SRIRAM RAVISHANKAR
A SEA OF
CHANGE!
One of Chennai’s most loved music
production teachers Deepak Sugathan takes
a quick look at the music production scene
and what lies ahead of us
Most significant milestones in technology that rapidly propelled
music production
One of them definitely has to be the digital recording
technology, systems now a days are so compact and powerful
that you can carry it anywhere & do a full blown production
on the go. All you need is a sound card, a mic, few cables, a
headphone, and possibly a small MIDI keyboard. Secondly,
so many avenues and schools to hone your creative skills and
in a number of different ways to showcase them. “If someone
doesn’t give you work, you could simply produce & upload
your work on number of online platforms like Soundcloud,
YouTube, Reverbnation etc.” Third, features available on
software, with its user friendly GUI (Graphical User Interface)
to edit, mix and master music , non-destructively is simply
amazing! This wasn’t so easy during the analogue recording
era. Manufacturers have been creating virtual instruments
that sound so realistic at the same time that they are quite
easy to use. They seem to have captured the essence of a real
instrument or a rare instruments which are now available to
most of us music producers at our finger tips. Fourth, internet is
one thing which has opened up so many possibilities for almost
everyone. Unimaginable amounts of information is available on
24
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
the internet. “Google & YouTube are like assistant professors
for almost any subject you wish to acquire knowledge on”.
For musicians and music producers, internet has opened up
so many new means to communicate, collaborate and display
their work that one no longer needs a record label to release
their work or need to hand over a demo CD/cassette to someone
- just emailing links of your work is more than enough! Who
could’ve thought of this ten, fifteen years ago?! (laughs)
New trends in music production that are majorly dictating
the commercial sound as we recognise it today
Talking about musical trends, there is never a definite answer to
this question.
It’s mostly driven by what works in the industry - something
becomes a huge hit then that sets the trend for the next
couple of years or at least until the next hit song be it
Bollywood & International music releases. Which genre or
style does that is totally unpredictable & no one knows. We
can only make assumptions based on statistics. To add to
it, when song does becomes a hit, the rest of the producers/
musicians are bound to follow the same trend (or references).
Musical trends change quite a lot! However over the last