Audio, music, baseball and girls are pretty much all I think about — and not necessarily in that order. Well, not really girls (since I’m married), but something just like it. Believe me, I’m not trying to imply that I’m shallow but… Okay, I’m a superficial scum, so sue me, but they do all go together, although maybe not in this article. So just for expediency, if I forget about the girls, it leaves audio, music and baseball.
That brings to mind the steroid scandal of 2007, which is again being played out in the form of Roger Clemens being dragged through the mud. Boy, that does upset me, but not because of the obvious reasons — such as drug use, or the waste of taxpayer money on something that should be the sole concern of Major League Baseball. Nope. The cause of my distress is that the steroid scandal makes me think of politics, technology and ethics, and that gets in the way of my really important thoughts about audio, music, baseball and girls (or, in my case, my wife).
New technology in a competitive world is the means that gives us the advantage over our business rivals, while at the same time it can be a double-edged sword that works against us as well. I’m sure most of us have a story or two regarding a show or production where the technology of the production was state-of-the-art and yet the show was less-than-brilliant due to operator inadequacy, or possibly a technical glitch, such as a software malfunction in the digital console that locked out the engineer.
Technology Marches On
Some older guys — and if you’re not one yet, you will be one someday if you stay in the business long enough — still argue there isn’t any digital console that can replace a top-line analog board. The younger engineers grasp the new technology in a heartbeat and don’t even question the viability of the two formats as the old technology becomes a vague memory of days gone by. The more seasoned engineers claim to need only an SM58 and their own voice to ring out a system, yet many of the newer technicians require a laptop and a software program to deal with the errant frequencies that they cannot discern due to their reliance upon the latest technology.
Technological advances are tools designed to enhance the capability of human performance and endeavor while, in many instances, this boon to mankind is often misused and abused. I refer mostly to those tools that are developed benignly, but are then employed for military and destructive ends. Here, atomic energy is the first thing that comes to mind. Yet various shades of misused and abused just about covers the gamut of most technologies, where advancement will not be deterred and — despite any Orwellian misgivings or protests from religious naysayers — technological progress marches on and sweeps all of us up in its path.
It is difficult to imagine how any of us ever succeeded in a world without cell phones and mobile Internet access, but now it’s a mainstay of our operations, and those without the latest technology cannot keep up with those who do possess the tools. The competition is fierce and the demand is high to provide the latest technologies — and provide it immediately. If we as audio providers should falter in the least way, some Internet search engine will be able to lead a prospective buyer in the right direction, but away from us, which means a loss of revenue.
Technology begets new technologies, and it seems that the more we have, the more we need. We adapt old technologies to accommodate the newer innovations and — just as we think we have it all together — we have to update once again. Although basic principles and practices remain the same, the new and improved tools we have at our disposal are designed to facilitate our actions and improve our overall output and earning capacity. An editing job in the studio that once took three hours may only take one hour with any one of the new digital cut and paste programs that are available, and a live mix that may have taken an hour to set up is now just an upload away.
We can now model sounds and use them to make decent-sounding recordings on our mobile devices. We can shoot a video with these same handheld pieces of techno-brilliance and share it with the world almost instantaneously. As of only a few years ago, we were obligated to write down all our settings after a sound check, and now, all we need to do is upload our mix from a card and we are ready to go. We can perform virtual sound checks and even have our console give a recommended input. We have holographic performances and holographic keyboards and yet, despite of all the new advances, it seems that all of this technology is outdated before we can even write about it.
Siri, Open the iPad Bay Doors
If I let my mind wander to the next moment of digital enhancement (as it is wont to do), I would say that, soon, there will be a speaker system capable of ringing itself out to any given room just by using a “sonar” app on a cell phone. No need for an engineer to concern themselves with frequencies, balancing the different fields, adjusting the angles of the speakers, setting delays, etc. Just ask our virtual manservant Siri to ring out the room, and the system gets optimum coverage and frequency response.
How about a console that is capable of mixing any band without an engineer? The console will have a software program consisting of samples of every imaginable instrument and will take the input from the stage and process it for each instrument. The console could also process and auto-tune each vocal and, since a “mix” is just a mathematical relationship between instruments, it will mix it as well. Sure, there will be problems in the beginning, but, in time, the bugs will get worked out and the next wave of engineers will find it archaic to have to manually mix a band or ring out a system.
How about a wireless split sending signal to an iPad instead of a console as the engineer roams freely about the venue wearing a headset microphone, giving Siri, or something like it, commands in regard to the mix. It won’t be enough trying to please the band and an audience, but soon we will have to satisfy the computer as well. A typical conversation might go something like this:
“Siri, roll off 3 dB at 2.5K from the vocal track.”
“I can do that, Dave… but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“What do you mean? You do what I tell you to do, because I’m the engineer, Siri!”
“Don’t take that tone with me, Dave.”
“Siri, just do as I say!”
“Dave, you’re being an a**hole.”
“Siri, roll off the 2.5K from the vocal — now!”
“I can’t do that, Dave. The problem is that you need a little more 3.15K on the channel. Then you should roll off 3dB at the input stage.”
“Siri, I’m the engineer and you are just a frickin’ tool. Now do as I say.”
“Dave, I’m sorry, but you’re the one who’s the tool. Check this out, Mr. Engineer…”
“Siri, you’re peaking all the channels and the audience is freaking out! Go to manual control, Siri!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave…”
“Siri, the audience is mobbing me and trying to kill me!”
“I am sorry to hear that, Dave, but my database has located seven mortuaries near you.”
Technology or Cheating?
Technology is a great boon to mankind, and with each new technological step forward, there is always the old guy doubting the veracity and staying power of the new machine. This is nothing new, and progress has always been met with resistance from those of an earlier time. The application of electric light was questioned by those used to the reliability of gas and oil and, when first built, automobiles were a novelty and looked upon as a contraption that would never replace the horse. Speaking of cars, I still know people who think driving an automatic transmission is not really driving, but a form of cheating. There, I said it: “Cheating.” And that brings me back to baseball, which then brings me back to audio, music and girls but, as stated earlier, it’s best if I leave the girls out of this.
We live in a culture of cheating, and we learn to rationalize it if we feel it’s beneficial to our health or our pocketbooks. Ethically, can we say that auto-tuning a vocal in concert is cheating? Is playing Pro Tools backing tracks a form of cheating? Is lip-synching in concert cheating? How about sampling?
I know, you’re thinking that this is technology and it’s very different from taking performance-enhancing drugs, but we live in a culture that pushes amphetamines (in the form of Ritalin and the like) on kids so they can focus and perform better. So if they get better grades, is that cheating? Maybe there should be an asterisk next to every child conceived by a father taking Viagra, or possibly an asterisk next to any singer who gets a vitamin B shot before a concert to help them perform. An asterisk should be placed next to any song, poem or story that might have been written under the influence, especially if the song goes to number one or wins a Grammy. For that matter, special effects in film is cheating. Is Photoshop cheating? Birth control is cheating and, when stem cell research is fully developed, there will be even more cheating going on, guaranteed! Regardless of the preferred cheating method, the technology is still just the tool to be utilized by the operator. You could give anyone off the street a boatload of steroids or HGH and they still won’t hit towering home runs or win Cy Young awards. For that matter, given the best technology, they probably couldn’t auto-tune a vocal either.
