FUTURE
OF RECORDING
OLIVER MASCAROTTE –
OMAZ
RICHARD HADESTY
ERIC STENMAN
ANDY HONG – The guy
who recorded Karate!!!
Presentation
I emailed Andy, and he very very kindly forwarded me a text copy of his
powerpoint presentation 'Looking at the past
and predicting (requesting) the future of recording', which I was too slow
to take everything down. I really dug his idea of looking into the past at
dudes who were thinking up of the mechanisms of computers, long before the
technology existed to actually create a computer.
In these days where,
arguably, technology has passed us out, or at least we can't keep up, a similar
genius plant deserves watering, i.e. that of, 'This technology can take me to
all these places, I've no excuses any more. Let's fucking go there!'
Bla
bla. Anyway, here's Andy's great great presentation (which looked better
on the big screen).
Looking at the Past and
Predicting (Requesting) the Future
Andy Hong
Kimchee Records
Overview
History
•
Computing
•
Recording Technology
The Obvious Prediction
Requests
Charles Babbage kicked ass early on
1822
Develops machine to solve polynomial equations
1823
Presents paper describing Difference Engine
•
In subsequent years builds working models
•
First digital calculator (Other devices worked by measurement, the DE
worked by counting)
1833
Hypothesizes Analytical Engine
•
Universal calculating machine w/ configurable internal mechanisms that
could be "programmed" to perform different calculations
•
Central unit called a Mill that had a 50-digit accumulator
•
Punch-card input system copied from French weaving machines
•
Years later, Babbage's son builds a working model
Pals o’ Charles from the 19th Century
Lady Lovelace
•
Not to be confused with Linda Lovelace
•
Maiden name = Ada Byron, daughter of Lord Byron
•
Theorizes subroutines, procedures, code libraries, and loops (structures
that make up modern programming languages)
George Boole
•
Invents binary (boolean) algebra
•
Demonstrates that simple equations can be described as true or false
Early 20th Century
1906
Thaddeus Cahill's Telharmonium
•
1897 patent for an "electrically based sound generation system"
•
60 ft long, 200 tons
1924
Theremin
•
Played continuous range of pitches by changing frequency of electronic
oscillators
1925
First electrically recorded discs
•
Instead of acoustically
1928
George Neumann starts his company
•
First mic = CMV3 Neumann Bottle
1928
Magnetic tape patent awarded to Dr. Fritz Pfleumer
1931
First magnetic tape recorders
Early 20th Century
1936
Alan Turing’s paper:
"The Turing machine: On Computable Numbers"
•
Standardized instruction set to describe any particular algorithm
mechanically
•
Symbols representing instructions instead of symbols representing numbers
1937
Alec H. Reeves invents Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)
1939
John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry build ABC (Atanasoff-Berry-Computer)
•
The first electronic computer with a drum storage device (capacitors)
•
Binary
•
Two drums, each storing 30 50-bit numbers
WWII
1945
ENIAC -
Electronic Numerical Integrator
and Calculator
•
Designed to calculate ballistic tragectories
•
The first problem run on the machine in Dec 1945 was a calculation for
the hydrogen bomb
•
100 feet long, 10 feet high, 3 feet deep, 30 tons, 17,000 tubes, 70,000
resistors, 10,000 capacitors, and 6,000 hand-set switches
•
The lights of nearby Philadelphia dimmed when it was turned on
Post War
1945
First computer bug discovered
•
Moth stuck in relays of the Harvard Mark II computer
1947
Germanium transistor first demonstrated privately at Bell Labs
1948
IBM's Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator on display to public
•
25 ft x 40 ft, 20,000 relays, 12,500 vacuum tubes
•
50 multiplications per sec
•
In the early 1950's, SSEC produced moon-trajectory tables used for 1969
Apollo
Post War
1948
Pierre Schaeffer of French National Radio
•
Began producing and performing with taped natural sounds that he
manipulated
•
Tape reversal, splicing, overdubbing
1948
Herbert Eimert and Werner Mayer-Epper of the West German Radio
Corporation
•
Used discrete oscillators, noise generators, ring modulators, and filters
to create all-electronic music
1950’s
1951
UNIVAC is the first computer to feature
a magnetic tape storage system
•
UNIVAC 1 delivered to the US Census Bureau
•
46 eventually sold
•
Size: 943 cubic ft
•
Speed: 1905 operations/sec
•
Memory: 1000 12-digit words stored in delay lines
•
Cost: $750,000 plus $185,000 for printer
1950’s
1952
Raytheon starts mass-producing
the transistor
•
First commercial product w/ transistors = the hearing aid
1955
Bell Labs TRADIC
•
First fully transistorized computer
•
3 cubic ft
1956
IBM ships 305 RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control)
•
First hard disk
•
Capacity of 5 MB across 50 24'' platters
1950’s
1957
Max Mathews develops MUSIC at Bell Labs
•
First software program to generate and manipulate sound
1958
Advent of stereo LP’s
1959
RCA Mark I and Mark II
•
Analog synthesizers developed at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music
Center with US Govt funding
1960’s
1962
MIT's Lincoln Labs develops LINC
•
First real-time data laboratory processing computer
•
Capable of sampling data and processing it while the experiment
progressed
•
First real-time sampler
1962
First use of PCM in telephone transmission
•
8 kHz sampling rate
1962
SpaceWar! developed by MIT students
•
First interactive video game
•
DEC PDP-1 with joysticks, vector graphics (on a scope)
1962
First digital audio tape recordings made by Tom Stockham at MIT
•
TX-0 computer
1960’s
1963
Compact Cassette tape introduced by Philips
1963
Mellotron introduced
•
Tape-loop sample playback
1960’s
1964
IBM SABRE flight reservation system for AA
•
First networked, online transaction system
•
Linked 2000 terminals in 65 cities
•
Pair of IBM 7090 computers
1964
Cray's CDC 6600
•
Fastest computer to date
•
3 million operations/sec
1968
Switched on Bach by Wendy Carlos
•
Performed on a modified Moog.
1969
American Data Sciences develops audio digital delay
•
100 ms of delay
•
In 1971 changes name to Lexicon
1970’s
1970
Arpanet connects UCSB, UCLA, SRI, Univ of Utah
1971
Kenbak-1 = first personal computer
•
Switches for input, lights for output
•
256 Byte memory
•
$750
1971
Intel 4004 = first microprocessor
•
4-bit processor w/ 2,250 transistors
•
60,000 operations/sec
1971
IBM invents 8-in floppy
•
Easily transfer data between computers
1971
MiniMoog = first compact monosynth
1970’s
1972
Steve Wozniak builds the "blue box" for hacking telephones
1972
Pong and Atari are born
1973
Micral = first microprocessor-based personal computer (Intel 8008)
1974
Xerox Alto = first computer with a mouse and windows/menu/icon interface
1975
Synclavier introduced
1970’s
1976
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs
build the Apple I computer in a garage
1976
Cray I supercomputer
•
166 MFLOPS running at 83 MHz
•
5,300 lbs
1976
IRCAM opens under the direction of Pierre Boulez, funded by the French
government.
1976
First 16-bit digital recording made in the US
•
Using handmade Soundstream recorder developed by Thomas Stockham
1970’s
1977
Commodore PET
1977
Apple II
1977
Radio Shack Tandy TRS-80
•
$599.95
•
4KB of RAM
•
Monochrome display - all uppercase characters
•
Z80 microprocessor
1970’s
1978
Sony introduces the PCM-1
•
First consumer digital recorder
•
14-bit resolution
•
BetaMax tape
1979
Fairlight CMI
•
New era of sampling
•
Pen-based waveform editing tool
1979
Synclavier gets sampling capability along with FM synthesis
1980’s
1980
Seagate introduces first microcomputer
hard drive
•
5 MB
1981
IBM PC
•
4.77 MHz Intel 8088
•
MS-DOS
1981
Osborne I = first portable computer
•
64KB RAM
•
Two 5 1/4'' floppy drives
•
5’’ screen
•
24 lbs
•
$1795
1981
Sony ships first 3 1/2'' floppy drive
1980’s
1982
Sony CDP-101 = first commercially available CD player
1980’s
1982
Commodore 64
•
Becomes the best selling computer to date (22,000,000 units thru 1983)
•
8-bit processor
•
64K RAM
•
SID (Sound Interface Device MOS6581) was the first audio chip made for a
home computer
•
4-voice synthesizer on board
1980’s
1983
Apple Lisa
•
1 MB RAM
•
Dual 5 1/4'' floppy drives
•
12 inch screen
•
$10,000
•
Optional 5 MB HD
•
Copped Xerox
1983
Compaq = first PC clone
1980’s
1983
Introduction of MIDI at NAMM
1983
Yamaha DX-7
•
First standalone digital synthesizer
•
Introduced FM synthesis to the masses
1984
Macintosh
•
128 MB RAM
•
$2,500
•
WYSIWYG
1984
Sony D-5 = first portable CD player
1984
Synclavier gets multitrack recording capability
•
$20,000.
1980’s
1985
Yamaha REV7 stereo digital reverb
•
30 presets, 60 user programs, MIDI, 12 kHz reverb bandwidth, 3-band
parametric EQ.
1985
HHB CLUE
•
System for editing digital audio recorded with Sony PCM-F1 and PCM-701
1985
Peter Gotcher and Evan Brooks start Digidesign
•
First product = 8-bit custom-burned ROM’s for Simmons drum pads
1985
CD-ROM standard from Sony and Philips.
1980’s
1986
Yamaha SPX-90 multi-effects processor
1986
Akai S900 12-bit rackmount sampler
1986
Ensoniq Mirage = first affordable keyboard sampler
1986
Sony and Philips give us the DAT
1980’s
1988
CD sales surpass LP sales
1988
Yamaha DMP7 = first affordable digital mixer
•
not sure on date (this is the first year I saw it)
1989
Digidesign Sound Accelerator (Sound Tools)
•
Sound Designer II
•
Sample editing tool becomes world’s first hard disk recorder on a
personal computer
1989
Korg M1
•
King of workstations
•
Leads to demise of Yamaha's synthesizer division
1990’s
1990
Windows 3.0 introduced multitasking to MS-DOS
1990
Tim Berners-Lee develops HTML, URL, HTTP
1991
Alesis ADAT
•
Soon afterwards, Fletcher finds new calling as sculptor
1990’s
1995
Yamaha ProMix 01
1996
Yamaha 02R
1996
Roland VS880
1996
DVD in Japan (1997 US)
1997
MP3.com
1998
Pro Tools and Cubase go 24 bit
1998
IBM announces first 25 GB HD
1998
DVD-Audio Format 1.0 specification
1999
SACD
Y2K
2001
SidStation built around MOS6581 SID chip from Commodore 64
2002
Zoom PS-02 Palm Top Recording Studio
Cost of Magnetic Disk Storage
Cost of Semiconductor RAM
Multitrack Format
Year
Format
1963
Cassette 2-track
1983
Cassette 4-track
1993
Cassette 8-track
2003
Cassette 16-track
No Brainer Prediction
Processor speed, amount of memory, storage capacity, and network
bandwidth will increase faster than the needs dictated by our current recording
methods.
No Brainer Prediction
Processor speed, amount of memory, storage capacity, and network
bandwidth will increase faster than the needs dictated by our current recording
methods.
Therefore, we have the opportunity to develop new ways of recording
music.
Requests
READL - Record Everything All Day Long
•
Always in record mode
•
Hitting the “record button” marks in/out points for edit
Collaborative Editing
•
Multiple “terminals” into a single session
•
E.g. main engineer or producer does rough comps while tape op tweaks the
crossfades and cleans up noise… even while artist is being recorded
RICHARD HARDESTY
“Andy, you’re
killing me!”
(to
be completed).