Abstract
AbstractThis book shows how changes in music software design in the first decades of the twenty-first century shaped the production techniques and performance practices of artists across media, from hip-hop and electronic dance music to video games and mobile apps. Emerging alongside developments in digital music distribution such as peer-to-peer file sharing and the MP3 format, digital audio workstations (DAWs) such as FL Studio and Ableton’s Live encouraged rapid music-creation workflows through flashy, user-friendly interfaces. Meanwhile, software such as Avid’s Pro Tools attempted to protect its status as the industry-standard “professional” DAW by incorporating design elements from predigital technologies. Other software, such as Cycling ’74’s Max, asserted its alterity to “commercial” DAWs by offering users just a blank screen. The book examines the social, cultural, and political values designed into music software and how those become embodied by musical communities through production and performance. It reveals ties between maximalist design in FL Studio, skeuomorphic design in Pro Tools, and gender inequity in the music products industry. It connects the computational thinking required by Max and iZotope’s innovations in artificial intelligence with the cultural politics of Silicon Valley’s “design thinking.” Finally, it examines what happens when software becomes hardware and users externalize their screens using musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) controllers, mobile media, and video-game controllers. Amid the perpetual upgrade culture of music technology, Push the book provides a model for understanding software as a microcosm for the increasing convergence of globalization, neoliberal capitalism, and techno-utopianism that has come to define our digital lives.
Published Version
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