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These days you can make music on your phone – with software that would put a decrepit copy of Opcode Vision to shame – but those old programs that many of us had to plough through, crash after crash, were absolutely crucial in informing not only the digital audio workstations and suites of plug-ins that we have available to us now, but also the music itself. Can you really imagine how Chicago drill would sound without FL Studio?
Sure, there are always going to be some contrarian sorts who take it upon themselves to record to dictaphone tape and pen their sheet music on rolls of dried human flesh, but nowadays they’re in the minority. If you’re going to be recording music, chances are you’re going to need some software to do it, and there are plenty of options.
It wasn’t always this way – back in the early ’80s, when the MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) protocol was in its infancy, computers were still glorified word processors, and while some brave souls were attempting to generate experimental sounds (Max Mathews, please stand up), most of us were simply stuck waiting half an hour just to load a copy of 3D Monster Maze, only to be met by a read error at line 348.
Over time, however, music software blossomed, and transitioned from fiddly time wasters, doomed to the forgotten directories on an Commodore Amiga cover disk, to the plethora of usable and sturdy apps we have available to use today. It wasn’t long before software actually started to surpass most hardware, and for all the times you hear Jack White harping on about dubbing to two inch tape, it’s far more convenient to just boot up your shareware (read: free) copy of Reaper and simply hit record.
Programs changed the way we think about the relationship between music and software
Performer
- Overview
- Released: 1985
- Vendor: Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU)
One of the very earliest commercial software sequencers – and certainly the first for Apple’s Macintosh system – was Performer, from Massachusetts-based software company Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU for short). It was released only two years after the introduction of MIDI, the protocol that enabled computers (and other hardware) to communicate with a growing arsenal of compatible synthesizers, samplers and drum machines, and worked as a bridge between the computer and a studio’s worth of gear. Even better, Performer allowed producers to dig deeper into the hidden features in their shiny boxes – notoriously difficult-to-program synthesizers such as the Yamaha DX7, which previously were only patchable using a clunky LCD display, were now open to be controlled by a far friendlier system.
Five years after its original release, the sequencer’s advanced MIDI capabilities were bolstered by a hard disk recording option, and the program was renamed Digital Performer, a name it retains to this day. Initially, the program was backed up by a physical add-on – MOTU’s legendary hardware is still revered to this day – but over time, and as personal computers were blessed with the advanced processing power we take for granted today, the external elements became less important.
What does it do?
Performer was a way to visually compose and sequence tracks using electronic instruments, something which back in 1985 was still an incredibly novel idea. When Digital Performer was released however, we began to see the emergence of something else entirely – the digital audio workstation, or DAW. It’s tough in 2014 to recall a time when some kind of visual composition and production tool wasn’t the norm, but Digital Performer helped set the stage for much of what was to come, and did it with the kind of rock-solid, industrial-strength power that is still spoken about in hushed tones.
Who used it?
Digital Performer’s versatility and its complex MIDI functionality has seen it championed by a certain tech-obsessed subset of electronic musicians, and rightly so. Warp veterans and noted gear obsessives Autechre are paid-up members of the fan club (Sean Booth mentioned in a 2008 interview that it would be a copy of Digital Performer and a microphone that he’d take with him if he was locked in a jail cell for a year and allowed one piece of equipment), and so are Björk collaborators Matmos, who have been using the sequencer since way back in 1987. The BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop were also spotted using one at various points throughout the 1980s, and synth innovator Wendy Carlos has called it “the one essential piece of software ‘equipment’.”
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Weird Al Yankovic & Wendy Carlos - Carnival of the Animals Part IIReleased: 1988
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Matmos - California RhinoplastyReleased: 2001
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Autechre - 6IE.CRReleased: 2003
Auto-Tune
- Overview
- Released: 1997
- Vendor: Antares Audio Technologies
It would be tough to find a pop song in 2014 that hadn’t used Auto-Tune at some stage in the production, which is amusing when you consider that it was never intended to be used on vocals at all. The software was created by Exxon engineer Andy Hildebrand accidentally, when he was attempting to develop a way to interpret complicated seismic data. At some point in the process he began to realize that the technology he’d invented could also be used to analyze and modify the pitch in audio files, and Auto-Tune was born.
Available as both a piece of hardware and a software plug-in, Auto-Tune has been available since 1997 and is probably even more controversial than Waves’ Ultramaximizer, even influencing Jay Z to call for its death on 2009’s ‘D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)’.
What does it do?
Auto-Tune does exactly what it says on the tin – if you sing through a microphone hooked up to it, the program (or its hardware counterpart) will bend the pitch to the nearest semitone and center the vocal. It can be used subtly so the effect is barely audible, or the settings can be abused to create an almost vocoder-like sound. Who said influential software needed bells and whistles?
Who used it?
We can blame producers Mark Taylor and Brian Rawling for really introducing Auto-Tune to the world, when they crafted Cher’s 1998 hit ‘Believe’. While experimenting with the settings they realized that they could create a robotic vocal effect that nobody had used before, and since then the sound has rarely been far from the charts. They did attempt to throw people off the scent when they were asked about the production in 1999 by Sound on Sound, by telling the magazine that they had used a Digitech Talker pedal to manipulate Cher’s voice, but it was later confirmed to have been Auto-Tune all along.
In a 2006 interview with Pitchfork, singer Neko Case recalled talking to an engineer who revealed that it was only her and Nelly Furtado who’d never used Auto-Tune in his studio, so it would be correct to say that the software is now something of a norm. It’s not only confined to the studio either – live performers have taken to using to using Auto-Tune as a safety net while singing on stage, and it was even revealed in 2010 to have been used on competitors on the British reality singing show X-Factor to improve their performances.
Auto-Tune was picked up by Jamaican dancehall producers, and even more notably by U.S rappers who suddenly realized they didn’t need to book a session with Nate Dogg to get that all-important pop hook. T-Pain is widely credited with helping to popularize the sound in the U.S. – his album Rappa Turnt Sanga led to the robotic croon becoming something of a calling card, and after that the effect snowballed. Auto-Tune was all over Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III and Kanye West’s game-changing 808s and Heartbreak, and it’s hard to imagine what Future, Rich Homie Quan and Young Thug would be able to achieve without it.
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Cher - BelieveReleased: 1998
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T-Pain - I'm SprungReleased: 2005
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Kanye West - HeartlessReleased: 2008
Additional Details
- Published by:
- The 14 pieces of software that shaped modern music
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