# Get Off My Lawn!

- Site: Analog Industries
- Author: Chris Randall
- Date: 2010-01-19
- URL: https://analogindustries.com/2010/01/get-off-my-lawn/

_NOTE: I wrote this bit for my column in Computer Music, but I just couldn't make my point in the space they allot me, and I didn't want to toss it, so I decided to put it up here for discussion instead._

I was trying like hell to come up with a better lead-in for this column than the incredibly prosaic "you kids today, you just don't know how easy you have it" but nothing's working, so I'll just out with it.

The "easy" I'm referring to is the re-mix, and its retarded foster child, the mash-up. Prior to the advent of the modern DAW, doing a remix was a big, big deal. A step-by-step process of a typical remix:

1\. Book time in a studio that has two 24-track machines so you can make a copy of your 2" tape. Keep in mind that a roll of tape cost around a hundred dollars. If the song was recorded on an SSL board, you also needed to make copies of the 8" floppies for the recall and automation. Make a photocopy of the track sheet and throw that in there. Wrap the whole thing in several layers of tin foil and Fed-Ex it to the remixer.

2\. The remixer then needs to book time in a studio. The first hour or so is spent biasing the deck to the tape. The next couple hours are spent making a facsimile of the original mix, and figuring out what the hell is on each track. (Since you only had 23 tracks to work with, it wasn't uncommon to have a couple different parts on any given track. The main instruments would have their own, but all the extra stuff would be somewhat jumbled.)

3\. Now the real fun begins. Chances are just about 100% that whatever sequencer you're using isn't going to chase the SMPTE on the tape, because SMPTE and the chasing thereof was a very fickle thing. There were numerous tricks and tools to deal with this one particular aspect, and all of them would be applied. Eventually, usually, you'd get it working, and your sequencer (which was almost always either an Atari ST or a hardware unit) would be chasing the SMPTE and more or less in time.

(At this point you've burned at a bare minimum four hours of studio time, for a few hundred dollars.)

4\. We'll leave out the middle part where the remixer does Things to make it a remix. Usually, it would be just that, a re-mix. If it was a "dance" mix, the drums would probably be replaced with other drums, but generally the main parts of the song would be left alone. Maybe some various other things would be added, but generally, you worked with what was already on the tape, and maybe just added a couple little things here and there.

5\. You'll notice I didn't say anything about tempo or pitch. On a tape, the two are immutably tied. You couldn't change one without changing the other. Time stretching, when it came around, was such an incredibly tedious process that it wasn't often used except to get a loop to sit in with a song.

6\. So, the remixer, in the interests of saving money (the more he spent on the studio time, the less he got to take home) would come in to the process with a fairly good idea of what he was going to do. If this involved lengthening the song, or changing the arrangement in any way, the process got truly silly. The method here would be to run the individual sections on to a master 1/2" (or 1/4" occasionally) tape, and get out the splicing block and razor blade. The word "edit" is not ill applied here.

7\. Once all these pieces were assembled, if it was post-91 or so, the 1/2" master would then be run to a DAT and sent to the label. The label would then play it for the original artist, who (usually) got to approve or disapprove it. If the latter, it was generally shelved, as there was too much money involved to actually do all that over.

And my point in all of this? It's thus: you kids today. You just don't know how easy you have it. The only thing better about the pre-DAW era is that mash-ups were completely impossible to make, so we never had to find out what the vocals of "Closer" sounded like over the music of "In Da Club." The world was a better place.

## Comments (10)

**Vaihe** (2010-01-19):

Nah, I still like Smells Like Booty :D

Pre DAW we had to listen retarded Jive Bunny Medley remixes of old rock'n'roll standards .

**Vaihe** (2010-01-19):

And the retarded evidence of pre-daw mashup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6aygA2VbNw

**stevo83** (2010-01-19):

I think its pretty cool that 'the kids' can take a vocal of a track they like and mix it with what ever. The not so cool part is posting it on youtube. Or making money from it.

The jive bunny studio is next to a PCB manufacturer we did work for. The sign outside the studio states 'home of the jive bunny!'. Like its something to be proud about.

Always made me laugh...

**noisetheorem** (2010-01-19):

I remember back in about 1994 working on a sample on my EMU Emax II. I had some lines of dialog from a movie (yeah, i was innovative) that I wanted to juggle around to say something a little different - I needed to move 3 words. The Emax had No wave form dispaly of any kind, and I sure as hell couldnt afford a computer and audio editing software after I had blown my cash on that $2000 piece of 2megabytes worth of sampler memory (I had 30 seconds).

I had to get out a note book and listen to the sample and guess about where all the cuts and inserts needed to be made. I had to make backup copies of the sample regularly because there was no such thing as undo (backups were made to a 40megabyte seagate cartridge). All told, I think it took me 2 to 3 hours to get it exactly right and to fit with the beat of the music.

If I wanted to do this today, it would take me 3 minuts and I could do it with software thats free on a netbook that had gigabytes of ram and cost less than one of those seagate cartridges did back in the day.

I think this is actually the problem with electronic music. There used to be a significant cost and ingenuity barrier - most people just couldnt figure this crap out on their own, and most people were not willing to make the choice between a semester at college and a hot new synthesizer (which probalby had 16 notes of polyphony and had a moog bass sound on it that sounded about as moog as my dog with gas) that it enforced a certain level of creativity. Now if you have $500, you have Reason or Live and you can basically do anything on the cheapest possible available computer.

So yeah, I agree 1000%

**arratik** (2010-01-19):

Since when did Steve Albini start writing for Analog Industries?

(I kid, I kid - this is some good food for thought)

**stevo83** (2010-01-19):

I think the lack of elitism with electronic music is a good thing though no?

The lack of an initial significant outlay also means peole can take it up as a hobby, and have some fun, without having to re-mortgage their house and sell their gran.

The limitless number of tools available means that the musicians who stand out have to rely on imagination and a really strong vision of what their music should be (Flying Lotus, Daedelus, Kelpe etc), rather than technology, which is a good thing surely?

Theres still a lot of very good electronic music about, and its easier to access and find than it ever was.

**darklordjames** (2010-01-19):

I have never bought the "lower barrier for entry breeds mediocrity" argument that noisetheorem is proposing. That has always seemed to me to equate to the idea that higher levels of education for more people is a bad thing. The more people with more tools and more education creates an environment where there is a greater chance that great things will be produced. Yes, more mediocre stuff will be produced as a byproduct, but a larger volume of amazing stuff will also be produced. With that larger volume of amazing stuff comes an increased likelihood that any single piece will be groundbreakingly innovative.

Higher volumes of creative output is a good thing, and therefore reduction in cost to be creative is a good thing. Besides, there are still the $20,000 pieces of equipment today that do something unique, whose unique functions will be mass market 15 years from now where we can have this same discussion again. :)

**earspasm** (2010-01-19):

Agreed, all the way around.

I have to say the lowered-barrier democratization of electronic music creation has led to a few insipid developments -- something that has crept into too much mainstream music as well IMO: an overuse of untreated loops and beat patterns, timbral monotony, and a complete lack of form.

It still takes some talent -- DAW or no DAW -- to make a good remix. Those who have the talent, and the technical skill to accomplish the task, still make more interesting stuff now that visual editing, Reaktor, Max, (and Audio Damage plugs!) are on the scene.

I, for one, don't wish my Roland S-770 back. Or, for that matter, SoundDesigner (17-hour mixdowns? No, thanks.)

(Anyone remember TurboSynth? Okay, that's off-topic.)

**neB** (2010-01-19):

I dunno, as a kind of a reach-around to the topic - I think places like myspace have done a good thing by showcasing the actual trajectory for the lower barrier entry kids. The 'look' and 'sound' of most of the bands you will find have significant common denominators. The only advantage is that technology that can make you sound okay is affordable. The problem is that without putting in the time and gaining some wisdom from the school of hard knox, it doesn't mean that it can make you indistinguishable.

I think it actually makes it easier to find the diamonds in the rough, because when you hear it, you KNOW it almost immediately.

**mattnida** (2010-01-19):

Mashups aside, I'm quite interested in how our notion of what a remix actually *is* has or hasn't changed as the technology has made it easier to do inventive things with the actual recorded audio.

Maybe not a hugely representative example, but I'm reminded of all those Jarre mixes that were done in the early 90s that were more covers in the sense that melodic material was replayed/re-recorded, with virtually nothing present from the original tapes. The 80s, on the other hand, was about embellishing and tweaking rather than making substantial changes. It seems to me that we've now arrived at a half-way house between the two.

Huge generalisations, of course, but I found it quite interesting...