Evolution of Music

One of the most heavily impacted industries by computers is the music industry. The methods of producing and selling music have changed more in the past 30 years than they have since the beginning of time. From the creation of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and virtual synthesizers to the sampled recording of real live instruments, composers are now able to purchase software and produce realistic sounding instruments without the need for a big recording studio and many hired players. These instruments are often recorded note by note many times at different microphone positions and different articulations. Then, the audio is packaged with programmed software, often known as a VSTi (Virtual Studio Technology Instrument), that lets the composer input his/her own notes and have an output of sound that resembles a live performance. These sampled instruments have become such a standard that they can be heard in most popular songs in most genres. Composers and producers do not have the time or funding to record a live performance of every single instrument no matter how far in the background it is, so the cheaper way is to use software. The business of selling sampled and synthesized virtual instruments has become big enough that there are entire big companies dedicated to programming and selling this kind of software to music creators around the world. EastWest, for example, is a company dedicated to making all kinds of virtual instruments, and although I could not find their yearly revenue, they have spent hundreds of thousands on creating their most recent libraries sampling orchestral string and brass instruments. For a software that only sells to a specific number of professionals, they are spending quite a lot on perfecting the art of making a computer produce the sounds you would hear in an acoustic performance. For a professional, the prices of these products being in the thousands does not come close to the higher price of hiring an entire orchestra, so EastWest do realize the importance of what they're investing into.


The real issue here is how this will affect performers and musicians. When people stop noticing the difference between sampled software playback and live performance recordings, why would even the richest composers bother spending money to record performances for something like music for a trailer or a TV show? Being a musician could very well be one of the rarest jobs in the future, and I highly doubt someone that has spent their entire life mastering an instrument would be happy spending every single day playing the same note 50 times to make the perfect sample for a software where his playing won't even be remembered. Like any movement in technology, virtual instruments have their after-effects. The opportunities they open for programmers could be the same number of opportunities they close for musicians. Even bands and live performing artists rely somewhat on virtual instruments in one way or another during performances. As a matter of fact, some companies, such as Eareckon, have created software made especially for use as a host of virtual instruments during live performances. More recent genres of music, such as electro, techno, etc. rely on 1 person controlling a previously arranged sequence as a DJ on his/her computer during live performances, rather than having live players performing on synthesizers. With the core of music moving closer to a single workstation and further from the hands of the player, it is unpredictable how the most culturally-influenced things like music will be affected.