A Brief History of Audio Recording and Music Production

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This isn’t the most in depth or historically accurate presentation on the history of audio recording but then again that’s not the point. If you want all the facts or are interested in the history there are plenty of resources out there. However, that’s not our concern in this course. Our goal is to make music and believe it or not the history will help us.

As you’ll see in the presentation studio technology did not evolve over night. Most of the advances were based on two factors: quality and control. Quality being how “accurate” or “good” something could be recorded and control being “how many tracks” you could record and how much you could manipulate them (typically based on perceived quality). Therefore we can safely say that most of the evolution in the analog domain was practical. People wanted frequency control over sounds therefore EQ. People wanted more level without busting the record cutter therefore Limiter. People wanted to have different parts on different tracks therefore Multi Track Tape, etc.

In the computer you’ll find that A) there are millions of choices and B) some FX are purely creative not necessarily overtly practical. For this reason when you begin to make music it’s very important to put some limitations in place. Great records were made using a handful of tools in the past so it certainly can be done in the present. The advantage is that instead of feeling overwhelmed with choices you’ll actually be left wanting more, which at the start is exactly the way it should be.