How Music Production Has Changed and It's Future

The future… which isn ultimately right now, is a blessing and a curse in the world of music production. An abundance of cheap and beautiful affordable analogue equipment. An endless supply of high quality plugins for mixing and creativity. The ability to create professional recordings from the comfort of your own home. An endless amount of information flooding the internet with tools how to be better and harness your skills. The questions still stands, is having more always better?

For many reasons my answer may quite possibly be no. I remember back when I stood in the studio of my mate Gerard Sidhu (one half of band Strange Talk) and recall being in awe from the equipment and sheer size of the speakers and studio gear throughout! About 10 years down the track and I have acquired the same and more. My point being, if you threw me into the studio I have now, I would’ve most definitely been overwhelmed with an abundance of gear in which I don’t know how to use nor how to patch and get everything working comfortably!

The beauty in growing your studio slowly is that your skill set grows along with it. You also grow familiarity with your equipment, synthesisers, patching and so on and by the time you’re 10 years in, you know exactly what every piece of equipment does and when to use it.

The blessing and the curse is this. That everything is so accessible which can stunt your creativity. Even within a studio full of all your gear porn dreams, a general select few of items are only often used for any one given project. I like to think of it as selecting your colour palette for each project. In many cases, the less you have to work with the easier it is to focus and know where you’re heading!

Back when sampling had just begun, there were less options on how to do it and where you could, also in terms of the equipment accessible. Producers really got to know their equipment and learnt how to execute their skills to the max on one single main piece of equipment. Along with technological advancements in music that is making things easier, it has also given us so many options and I often find a lot of up and comers completely overwhelmed and end up creating nothing!

Music production has definitely changed and is constantly developing. It’s easier and more accessible today to produce than ever. The key is buying equipment slowly and getting to know your equipment inside-out. Things like finding courses that are affordable with great reputations is also a sure way to get a good dose of knowledge and help with getting your production skills up to scratch.

In this day and age, with everyone having access to the same samples and equipment, I have found that it is harder and harder to find music that is unique and that really sticks out. Many producers and artists are obsessed with copying people’s sounds and it seems more of a rarity these days to have a sound that cuts out above the rest.

An album that I recently listened to where the production was on some next level stuff was “Banks" latest album “III.” Unique and experimental production and some really interesting exciting sounds! People like her as well as Billie Eilish are artists who are pushing boundaries and are often the ones who are cutting through all the current noise. Along with 40,000 song releases per day, it is paramount in getting yourself heard.

My thoughts for the future? Lots and lots of studios with ridiculous amounts of affordable equipment, probably from companies like Behringer and a new wave of producers and artists who will have to push boundaries to cut through all the all the noise.

I once read, “There’s lots of great music out there but there isn’t a lot of incredible music that really hits you in the guts.” I’m sure you know the songs I’m talking about. Those timeless tracks that you can listen to day in, day out and it sounds fresh and new every time! Alas, the future of music is in our hands, strive to be different, strive to cut through the noise!

Spike Leo.