Creating Music in Your Bedroom – Why It’s Easier than It Once Was
Although electronic music has been around for many years and there have been long been ways of making music by yourself at home, these days it is definitely much easier and much cheaper to. In this article, I’m going to take a look at how home music creation has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years.
Early Computer Music
Computers have been able to make sounds for a long time. However, to begin with these sounds were very simple and were certainly not considered a serious musical tool. By the time we reached the late 70’s and early 80’s though, computers became better at making music, with the invention of instruments like the Fairlight CMI and the Synclavier. The only problem with these early electronic music workstations is that they were so expensive that the average musician wasn’t able to afford them, and they remained the gadgets of top recording studios and producers.
The Invention of MIDI
When MIDI emerged in 1983 as the new technology in music creation, it was a fantastic tool that made electronic music much easier to make. MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, and is basically an electronic language that enables various electronic musical devices to talk to each other. This means you can use one keyboard to play sounds on another keyboard.
However, one of the major uses of MIDI was for sequencing. Using a MIDI sequencer, you can program in note patterns and then let the sequencer play the synthesizer for you. You can even program in entire pieces of music, a task which was made much easier using a MIDI-compatible computer such as the Atari ST, along with MIDI sequencing software.
Making Music on the PC
Once the 1990’s were well under way, the PC was becoming the overall computer standard. The great thing was, they were starting to be used for music as well. With better and better MIDI sequencing software available for PC, along with ever more spectacular synthesizers available, PC music creation was becoming very much a standard approach, especially for musicians who like to compose on their own rather than with a band. Once these music programs also began to include audio recording as well as the MIDI sequencing, computer music creation had started to become a real option even for people who couldn’t afford very expensive gear.
The Rise of Soft Synths
In recent years, the invention of software synthesizers has given birth to a whole new world of sound creation. No longer were musicians restricted to using sounds that could be produced by actual physical hardware they could fit in their room. Now, all sounds could be synthesized entirely by computer software.
To begin with, these soft synths were more stand-alone programs which you could play using a keyboard, or they were plug-in style programs that could be used within compatible sequencer software such as Cubase VST.
However, these days software synthesizers have gone onto a new level. You can now get music software which integrates built-in software synthesizers along with a sequencer, samplers and virtual effects devices, all in the one piece of software. This is a true revolution in music creation, and really opens up the sonic possibilities.
If you want to hear some great homemade music, go to Laughing at the Sky.
Alternatively, if you want something interesting to read, go to The Information Zone
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