Creating Music At Home - Why It's Much Easier Today

Although people have made music at home for along time, the advancements in music technology over the years have made it easier and easier to go it alone in the music creation process. This article will take a look through the progress that music technology has made over the years.

The First Musical Computers

Although computers have been able to make sounds for many years, at first they were not considered a serious way of making music. However, by the late 70's and early 80's, a number of musicians and composers began using a new generation of musical computers such as the Fairlight CMI and the Synclavier. Although this was a huge leap forward in terms of musical technology, it still remained elusive to the average person, as these early musical computers were extremely expensive and so were mainly owned by very rich musicians, producers and recording studios.

MIDI

In 1983, MIDI emerged as the major new technology in music. MIDI, which stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, is an electronic language which enables different electronic musical instruments to be linked together and control each other. For example, you could link one keyboard to another keyboard via a MIDI cable, and use it to play sounds on the other keyboard.

However, one of the major uses of MIDI was for sequencing. Using a MIDI sequencer, you can program in note patterns and then let the sequencer play the synthesizer for you. You can even program in entire pieces of music, a task which was made much easier using a MIDI-compatible computer such as the Atari ST, along with MIDI sequencing software.

Making Music on the PC

From the 1990's onwards, with the emergence PC's as a computing standard, computer music creation came on in leaps and bounds. With more and more affordable MIDI keyboards and synthesizers becoming available, more people could get access to great sounds. Also, with better quality music software being created, which included both MIDI sequencing as well as audio recording capabilities, it was getting to the point where it really was possible to have almost a full music studio in your bedroom.

The Rise of Soft Synths

In recent years, one of the best inventions in music technology has been the software synthesizer. These programs create sound much the same as actual hardware synthesizers do, but its all done from within the computer, just using software. This means that you are no longer restricted by how many hardware synthesizers you are able to fit in your room.

At first, these software synthesizers were mostly individual instruments, to be played by a connected MIDI keyboard. Some of them did have sequencing capabilities, such as the Rebirth software from Propellerheads, but this was still limited to just a few sounds at a time; then came VST soft synth plug-ins for sequencer programs such as Cubase VST, which enabled the use of the soft synths within the music creation software.

However, these days software synthesizers have gone onto a new level. You can now get music software which integrates built-in software synthesizers along with a sequencer, samplers and virtual effects devices, all in the one piece of software. This is a true revolution in music creation, and really opens up the sonic possibilities.