
To rip or not to rip
How the world has changed. I recall seeing Thomas Dolby live in the 80's and his stage was adorned with keyboards and a modified light controller (ex Tangerine Dream) called "Henry" acting as an improvised (pre-Midi) keyboard sequence controller.
Depeche Mode was another bunch that would fill the stage with keyboards too, with the band members banging down on the Korgs and Moogs during their performance
I saw Dolby again in 2008 and he had three keyboards and a PowerMac acting as his sound library and Midi sequencer. What I did love about his show is that he puts the songs together piece by piece and explains what he's doing. Yes, old school with a modern flair.
I also saw Depeche Mode in the 90's in South Africa when I was living and working there. All the music was provided by a DAT player. Some were disappointed whereas I was impressed.
My son who is an aspiring DJ has a music room full of expensive items made by Pioneer, Numark, Korg and other brands. He uses a combo of custom burned CDs as well as a library of MP3s when he does his gigs (friends' parties etc.)
I am impressed by this kit, how he can add reverb, phasers, sample and loop turning the song into his own "interpretation". I occasionally hand him some old school techno like New Order and ask what he can do with that. He listens, plays with it a bit and gets bored as he's rather be emulating David Guetta than a mid 80's club DJ
He saves a lot of his creations onto the home server disk, where it's mirrored and backed up weekly. Backing music up, who would ever of thought of buying two copies of the same album in the 70's and 80's?
I often tell him how we used make compilations from Vinyl using C60/90 cassettes. He thinks it's comical, but I was born of the analogue era and have adapted to the digital era with ease thanks to portable music players, PCs and yes, factory fitted car radios that allow me to dock my music player and control every aspect of it from the steering wheel controls.
I still buy those 12cm silver discs that we call CDs and also download music too, but times are a changing and I wonder how long it will be before the MP3 download will replace the CD just like the Midi sequencer and keyboards are replacing the band members..
A great article again El Reg