Where is my crystal ball?

Sometimes I wish I had a crystal ball and I could see what the future holds. The development of digital recording equipment and interfaces has occurred and continues to occur at such a rapid pace that it is sometimes hard to keep up. Technologies come and go, some work together and others are incompatible.

One of my goals in my home studio is that I'm trying to create a better sound with every song I write and record. Also, I like to have a studio that is expandable and flexible.

When I first started out recording my music I used a 4-track tape recorder with an Atari to create midi tracks. A Roland soundcanvas served as my only source of sounds. Granted, this was 20 years ago and sounded like crap. By the time I was able to upgrade my studio in the mid 90's there was a whole different world out there with hard disk recorders, Macintosh had long ago replaced Atari and samplers offered great audio capabilities and realistic sounding instruments.

I chose a setup with my Mac at the hub of the studio. I purchased Logic Audio 3.5 and an Emagic sound card. The sampler and keyboard were connected through midi and the audio output was going through a mixer. There were even vst plug-ins available at the time. I believed I was going to be set for years to come. I could add infinite amounts of samples to the sampler, record unlimited guitar, bass and vocal tracks in Logic and MIDI wouldn't go out of style.

In a way that was a good choice. It helped me create some cool music that sounded fairly decent. However, it hurts to see that you can now create recordings that sound much better with a lot less. My assumption of using the Mac as the central unit was good and paid off. Where I lost track was the importance of this piece of equipment. Believing that truly great sounds can only come out of hardware, be it effects, mixers, samplers or synthesizers, I overlooked the versatility and flexibility of plug-ins.

The studio technology of today is software based. Software is cheap and the expansion and interfacing possibilities are limitless. There is only one obstacle. The processing power needed for the recording process has increased at a steady pace over the years. By throwing more and more tasks at the central CPU it needs to calculate more and more in less time. If you look at the system requirements of "simple" software that fulfills a single task my original Mac won't suffice in many cases.

I recently tried to add a new drum sampler to my setup. I am not going to bore you with the complex workaround that I came up with to make this work. It was a nightmare and clunky to say the least. If only I had invested in a new Mac whenever a new model came out, stayed up to date with the OS and I had saved my money on all the hardware items that I purchased. I would have money left over today and the drum sampler would just plug into the recording software.

Hindsight is always 20/20 and there are a lot of ifs and buts in the post today. Once I have my new drum sampler working the way it should I will post an example or two. If you're planning on building your own studio, do research. Create a list of things that you absolutely need. If you have to have a mobile setup other rules apply than with a fixed setup in the basement. But if there is a PC or a Mac somewhere in the plan, make sure it is a powerful machine. It might be the most expensive piece but it will pay off over time.