VET Music: Work Opportunity Gus Campbell

Trends and emerging technologies in the music industry introduction As technology gets better and better in the music industry, certain trends start to appear. These trends also pop up when a consumer market changes or grow. The industry can also be affected by musicians themselves. An example of the most recent change (by the consumer base) that has impacted the music industry is the digital download aspect. This trend started in the late 90’s to the early 00’s and has been going strong ever since. The idea of downloading digital files which you could listen to was revolutionary to people all over the world, but, during the following years, CD sales would decline more and more each year. Even today, whilst CD sales are still going, eventually they will fade out and become obsolete.

Mp3 files When recording for a digital medium, producers will often have to take the recorded songs on the software (Protools, Garageband, etc.) and compress them into Mp3 files to be able to put them on iTunes or any other digital medium, where only a certain amount of data can be stored on a song. This will sometimes mean sacrificing extra parts of the track (extra guitar parts, extra drums to give the track depth) to ensure that the file is small enough to fit into Mp3 format. This can be annoying in an industry practice as musicians might want to keep every single detail on their track and are unwilling to sacrifice any part of the song.

Spotify, Pandora, etc. With the introduction of Mp3 music files being accessible through various forms of technology (smartphones, iPods, computers, etc.) music has become even more widespread then before. And with music, there comes free music. Although there are many instances of illegal music downloads (torrents, Piratebay, etc.) where people are looking for free music, in more recent years several recording artists and record labels have signed up onto several streaming platforms where people can listen to music for free. Free to a price however. The two major streaming music services are not free (in most aspects). Although Pandora is free, it encourages that you pay for the app to remove ads. Spotify, the other major program used for free music listening, has a subscription service that one needs to pay for in order to access the music. When producing music with the idea of having streamed against digital platforms, one would need to ensure that the sound quality is high enough so that won’t deteriorate over internet streaming.

Vinyl During recent years, Vinyl has made a comeback into the music industry due to the fact of music enthusiasts claim that the sound quality is more rich, because of the “Hipster” factor and the collectability. In an production scenario, one is able to keep extra mixed sounds on the record as they do not have a certain limit at which they cannot work. After recording, they would have to send the sound files (Back when Vinyl was one of the only means of playing in your home one would have to send a tape of the band playing to get it etched into a master record, which would be the main reference for the other records) to the record presser in order for the record to be made.

Virtual Instruments Most people when creating a solely electronic track would use a virtual instrument (e.g. Synths) in order to manipulate the sound of the instrument in order to create different noises for the track. In a production scenario, as said before, if one wanted to alter tracks beyond recognition, it would be wise to use a virtual instrument to do the job.

Home Studios In the modern era, any artist who has not been signed onto a record label can easily record their own music free of charge by downloading home production studios onto their computer. One of the most popular software's for recording music would Garageband or for more advanced musicians and producers, Protools. (Just as a note, most users of Garageband are not professional musicians or producers. The program comes with the Mac computer) In a production setting, Home Studios are very useful if one is not able to access a control panel to edit their track. Simple home studios can be useful for recording demo’s or rough drafts.

Looping Tracks The feature of looping tracks, is mostly used in making beats for hip- hop tracks. The aspect of having a pre-recorded beat, sound, rhythm, strum, whatever is very interesting. Because in a way, if a person is making a song or beat using loops, they are making a new track with “recycled materials” so to speak. Looping being used in music production, as said above, is useful in providing content to make backing tracks for songs. Another purpose for Loops would be replacing a dud sound in a song. Stick hit the rim of the snare drum? There’ll be a loop to replace the sound.

3 areas of future studies into these areas Many areas of Study are yet to come, but some things that would be useful to learn would be How music royalties work: Learning about how companies can get deals on music and how to achieve profit. “Hierarchy” in the music industry: Learning about the most powerful job positions outside the “talent” area. Developing sound: Learning about instrument augmentations and plugins. E.g. Guitar pedals, synthesisers, etc.