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With record ease

Although there have always been difficulties involved in making music albums, the scenario is gradually improving, thanks largely to technology

Photo: K. Murali Kumar

TIMES ARE A-CHANGIN' The penetration of home computers has changed the music world phenomenally

One of the biggest problems faced by musicians in India has been the difficulty in making albums. Reasons such as prohibitive costs, lack of good studios and the inability to find that perfect sound are often thrown up to explain their inability to break into the big league by putting out quality albums — reasons that often discourage younger bands from pursuing their music more meaningfully.

However, fledgling musicians can take heart in the fact the scene isn't as bad as it once was. Performers and technicians alike now assert that increasing technology and awareness have ensured the process of music creation and distribution isn't the exclusive domain of gigantic record companies anymore.

Biggest change

The biggest change in favour of unrecognised musicians, explains Rzhude David, bassist for popular band Thermal and a Quarter, is the penetration of home computers. "Because of computers, anyone with a PC at home can create music. A single guy can create entire albums with just loops downloaded from the Internet." With the advent of home computers, he explains, producing music is as easy as learning to use a word document.

Adds Chris Avinash, ex-frontman of Document Done who is now working on a solo album, individuals interested in producing basic recordings don't even need drummers, guitarists and so on. With a wide variety of drum loops and instruments on voice banks available in programmes such as Reason and Nuendo, one only needs to understand chord structures on the keyboard.

The difference is also visible in the case of full rock bands. Writing music and sharing ideas has become easier, explains Rzhude, because songwriters don't have to wait to assemble the band each time they have an idea. Instead, ideas can be tried out on the computer, and only final product worked on physically by the band.

Moreover, traditional bands with multiple musicians playing live instruments are now also finding the actual recording and mastering process to be simpler and more cost-effective too, thanks primarily to the advent of digital recording platforms.

With the process going digital, cash-strapped musicians need no longer spend valuable funds on costly, rarely used 24-track equipment and the like. Now, all the effects they can possibly dream of are available as digital plug-ins at a fraction of the cost.

This, says Gaurav Vaz, of the band Phenom, has meant a direct drop in costs for studios, which are able to transfer that to bands. "There are now studios in Bangalore that charge you only around Rs. 4,000 per song, which includes about 10 to 15 hours of recording time and mixing and mastering. A few years ago, one would have to pay by the hour besides also paying for mixing and mastering, which meant most bands couldn't think of making an album." Many bands, he adds have also now found ways to minimise time spent in the studios by doing some of their recording outside, and going in only to record drum and vocal tracks.

Another change that has worked in favour of small bands has been the amount of networking that now takes place online. Where in the past bands were only able to get their music across to fans by playing live concerts or printing albums, they are now reaching out to their fans on the Internet. In the recent past, both Thermal and a Quarter and Phenom put up their music for free download under the commons' licence.

There are a number of international examples of this phenomenon too. The Arctic Monkeys, a U.K.-based band that is all the rage right now, owes much of its success to fans ripping demos and putting them on the net for free.

Suchitra Lata, who runs the studio The Music Mint, clarifies that it isn't just technology that has changed over the years. Among technicians too, a paradigm shift has taken place away from film music. She explains that there are a growing number of studios that provide different sound mixes. "Earlier, if you went into a studio, you never knew if they understood what you meant by, say, a Def Leppard sound. Now, you can get the exact design on the sound that you want."

The big question

With the growing ease of music production, though, a question that often arises is whether the music scene is becoming more diluted. While many admit that the digital revolution has made the music scene more populated, Chris argues that it then becomes a question of uniqueness. "When you go to buy a shirt, you would go to a designer because you know he has only one like it, whereas if you go to a chain store you know there are 100 other shirts like it."

In such cases, he says, music distribution then becomes dependent on other factors like money and marketability.

RAKESH MEHAR

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