The Evolution of Music Technology: General Elements / Evoluția tehnologiei muzicale: elemente generale

Research Article| December 01 2021 Plugin Cultures: The Digital Audio Workstation as Maximal Interface Mike D’Errico Mike D’Errico Albright College Email: mderrico@albright.edu Mike D’Errico is director of music technology & composition, assistant professor of music & computer science, and music department chair at Albright College, where he teaches courses in music production, game design, songwriting, and popular music. His research has appeared in Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, Oxford Handbooks Online, Journal on the Art of Record Production, and edited collections, such as The Oxford Handbook of Electronic Dance Music; Electronic Cities: Music, Policies and Space in the 21st Century; Critical Issues to the Production of Music and Sound; and The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop. His book, Push: Software Design and the Cultural Politics of Music Production, is published by Oxford University Press. As an electronic music producer and sound designer, he makes hip-hop beats, electronic dance music tracks, and sound for video games and virtual reality applications. He is an avid certified instructor in pro tools for music and game audio, as well as an Apple-certified pro in Logic Pro X. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of Popular Music Studies (2021) 33 (4): 10–15. https://doi.org/10.1525/jpms.2021.33.4.10 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Mike D’Errico; Plugin Cultures: The Digital Audio Workstation as Maximal Interface. Journal of Popular Music Studies 1 December 2021; 33 (4): 10–15. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jpms.2021.33.4.10 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentJournal of Popular Music Studies Search On the rooftop pool deck of Drai’s Las Vegas nightclub, clubgoers pay the social media influencer known as “The Slut Whisperer” to pour thousand-dollar bottles of champagne over their bodies so they can get tagged in an Instagram post. Off the strip, EDM DJs with multi-million-dollar club residencies like Steve Angello of the Swedish House Mafia blow off steam by shooting automatic machine guns at the local range, followed by test driving hypercars at 200 plus miles per hour in the Vegas Motor Speedway. In the penthouse suites of the strip’s most luxurious hotels, Forbes-list DJs Tiësto and Steve Aoki discuss the rise of the DJ-entrepreneur and their plans for literal world domination. These scenes come from a 2016 episode of Vice’s “Noisey” music documentary series and, for many who have visited Sin City, they represent the apex of American greed, excess, and waste. Throughout the episode, both the financial... You do not currently have access to this content.

In Finnish popular music, the adoption of electronic musical instruments, such as synthesizers, drum machines, sequencers, samplers, computers and musical software progressed slowly and was a complicated process until the early 1990s. Compared with Swedish, German and British pop and rock the electronic instruments remained longer in the margins of rock and pop rock. Regardless of the breakthrough of synths and drum machines in certain styles, such as progressive rock, funk and disco, synth pop and hip hop, the majority of Finnish bands and artists shunned synthesizers until the mid-1980s. Only after the waves of hip hop, house, techno and euro dance in the late 1980s and early 1990s, synthesizers were widely accepted as ‘normal’ and equal rock instruments.
 In this article, I focus on the adoption of music technology among Finnish rock and pop musicians of the 1970s and 1980s. I have interviewed three electronic musicians from three different generations. Esa Kotilainen (b. 1946), Pekka Tolonen (b.1957) and Tommi Lindell (b.1966) have all witnessed several turns in the emergence of electronic musical instruments. They have also experienced various changes in lieu the accessibility and acceptability of synthesizers. In Finland, they are known as the early adopters and intensive users of the musical electronics.
 In the first section of the article I ask, when and how electronic musical instruments became more popular in Finland and how they were adopted and used in progressive rock, new wave, synth pop, goth rock and mainstream pop. I also frame an overview on the adoption of synthesizers in Finnish pop and rock. The section also parallels the developments with Finnish schlager and disco, where synthesizers were intensively used by a handful of composers and producers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In this section, I primarily utilized published interviews and magazine articles supplemented with a small selection of musical release reviews and synthesizer advertisements.
 The next three sections follow my observations and conclusions which primarily stem from the interviews with three above-mentioned musicians. I also utilize some additional interviews with other musicians. I inquired how the interviewees encountered electronic instruments, how they have used their instruments and how the early adoption of synthesizers has contributed to their understanding of sound and music. Furthermore, we discussed on the impact of the electronic instruments on their musicianship, career and the regeneration of their professional image. Regarding the ‘synthesizer turns’ in the history of Finnish pop and rock I invited the interviewees to recall the response displayed by their fellow musicians, producers and the audience.
 In the concluding section, I sum up my observations. One of them is that in Finland electronic musical instruments seem to gain in popularity in jumps which coincide not only with international pop trends but also with some major technological developments and the waves of marketing. This is not unexpected by any means, but it makes an interesting case in Finland. While the more advanced and more affordable synthesizers of the period 1980–83 marked the final breakthrough of electronic instruments in Western pop and rock, in Finland only a couple of tens of musicians adopted synthesizers as their primary instruments. Furthermore, in Finland only a handful of fully or almost fully electronic bands emerged in the early 1980s. All of them remained short-lived. Only some of the most popular teeny pop bands of the early and mid-1980s adopted synthesizers as their main keyboards.
 The accelerated marketing cycles of synthesizers provoked suspicion among some Finnish musicians; synthesizers could be left aside as novelty gimmicks and earmarks of a momentary trend. One reason for denouncing the ‘synths’ in the 1980s mainstream rock may have been the developing ‘Suomi-rock’ (Finnish rock), a down-to-earth, nationally and locally rooted style which got a heavy dose of influence from Finnish folk and the long tradition of Finnish schlager. One extra reason for a rocker in keeping off synthesizers was the extensive use of electronic musical instruments in Finnish light pop and schlager in the early 1980s. However, in the late 1980s it became audible that synthesizers had survived and welcomed in the margins of rock, pop and especially within the emerging new styles of electronic dance music.

The Museum of Music in Paris possesses a collection of 280 instruments from the twentieth century. Most of them belong to the general families of electric and electronic musical instruments, which we will call ‘electrophones’, in deference to the name chosen by Curt Sachs (1940). The instruments are gathered in families so that the whole collection illustrates the milestones of the twentieth century; for instance, the museum has a large set of diverse Ondes Martenot. However, due to its scarcity, the Trautonium is represented by one of Oscar Sala's Mixtur-Trautonia.Like any museum, we have to encourage the conservation of this heritage. To maintain a large collection of electrophones like the one we have, a specific knowledge base has to be developed. We have been working on this aspect of the project for the past two years. From the onset, it was decided to start the collection with the Ondes Martenot. Our aim was to define a model approach that could also be applied to other electric and electronic instruments. This work involves organising the instruments, studying them in order to outline conditions of appropriate conservation, and determining which kind(s) of restoration should be undertaken.A first step has been to gather all information necessary to understanding the instrument and its mode of performance. With this goal in mind, we have taken a complete inventory of our collection with the aim of coming up with a first assessment of the state of the instruments and determining whether to allow performers to play them. Thanks to this work, we were able to start taking precautionary measures against degradation; we are now also able to answer many questions relevant to the restoration and conservation of this collection.

A device for playing back a music or video source such as a digital audio tape recorder, Compact Disc, Laser Vision Disc, video tape recorder, television and FM broadcasting and analog records comprises means responsive to control information supplied from a music or video source device for controlling an externally controllable electrical or electronic musical instrument so as to perform the musical instrument automatically in synchronism with playback of the source device. An electrical or electronic musical instrument is performed automatically in synchronism with playback of a source so that a reproduction atmosphere which cannot be obtained by mere playback of the source can be created.

In 2007 Carola Boehm published the introductory article within the first volume of the Journal of Music, Technology and Education entitled ‘The discipline that never was: Current developments in Music Technology in higher education in Britain’. Boehm identified the higher education (HE) offerings in Music Technology at that time. In the ten or so years that have passed since those findings, we have witnessed both incredible growth in the HE sector and significant shift in the flavour of programmes on offer. This shift has been seen primarily in the growth of the creative practice-led title of ‘Music Production’, but not at the expense of traditional ‘Music Technology’. Boehm’s paper also explored the wider range of subject matters that could be considered within the then term ‘Music Technology’, whether by an ever-expanding technological backdrop, or through interdisciplinarity. In this article, we report on the significant changes since then, with some analysis for the future whilst considering the current political challenges for British HE.

There is a high innovative potential of music technology in the field of therapeutic applications that is often not fully exploited. The rapid development of music hardware and software brings about new possibilities for neurologic music therapy (NMT) interventions. New electronic instruments are created especially for clinical applications. These are often designed to expand and intensify the options for therapeutic action. Likewise, sensor-based sound applications are used in sonification to provide tonal or musical feedback for movement. Through the use of music technology music, sounds and ways of music making can be focused and tailored to the individual needs and functional capacities of the clients. Several electronic instruments and software applications are portrayed and described regarding their therapeutic potentials for NMT interventions.

Indoor corrosion inside electric boxes is important for the reliability of electric and electronic instruments. A parallel evaluation of indoor/outdoor atmospheric corrosion of steel, pollutants and meteorological parameters was made at two sites, i.e. a rural site and a coastal site of the Tabasco State, Mexico. Two exposure conditions were evaluated: outdoors and inside electric boxes. Very low levels of sulphur compounds have been observed at the two exposure sites and two exposure conditions. As expected, corrosion of steel in an open atmosphere is higher than indoors (electric boxes). The difference between corrosion outdoors and inside electric boxes is higher at the coastal site due to the influence of chloride deposition. Significant differences have been observed in the morphology of corrosion products formed on steel. The influence of sun radiation, rain, dew and fog causes the formation of more compact corrosion products. The influence of Time of Wetness outdoors is in some extent equivalent to the influence of relative humidity inside electric boxes. Commonly, chloride deposition is very low indoors, showing low influence on corrosion. However, in particular conditions of Tabasco coastal tropical climate, its role is significant indoors. Reliability of electric and electronic instruments could be affected.

A vibrator for vibrating an electronic musical instrument in accordance to the generated tone being produced. In this manner, a player of the electrical musical instrument will have the sensation of playing a conventional musical instrument due to the feedback of vibrational energy into the input device of the electronic musical instrument.

Angklung is musical instrument originated from Indonesia, specifically West Java. It consists of bamboo tubes, connected to a bamboo frame. Sound is generated when the bamboo frame shakes, causing the bamboo tubes to oscillate. This musical instrument is played by an ensemble or individually. Music technology advancement has improved, allowing musicians to explore new possibilities for creating and performing music. One of the most important aspects of music technology is the existence of a communication protocol called the Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI in short. MIDI allows communication between electronic musical instruments as well as computers. The aim of this research is to create a prototype that allows users to control the angklung using a MIDI controller. The overall system requires a personal computer, a microcontroller, relay, and DC motor. The MIDI controller is used as an input, connected to a small-single board computer via a USB connection. The personal computer is used to proess incoming MIDI data. The microcontroller is used to receive input signal from the small single board computer, in order to control DC motor according to its pitch. The result shows that the prototype is able to function properly, as the angklung will shake according to its input from the MIDI controller.

Reviewed by: Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer Charles Menoche Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer. By Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. [xv, 368 p. ISBN 0-674-00889-8. (pbk.)] Index, bibliography, illustrations, discography, glossary. In 1954, nineteen-year-old Robert Moog founded a small company to facilitate the manufacturing and selling of Theremins and Theremin kits. As detailed in Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer by Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco, this was but a first small step in a journey that would eventually make the name "Moog" perhaps the single-most identifiable "brand name" in synthesizers. The 2002 publication of this book is timed nicely to correspond with the recent flurry of activities leading up to the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the 1954 founding of the R. A. Moog Company. These include the 2002 award of a special Technical Grammy award to Moog, the 2004 release of director Hans Fjellestad's documentary Moog (Brooklyn, NY: Plexigroup, 2005, on DVD), and the 2004 and 2005 Moogfest concerts. The book joins several others published in the last fifteen years that focus on electro-acoustic music history, and more specifically, electronic music instruments and their developers. These books include Reynold Weidenaar's Magic Music from the Telharmonium (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1995), Albert Glinsky's Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), and Gayle Young's biography of Hugh Le Caine, The Sackbut Blues (Ottawa: National Museum of Science and Technology, 1989). Analog Days will undoubtedly (and deservedly) join these books on the shelves in many public, academic and home libraries, but its approach to the subject matter is quite different from its peers. In addition to dealing with more recent years (mostly between 1960 and 1975), a significant difference is that the authors' primary discipline is the relatively new interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies, rather than music. The authors describe this area as the study of "sets of practices, discourses, and material artifacts that have evolved over human history and that can take on new forms in different social, cultural, and historical context" (p. 10). The book examines all aspects of early commercial analog synthesizers, their developers and users (musicians/engineers), works created, the public's changing reception of synthesizers, and finally the marketing professionals and sales people. As a result, the book crosses over with, and frequently cites, Paul Théberge's study of music technology in the twentieth century, Any Sound You Can Imagine: Making Music/Consuming Technology (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press; University Press of New England, 1997). Although Pinch's early encounters with synthesizers was the EMS VCS3 and later his own home-built modules, a position at Cornell University placed him at Moog's alma mater, just down the road from the original Moog factory in Trumansburg, New York. This provided the impetus to begin research that would lead to this book. Over the course of four years, Pinch and Trocco, who joined the project in 1996, compiled an extensive collection of interviews with many of the engineers, composers, musicians, and sales people involved with early development of voltage-controlled analog synthesizers. The book draws heavily from these interviews, with almost every page including extensive quotes. Readers learn of the development and marketing of commercial voltage-controlled analog synthesizers as told through an insider's insights into and reflection on the time and events. When describing the first sale of a modular synthesizer to choreographer Alwin Nikolais, the authors quote Moog's reaction: "You know it just happened. It [was like] in these amusement parks where you're sort of going down and you're not quite in control" (pp. 29–31). Although the Moog synthesizer is the important "character," the book's focus extends well beyond this, tracing the development of commercial analog voltage-controlled synthesizers in the 1960s and [End Page 404] early 1970s. Throughout the book, discussion alternates between what Moog was doing on the East Coast and what his West-Coast counterpart, Donald Buchla was developing concurrently but independently. Early chapters focus on first Moog...

Music technologies reflect the most advanced human technologies in most historical periods. Examples range from 40 thousand years old bone flutes found in caves in the Swabian Jura, through ancient Greek water organs or medieval Arabic musical automata, to today’s electronic and digital instruments with deep learning. Music technologies incorporate the musical ideas of a time and place and they disseminate those ideas when adopted by other musical cultures. This article explores how contemporary music technologies are culturally conditioned and applies the concept of ethno-organology to describe the nature of migration of instruments between musical cultures.

This chapter is about technological issues of music and therefore might be more interesting to those who deal with technology, for example in computer music, studio recording and postproduction, or new electronic instruments. However, this chapter is not a standard exposition of acoustics and music hardware and software as may be found in textbooks about music technology, such as (Hosken, 2011; Mazzola, 2006). We shall discuss those contents but with emphasis on their potential roles as tools for musical creativity.KeywordsSinusoidal FunctionFast Fourier Transform AlgorithmCritical ConceptMusic TheoryMusical ObjectThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This chapter proposes a broad conception of music technology that includes acoustic and electronic instruments; engraving and printing; sound recording and playback; broadcasting; software; and even the human body. There are two main reasons for embracing this broad understanding of music technology. First, it allows us to see continuities and relationships obscured by the tendency to focus on the novel or disruptive aspects of technology. Second, an expansive view of technology can illuminate hidden cultural contexts and power dynamics. The chapter provides a brief history of music technology, explores debates about Auto-Tune in gospel music, and cites the adaptation of the harmonium in India and accordion in Madagascar to demonstrate why music technology must be understood in its cultural context.

An efficient method for analysis of EMG signals using improved empirical mode decomposition

The music industry has changed drastically over the last century and most of its changes and transformations have been technology-driven. Music technology – encompassing musical instruments, sound generators, studio equipment and software, perceptual audio coding algorithms, and reproduction software and devices – has shaped the way music is produced, performed, distributed, and consumed. The evolution of music technology enabled studios and hobbyist producers to produce music at a technical quality unthinkable decades ago and have affordable access to new effects as well as production techniques. Artists explore nontraditional ways of sound generation and sound modification to create previously unheard effects, soundscapes, or even to conceive new musical styles. The consumer has immediate access to a vast diversity of songs and styles and is able to listen to individualized playlists virtually everywhere and at any time. The most disruptive technological innovations during the past 130 years have probably been: 1. The possibility to record and distribute recordings on a large scale through the gramophone. 2. The introduction of vinyl disks enabling high-quality sound reproduction.