms on the Internet offer two advantages. They are free and afford participants complete anonymity — something akin to masquerade parties. Everything is provided except human touch. Some young composers already use these chat rooms to test their musical creations by making their music available to anyone in the room who will listen.
This type of easy production, distribution and even public relations is what should really worry the recording industry. Soon it will have to fight back. A new aesthetic will be born under a crossfire. On one side will be the composers that record company executives say lack commercial appeal. Such composers now have access to technology that will allow them to take bigger artistic risks since the financial risk has become miniscule.
On the other side, the recording industry will wage a losing battle at the distribution level of the music business: suing Napster and developing what is known as watermarking technology, coding that prevents MP3 and other sound files from being duplicated without a password. The industry appears to be in a state of denial about the lock it once had on the production of music. So long as profits remain feasible, the record companies will continue to send out their scouts to recruit new talent. But once the PC musicians flood the market with their homemade product, the old ways of honing recording talent will become too expensive and even outmoded by comparison. Once the recording industry develops the watermarking technology, it may be handing the PC musicians exactly what they need to make a profit, since they can protect their own intellectual property as well as a record company can.
All it will take is having a home musician attain real star power, and today's recording industry may find itself groveling to talent it did not nurture — and being shunned. The working-class hero myth that is a central tenet of the pop-music ethos gives an advantage to the PC innovators.
The recent demise of many dot- com businesses is a reminder of how the economy shakes out weak enterprises, leaving the fittest dot-comers to challenge mainstay companies. The fittest of the new PC artists will also survive after a massive, mad scramble, and those that survive will challenge the once indefatigable recording industry.
In light of computer animation like that in George Lucas's groundbreaking film "The Phantom Menace," even Steven Spielberg has prophesied the demise of the film studio as we know it. With the momentum that MTV created in the last 20 years marrying music to the moving image, the new talent may not only make music but also films. Computer animation that creates virtual conductors, lead guitarists, jazz trumpeters and rappers may enhance music with all the charisma and sex appeal of Lara Croft, the acrobatic, gun-slinging protagonist of the Tomb Raider video games.
When Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, he couldn't have forseen that he was setting in motion the entire recording industry of the 20th century, from Enrico Caruso to Eminem. In the past, the expense of the technology always meant that the artist shared control with the investor who foot the bills. Therefore, a businessman's wisdom or hubris dictated the content of music everyone listened to. Artists like Bing Crosby, the Beatles and the Spice Girls became big sellers under such guidance, but the record industry control also extended to classical music, rhythym and blues and other categories geared for loyal but smaller audiences. Remove the investment risk and free the content.
Of course, there will be those who will refuse to appreciate the new technology — call them the new purists. For them, conservatories to preserve the recording studio might be in order. For the rest of us, there's nothing like an upheaval to liven things up.
Gregg Wager is a freelance composer and adjunct professor in music composition at Purchase College.
