technology: the unsigned MUSICIAN'S best FRIEND - Internet/Web/Online Service Information - Column

Emedia Professional, Nov, 1999 by Jeff Partyka

i have been a willfully amateur songwriter and musician for more than ten years, with an audience that on any given day is virtually guaranteed to number fewer than 20. So I was surprised to discover recently that someone on the distant Pacific island of Palau had gone online and ordered--and paid for--a CD containing songs that I wrote and recorded in the spare bedroom of my Massachusetts apartment.

The full force of the power and potential of MP3 audio technology--and of the mp3.com Web page and others like it--really hit me for the first time. MP3 allows all of us who record in makeshift home studios, whose audience in the past was limited mostly to friends and family, to reach listeners around the world with original music unfettered by the interference of producers, record companies, marketing professionals, or anyone else. And 50 percent of the CD-sales revenue generated through MP3.com goes to the artist, which is much more than any artist signed to a major record label can expect.

digital recording in the home

There's never been a better time to be an unsigned recording artist. It's easy, however, to overlook one of the key developments that made the current MP3 revolution possible: the amateur musician's ability to create near-professional recordings with the simplest equipment, thanks to advances in recording and computer technology that have brought the tools of the professional recording studio into the home.

The emergence of the affordable four-track "portastudio" during the 1980s made home recording a viable option for part-time hobbyists; now, with the availability of DAT and hard-disk recorders and professional-quality recording and editing software, those hobbyists can create recordings that can come well within a stone's throw of those created in top-quality pro studios--and that someone halfway around the world might be willing to surf onto MP3.com to check out.

Even as an at-home noodler, I haven't always championed such technological wonders. In my adolescent days during the early '80s, I hated the synthesizers and drum machines that were beginning to dominate pop music. As a budding songwriter who modeled myself after guitars-bass-and-drums groups, I thought anyone who used a synth was a cheating charlatan devoid of talent, self-respect, or good aesthetics.

Later, when I first got my hands on a four-track cassette recorder, I still thought all I would ever need would be a microphone, some guitars, and the trusty old drum kit my father kept in his basement. I also firmly believed that home recording would remain a rather primitive hobby, that the only medium that would ever carry my music would be cassette tape (the charms of which I seem mostly unable to appreciate), and that only family and friends would ever hear the fruits of my labors. Today, however--thanks to affordable recording and computer tools, CD-R, and Internet-based distribution--everything has changed.

I have sophisticated audio software at my fingertips that allows me to tweak and edit my sounds as though I were a professional recording engineer. I routinely master my recordings to hard drives and CD-R discs rather than cassettes. And then there's MP3.com, which has empowered me not only to sell CDs to people on distant islands, but also to reach the greater number of people who have downloaded individual songs from my page on the site.

reaching my peak

I still use four-track tape as my recording medium, but that doesn't preclude taking advantage of more modern tools on my Macintosh as well. The most trusty technological marvel for me (in the pre-CD-burning stages, anyway) is Berkley Integrated Audio Software Inc. (BIAS)'s Peak LE. It's a scaleddown version of the company's full-featured Peak product, and it came bundled with AdaptecJAM. It's a remarkable tool. I use it during the recording process to combine sounds and create rhythm loops (in one of my more surreal moments, I actually added crackling vinyl noise to a four-second drum loop).

In the premastering phase, Peak LE lets me turn a four-track master mix into a stereo sound file, normalize, cut stray seconds at the beginning and end, implement smooth fade-outs that last just the right amount of time, and sometimes even perform cuts and other edits that in olden times could only be achieved by putting a razor to tape. (Having edited a quarter-inch multitrack master tape a few years ago, I can testify that physical tape editing is a time-consuming and extremely stressful process. Razor blades lack an "undo" button.)

Software as simple as Peak LE is just the beginning. More serious (and financially well-endowed) home-recording enthusiasts have been bypassing the tape recorder altogether for several years and enjoying high-end sequencing and recording tools like Mark of the Unicorn's Digital Performer and Digidesign's Pro Tools. With the use of these types of tools in basements and bedrooms around the globe, it's not surprising that MP3.com is bursting with thousands of home recordings, many of them in clean, crisp sound.