Some songs that were recorded in the 70'S used to take few days to set the orchestra and singers to tune up and record after sweating out for several takes and retakes. The scenario before, was even more methodical, when the musicians and singers had practice sessions before entering the studio hall.
But all that started to fade with the analogue multi-track recording that sweep-ed the Music Industry in the 80's. The convenience of Rhythm sections playing separately to the metronome, later layered with strings section and solo instruments and then the voices in the last. Though there was no random access, the linear recording spools allowed the facility to wind forward and backward and allow musicians and singers to overdub till they got the right take. Not only the convenience of erasing mistakes but also the convenience of scheduling the entire orchestration as per the availability.
This technology had its pros and cons. First the Pros: The cost of rehearsals, time of singers was saved along with more possibility for perfection to tweak and correct minor and major mistakes by redoing. Even the Mixing engineers found it very convenient to strike the right balance by playing the track over and over again with access to individual tracks and control on the bandwidth and frequencies of every section of instruments. Then come the disadvantages: Every boon comes along with some curses too. The togetherness and harmony of the entire orchestra playing was no more. This made music more mechanical, the few suggestions that used to pop up in a group rehearsal was now fading away.
Days passed when we entered into the 90'S, the digital age slowly took over, initially with ADAT and HI 8 recorders offering 8 track digital processing using tape based or the AKAI HDD recorders. It was still linear, till the mid 90's when the Non Linear HDD recording came in to revolutionize and transform the audio recording techniques. Random access and precise visibility of audio waveform made the job of sound engineers very easy.
The musicians however, were solo players who had a lot of practice other than recordings by playing live music, so they had the convenience to record bit by bit, but those who benefited most were the singers.
Why Singers? The singer now had the option to punch in and punch out for every beat of the song. Many less talented singers have made it to fame by using this technology during these times. Some continue to do so even till date. More interestingly, this was the time we saw many Singers of other languages attempting to sing songs of regional languages too. Memorizing of the words was not required, the expressions could have been improved by retaking several times, every line or even word could be punched in and the flexibilities were infinite.
So software started doing all that a singer could not do.
Perhaps, that is why great singers like Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Da, Lataji did not venture much into regional language singing mainly because of language diction, words, and singing all of them at a stretch along with orchestra would have been a herculean task.
In spite of such difficulties, we had songs sung by Mohd.Rafi, Lata,Asha in regional languages like telugu which were hits. In a way, today's singers owe a lot to software and they should thank all the techies for giving them a boon to survive.
But all that started to fade with the analogue multi-track recording that sweep-ed the Music Industry in the 80's. The convenience of Rhythm sections playing separately to the metronome, later layered with strings section and solo instruments and then the voices in the last. Though there was no random access, the linear recording spools allowed the facility to wind forward and backward and allow musicians and singers to overdub till they got the right take. Not only the convenience of erasing mistakes but also the convenience of scheduling the entire orchestration as per the availability.
This technology had its pros and cons. First the Pros: The cost of rehearsals, time of singers was saved along with more possibility for perfection to tweak and correct minor and major mistakes by redoing. Even the Mixing engineers found it very convenient to strike the right balance by playing the track over and over again with access to individual tracks and control on the bandwidth and frequencies of every section of instruments. Then come the disadvantages: Every boon comes along with some curses too. The togetherness and harmony of the entire orchestra playing was no more. This made music more mechanical, the few suggestions that used to pop up in a group rehearsal was now fading away.
Days passed when we entered into the 90'S, the digital age slowly took over, initially with ADAT and HI 8 recorders offering 8 track digital processing using tape based or the AKAI HDD recorders. It was still linear, till the mid 90's when the Non Linear HDD recording came in to revolutionize and transform the audio recording techniques. Random access and precise visibility of audio waveform made the job of sound engineers very easy.
The musicians however, were solo players who had a lot of practice other than recordings by playing live music, so they had the convenience to record bit by bit, but those who benefited most were the singers.
Why Singers? The singer now had the option to punch in and punch out for every beat of the song. Many less talented singers have made it to fame by using this technology during these times. Some continue to do so even till date. More interestingly, this was the time we saw many Singers of other languages attempting to sing songs of regional languages too. Memorizing of the words was not required, the expressions could have been improved by retaking several times, every line or even word could be punched in and the flexibilities were infinite.
So software started doing all that a singer could not do.
Perhaps, that is why great singers like Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Da, Lataji did not venture much into regional language singing mainly because of language diction, words, and singing all of them at a stretch along with orchestra would have been a herculean task.
In spite of such difficulties, we had songs sung by Mohd.Rafi, Lata,Asha in regional languages like telugu which were hits. In a way, today's singers owe a lot to software and they should thank all the techies for giving them a boon to survive.
