Technology on Music Recording Industry and Society “TV has restored the daily life of family, Photography has altered the way we look at the world, the computer has changed everything. ” (Mark Katz, 2010) It is true the computer has converted everything into digital. Digital technology has also changed the ways of sound and voice recording. It has gradually led to the changes not only in the production of sound but also in the views of society, precisely consumers and producers.
Since the ass’s, the computer, music and audio industries have influenced on one another. Nowadays, many people use different digital sound recording equipment and sound recording software to transform recording to get the best quality of sound and the fastest way of recording; and to meet their goals and consumers’ needs. This report will focus on how technology has contributed to shape the systems of sound recording, the role or producer, engineer and music production.
History of Sound Recording Technology Today’s digital recording system has derived from the first sound recording device called “Phonograph” which was invented by a French man, L©on Scott De Martingale in 1857. The visual image of sound was recorded with a cylinder covered with a soot but it could not be played back. This lead to Thomas Edison, in 1877 to invent; a machine called a phonograph that could both record and play back audio instantly using a tinfoil-wrapped cylinder rotated with a handle.
However, it was discouraging because the foil could be used only a few times before it deteriorated, thus creating enormous production costs. Later, sound recordings have developed as electrical recording (1925), magnetic tape recording (1935), multi-track recording (1943) and finally into the era of the information technology for digital recordings (1972) and multi-track digital recordings (sass). In fact, digital recordings started in 1972 when Nippon Columbia Goof Japan introduced the first professional digital audio converter – a technology using a process called Pulse Code Modulation (PC) and a standard video recorder.
PC translates audio signals into binary information that can be stored and manipulated in a variety of ways; and digital editing can be performed with an excellent precision. Overview of Technology, Recording Industry and Society The Impacts of Technology on Music Recording Industry and Society By tailor now be easily made in many devices such as stereo in the cars, mobile phones, AMP players, televisions, etc. Through digital technology. In fact, Digital audio is quite useful in the recording, mass-production and distribution of sound.
Nowadays, music can be distributed online by digital recording and data compression. Regardless of a few drawbacks of digital technology, it is thus notable that the development of technology contributes to the society to receive the new production of music in fastest and convenient way; and to the music industry to reduce the costs of production and distribution. Technology also changed the insights of Society influenced by changes to previous generation inventions:- the first personal music players, cassettes stored music. However, it seemed fragile when compact disks appeared.
Later, as compact disks also seemed to be too large and limited, the AMP players, small but holding large amount of data, were created. The recent innovations of digital devices such as smart phones and tablets have drawn the attentions from the consumers since they can not only make phone calls, texts and take pictures but also includes easy access to music and all stuffs via cellular and Wife networks. The consumers are always keeping up modern digital devices with the software applications to make recordings and editing on their phones and tablets.
Thus, societal preferences have influenced the changes of technology as well. Another impact of technology has been on the music industry and the artists. Until recently, the music industry provided artists one path only, to reach and connect the artists and their pre-recorded music with their fans. Signing to a record label and a contract, the artists have transferred ownership of copyrights to the producers and fans could only buy pre-recorded music with labels. However, the new digital music industry has now the abundance of obstacles for artists and music fans.
With the launch of streaming services for high-speed Net access in the smart phones and tablets, the only remaining piece of the old industry’s music network is AM/FM radio in cars but sooner or later, this final change will also make it collapsed. The Role of Digital Technology in Contemporary Era * Consumers’ Views on Digital Technology Over two decades, digital technology introduced by the computer industry has made outside influences on recording practice changed drastically.
The Internet also provided a new way to distribute music with new formats such as amp, MPEG, and wave; and this led to the rise of the POP (peer-to-peer) file sharing technology. According to Person (2006), music consumers are not only the major supporters of recordings, but also of other technical products, supporting changes in playback equipment and home recording technologies. Music fans do not need labels, retail stores and media outlets any more, to listen to pre-recorded music before buying it. Public has access to all music and makes their own decisions to select and buy the ones they like.
Therefore, more people are now engaging and listening to music since digital music is easily available in their devices all the times. In contrast to the benefits of digital technology for the consumers, these factors contributed to the frequent changes of consumers’ views on ever changing technology and often have a sales of recorded music. * Views of Industry and Artists on Digital Technology In digital era, the artists do not need to depend on the music producers for labels to record, manufacture and distribute in media outlets.
Digital technology has replaced he traditional music industry which was based on the concept of “exploitation” of the artist with a modern music industry that serves the artist. These new schemes provide value at fair prices while being innovative, transparent, accurate and fast through internet, digital signals and/or transmissions. Only one drawbacks for the artists is the most difficult and important task; that is the creative challenge for them to create music that makes a personal and meaningful connection with the listener which they could make in live show or face-to-face interactions with their audience.
Pros and Cons of Technology for Music Industry With the advancement of technology, recording systems have amazingly been developed, shifting from Scott and Edition’s acoustic recording era to digital recording era. However, technology development has also influenced the evolution of the music industry, as it has been many times a challenge for existing modes of its economic relationships and the law. In fact, the change of recording technology has both positive and negative impact on the music industry in many ways.
One of the positive impacts of digital technologies on the major record labels is significant, resulting in a 3. 5 billion shrink in income from 1999 to 2006 including digital sales. This is because non-commercial musicians have released their work through the same companies and the same channels as commercial musicians, the artists have economically been affected by the changes of music recording industry. Furthermore, the changes of music distribution via digital technology create new issues for copyright protection and the revenues that will accrue to larger and smaller companies and musicians.
So far, internet legislations are still not sufficient and throng enough to control the copy right issues in the internet. On the other hand, the music industry has begun to adopt technological measures, often referred to as digital rights management (DRUM), to control the sale and distribution of music over the Internet (Patrick, 2004). When the copyright issues can be managed to some extent either by new legislations in some countries or by the some new software, it is a great advantage for music company to release and distribute their products in low costs and faster ways.
The other positive impact is counteracts, solving the digital issues with another invention of digital technology. Because of the later version of some digital software, the internet theft and illegal copy or peer-to-peer file sharing can now be controlled and digital software such as Spottily helped the increase in the music industry’s revenue and avoided of closing down the records stores and declining sales. In 2012, digital music sales rose 9% to $5. 6 billion, making up 34% of total revenue and that was the first time increased in revenue in a decade in 2012.
Since everything has pros and cons that impact on others, it is noteworthy about chital technology that has brought positive and negative aspects for Music Company, musicians and consumers due to its rapid development over a few decades. The musicians and the consumers. The artists can make recordings where they want, connect with the fans online and advertise their new release without any cost; while the consumers can download individual songs they like, buy their favorite songs with low cost and share the music with others without having charges for delivery.
