Recording - June 2012 - 72

The first two things you tend to hear from manufacturers hawking new gear are (1) “This is what our new product does” and (2) “This is why you’re doomed if you don’t switch to it.” It’s a great feeling to realize that a problem you’ve been fighting in the studio could well be solved by a new development. But it’s also a great feeling to realize that this time around you’ll be okay if you wait a little while. What you should avoid is the vague uneasy feeling that you simply have to try this new technology or somehow you’re letting your music down. (Sound silly? I get at least a call one month from a reader who’s terrified of a massive upgrade that someone convinced him he somehow needs.) In my editorial about the new Pro Tools (December 2011), I noted that old PT systems didn’t magically stop working the day the new ones came out. The same is true of any recording technology: it works until it breaks... or until you break it while trying to improve it. Try new things, but find a way to do so that doesn’t put your old workflow out of commission. Nothing

Editorial by Mike Metlay

Solutions Are Easy—Finding The Right Problem Can Be Tricky!
In this issue, we’ve talked about a wide variety of soundware and software, the latest wave in a deluge that will likely never slow down, much less stop. It’s often frustrating that just when we think we’ve got it all sorted out, something new comes along and we’re thrown into a tizzy trying to figure out where this new stuff fits into our music-recording lives. The world won’t wait for us to catch our breath... or will it? Technology changes for a reason. Sometimes the reason is greed or pride or selfishness. Maybe Company A has a great standard that it licenses, and Company B doesn’t like the license terms, so it creates a competing standard that it claims is somehow better, even if it isn’t. But the vast majority of tech upgrades have a very simple reason: people want to do more, and technology lets them get there. Lots of cutting-edge hardware and software comes through my studio for reviews, and I enjoy putting it to the test. Part of why I don’t get discouraged by the constant flow of new ideas and new technologies is that I think of it in terms of what you, our readers, stand to gain from it. I still get a thrill from realizing that something that very recently was impossible is now simple. Intonation control of polyphonic data? 32-channel audio recording onto an ordinary computer? Sampled representations of instruments I could never dream of owning for real? Count me in! But the other part of why the constant onslaught of new tech gear doesn’t faze me is because I don’t think of it as “impressive new technology”, I think of it as “solutions to problems”. New gear is a lot less scary if you ask yourself one simple question: “What problem do I have—right now, or at least soon, not somewhere in the distant future—that this will help me solve?”
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frustrates learning new tech like the knowledge that you’re dead in the water until you do. (This is why many studios schedule down time for DAW upgrades, or test them on non-essential computers first.) Some technologies thrive for much longer than the norm, and it’s usually for good reasons. MIDI is a great example; even though the cables that used to carry it are pitifully slow by today’s standards, it works happily over USB and within DAWs as a common language for musical expression control. And analog tape? Even simpler: it just plain sounds good.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”—Charles Darwin
You can’t always predict which technologies will fly and which won’t, and which will have a musical impact and which won’t. USB 2.0 didn’t look like much competition for FireWire, but it’s everywhere in the audio interface world now... yet USB 3.0, which is way faster, hasn’t been used in a single music device. Thunderbolt is so new and costly that few folks use it for anything, but music devices with it are on the way already. Go figure. You’ll find yourself making confident and sensible choices when you think about what new technology actually does, then look at what you’re trying to accomplish and whether the new tech helps you get there. “This new standard moves more data without choking? Well, I want more inputs to my DAW. Okay, tell me more.” “This new standard gives you a new way to control large orchestral sample libraries? I don’t use those; until it impacts the soundware I use every day, I’ll pass, thanks.” Think of technology as solutions to problems... preferably real current problems. Know where you are and where you want to be, and look at each new development as a way to get there, or not. And always ask yourself if the process is helping you make music more easily, or slowing you down. You don’t have to be overwhelmed by constant change in the music-tech marketplace; you can embrace it and love it, when you know it’s helping you do something you truly need to do.

Mike Metlay (mike@recordingmag.com) still thinks that a Mellotron that fits inside a laptop computer and never needs to be cleaned or aligned is the coolest thing ever.

Recording - June 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - June 2012