Last issue we ran John La Grou's article, "The Future of Audio Engineering." In John's look ahead we see a harrowing glimpse of a world where the audio engineer, composer, and musicians are possibly reduced to one person who works in a virtual creative world. This caused me to think about the changes I've seen in my time making recordings, and specifically the concept of ideas versus execution. There are many ways to take a song from written parts, into a performance, and through to a recording. In fact the three steps of this process can be intertwined and happen in a million different ways. Writing a piece of music can be very separate from (or completely dependent on) the recording process. A recording can be simply capturing a single, live performance as it occurs, or building tracks up, one at a time, to create a song.
Years ago fellow producer/engineer Mike Caffrey told me he believed our jobs were becoming more about assembly than capturing performances. I told him I did not agree, and that my days didn't feel like that. Now I'm not so sure. I've even finally learned MIDI (30 years late), initially using it to help bolster drums on a hip-hop album I was mixing, and now as a creative writing element for another project. It's become another tool to pull out when needed. I also sometimes find myself in Pro Tools' grid mode, using the built-in click track and flying parts of songs around, which is all fairly new to me.