My Recordings

I dream of the day when music equipment choices are no longer an issue. But that's a million dollars from now.

Writing, arranging and performing come easy, engineering does not.

Southbound by DC Langer   © 2006

I've essentially made the move to virtual instruments using a MIDI and USB-based DAW (digital audio workstation) built around Pro Tools LE 7.1, although recording with a mouse leaves much to be desired. Native Instrument's Kore and Digidesign's Command 8 keep it hands-on.

Outside studio support was used for lead vocals, harmonies and backup vocals and mastering.

In some circles, creating music with computers is as common and acceptable as sending an email, using a word processor to write a letter, or cruising music videos on the Internet. On the other end of the scale are those who still think computer music sounds like beeps in a can, if not the work of the devil.

Guitar players, unfamiliar with the power of Steinberg’s Virtual Guitarist, MusicLab’s RealGuitar, and Native Instrument’s Guitar Rig 2 naturally ask, “Why not use a real guitarist?” It’s the question of the century. And then, many guitarists now are as MIDI-capable as any keyboardist. Strange isn’t it, playing a sampled Bosendorfer on a Stratocaster or a vintage Paul Reed Smith on an Alesis Fusion HD8?

So, in a way, my recordings are dedicated to guitar players.

Synthogy’s Ivory (sampled Bosendorfer, Steinway and Yamaha grands) are “virtual instruments” played on a MIDI controller routed through a RTAS to VST wrapper as a plug-in in Pro Tools. Such a setup does not look like a piano. And music, in so many ways, is all about looks.

Music is about sound, looks and performance. Virtual instruments eliminate looks and performance. No one wants to watch a lone musician clicking a mouse while sitting at a computer workstation on a stage.

The history of recording is a history of illusion.

Strings (orchestral and country) and horn pads rarely find resistance in the digital vs. analog debate. It’s not easy or practical touring with a string or horn section. Strings and horns are used primarily as pads or filler. The Hip Hop world has no problems using samples from anywhere and everywhere, including big band sounds of the 40s and classical orchestral recordings.

In the Pop/Rock worlds, rarely are there any famous string or horn players (Dixie Chicks and Memphis Horns, aside). Of course there are exceptions, like Clarence Clemmons or any of a number of horn players in the jazz world. And virtually every country tune comes with a fiddle, banjo, mandolin or pedal steel. But Rock—as opposed to Pop—is a history of famous guitar players who have dominated the music scene for decades.

No musician is more flamboyant than a guitar player. What’s a rock performance without the flailing of arms during a power chord hit or even setting a guitar on fire? From tiger leotards and waist-length hair to struts across a stage, guitarists are meant to be seen as well as heard.

Virtual instrument software programs destroy all this. Whatever destruction took place in the switch from acoustic to electric has now taken place in the switch from analog to digital.

And so it goes from drums. Drummers are particularly fun to watch, since they are living/breathing rhythm machines moving through time and space (even though a drumset is stationary).

Just how visual a concert is, is a debate in itself. Without costumes, lighting, staging and other visual cues, watching musicians play is not all that exciting. There is also the argument that music videos are another form of abomination. Music is meant to be heard, not seen. But, what about dance and story telling?

In recording, all these arguments go right out the music window. What you hear is NOT what you see. In the digital realm, there is not one single sound that cannot be sampled and performed with precise accuracy (give or take a famous guitar solo or two).

It’s almost an insult to use the word “synthesizer.” Synthesizers conjure up images of the old fat analog sounds of the 70s. The 80s featured a tremendous display of “synth” sounds, but again, these sounds still played a secondary role to guitars. Rap’s dominance through the 90s and into the 2000s has obscured the issue, yet most people know it’s producers who are creating the “beats” heard on most rap recordings.

Techno has its share of superstars, but the music is so driving and almost exclusively designed for dance, that club fans are not all that much concerned with how the music is created. DJ’s are the stars. It is country music with it’s host of acoustic “string” instruments where sampled music causes trembling and fear (and orchestral-based film scores).

History was changed when Bob Dylan got booed, hissed and sneered at when he brought an electric guitar on stage. And so the revolution continues in the digital age with virtual instruments.

The days of Robert Johnson playing a with a broken whiskey bottle on a beat-up acoustic no-brand guitar with one string missing are long gone. Woody Guthrie walking down lonely railroad tracks with a guitar in a gunny sack in ancient history.

From primitive drums used by hunter-gatherers in Neanderthal times to the entire range or orchestral instruments, sampling technology has eliminated the need for physical instruments. Not only are sounds captured, but performance parameters as well. It just takes a little getting used to in strumming a guitar or pounding a drum on a keyboard.

From another angle, it’s important to see the technology that goes into the making of acoustic instruments. Pianos, strings, horns, reeds, drums and guitars use the most sophisticated technology available in the design of the instruments. With few exceptions, these instruments are manufactured. The only thing natural about them is the use of wood, and even the woods used are treated with such high-tech proficiency that any resemblance to the natural tree is in name only.

In the days of the Moog synthesizer, it was a novelty act to play a classical piano concerto using an electronic or computer-based musical instrument. Not only was a computer used to play music, but it also functioned as a modernized player piano—it played the concerto from beginning to end by itself. Remember player pianos? Seems kind of silly to watch a player piano’s keys move as the piano roll spins without anybody sitting at the piano. No doubt this had much to do with turning player pianos into museum pieces.

Sampling technology significantly ups the ante. Computers, virtual instruments, digital sequencers and the slew of plug-ins available are not going to become museum pieces anytime soon. No one is going to throw away there multi-thousand dollar Pro Tools set-up in favor of going back to analog tape.

And when entire orchestral arrangements and master quality recordings can be made in someone’s bedroom, well, it’s just plain cost-effective, regardless of the creative consequences. And there are no creative consequences. There is nothing less creative or musical about the sound and performance quality of virtual instruments and digital recording software programs than a full orchestra on a Hollywood sound stage. In fact, in many ways, it is even MORE creative, since there is such a broader sound palette to choose from.

Ethnic instruments get mixed with traditional acoustic, and new sounds are available with no physical instrument counterpart. While an arranger once had a 100 piece orchestra to arrange with, a keyboardist now has a palette of literally 1000s of sounds to choose from.

I’ve never actually counted, but between Komplete 3 and my keyboards, I have an estimated library of 11,000 sounds. That’s some orchestra.

Pianos and guitars are no longer the primary tools of songwriting. Entire songs and “orchestral” works are created without one single acoustic instrument being used. So, what you hear is not what you see.

Meanwhile, here's the current "arsenal." Interesting metaphor the industry uses, as if we're going to battle.

Rig