darin.wilson

Like many musicians with home studios, I’ve gradually been making a shift in recent years to software-based recording tools. Gone are my 8-track reel-to-reel, 16-track mixing console, racks of outboard effects, and various keyboards and sound modules; most of that same functionality is provided by the small laptop computer that I’m typing on right now.

The shift to this new way of working has not been entirely smooth. I’ve spent a good deal of time learning and configuring the new tools to create what (to me) feels like an optimal workflow, and I can’t say I’ve been entirely successful. As much I love the tools that I work with regularly (primarily Ableton Live and Propellerhead Reason), I still find working with them to be a little on the clumsy side.

I had been assuming that the problem was that I wasn’t used to the system, or hadn’t yet discovered the right configuration of the tools I was using. But after reading this white paper from the Project Bar-B-Q group, I’ve come to realize that I’m not alone:

It is the considered opinion of group participants that the instruments and programs for making digital music universally suck.

And that’s the just the opening sentence.

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The Audio Engineering Society was camped out at the Moscone Convention Center last week. Since I work just a few blocks from there, and had obtained a free pass (courtesy of the nice folks at Sweetwater), I decided to sneak out of the office for a bit and check out all the latest and greatest in the audio world.

I wandered around on my own for a bit before meeting up with fellow Reasonhead Kurt. Seeing all the new gear was great, but what really seemed to catch our eyes was some of the vintage gear that some of the companies trucked in. Kurt snapped this picture of me with a commemorative Fairlight CMI - each key was signed by one of the artists who used the keyboard in their work. In the pic, I’m hovering somewhere in the vicinity of Lindsay Buckingham and Brian Wilson.

Kurt also got some pictures of an ancient Neve console, but it doesn’t look like he’s posted those yet. I’ll add some links if he does - it was fantastic: no faders, just enormous knobs, dusty tubes, the works.

Update: Kurt has pics of the Neve console and some other groovy gear over at his site.