It’s hard to overestimate the effect some innovations have had on modern audio production. Here are three that have gone from once held studio wishes to commonplace tech in our everyday work.

DAWs

The DAW is perhaps the technology that has transformed modern audio production, taking over from conventional tape based multitrack recorders as the chosen medium by the majority.

Early hard disk based recording started to emerge for the mainstream professional in the 1980s. In 1982, NED (New England Digital) offered a sampling Sample-to-Disk option for the iconic Synclavier keyboard and music production system.

First shown in 1984, AMS released the AudioFile, one of the first 16-bit hard disk based recording systems, which was aimed largely at post-production. From Wikipedia; “The Audiofile saw considerable use in television post-production and was seen by dubbing mixers as a huge technological breakthrough. After decades of mixing on 16mm magnetic film stock, in which mix decisions were extremely difficult to undo, the ability to undo and make changes instantaneously provided dubbing mixers with new opportunities for experimentation in their work.” The cost of the AudioFile in 1984 was about £40,000.

In 1989, Digidesign, who had originally made sample chips for drum machines, unveiled Sound Tools. This was a hard disk recorder built around a standard Apple Mac computer and used additional hardware for capture and replay. The price for the system (sans Mac) was £3100 in 1989. Sound Tools offered stereo hard disc recording, but it was the first affordable professional offering.

Sound Tools, as you can imagine, was the forerunner to the ubiqiutous Pro Tools, which was released later on. You can read more about this history of Pro Tools using the links below;

• The History of Pro Tools - 1984 to 1993

• The History of Pro Tools - 1994 to 2000

• The History of Pro Tools - 2000 to 2007

• The History of Pro Tools - 2007 to 2012

• The History of Pro Tools - 2012 to 2018

Of course, Pro Tools isn’t the only DAW, many other systems were being developed at the same time. However, because Digidesign and then Avid concentrated on the DSP based systems, professional adoption of DAWs to replace tape in major music studios and post facilities, Pro Tools has cemented the reputation as the choice of professionals for several decades.

Today, DAWs have become the choice of anyone wishing to create, edit and mix audio. Computers have got faster, and cheaper. As have memory and associated peripherals. Now, a DAW can cost as little as zero, with free offerings from many of the major players.

Irrespective of which DAW you choose to use, DAWs are part of the audio production landscape and have transformed how we approach audio production.

Sampling

Another child of the 80s, sampling is something that we take for granted in modern music. However, sampling powers so many of the instruments and sound effects we use.

Again, in the early days, sampling was hardware based. In early incarnations samplers cost an arm and a leg, and sometimes a kidney too! Early instruments from brands like Fairlight, NED and EMU systems were costly, and far out of reach for mere mortals. Then, as the cost of memory started to decrease and new lower cost offerings from brands like AKAI, Ensoniq, Roland and Casio emerged, the new brands took the price of sampling hardware from the tens of thousands to the thousands, sometimes the hundreds.

Products like the AKAI S900, the Ensoniq Mirage, and Roland S50 were all popular samplers in the 1980s, all had many follow up iterations, which often made them better, cheaper, or both.

But sampling keyboards and expanders were just part of the sampling equation. Sampling was powering drum machines, with costly offerings like the Linn Drum, Emu SP1200, and the Drumulator. Again, as time went on, more cheaper versions of drum machines were produced by Roland, Yamaha, Casio, Alesis, in fact almost everybody and by the mid 80s sampling drum machines could be had for as little as £100. Another by-product of samplers in hardware form were romplers, these were sample-based instruments that offered a huge array of sample based sounds to use with the MIDI sequencers of the day. Some popular models at the time were the Roland MT32, U110, as well as the Emu Proteus range.

However, the real sampling revolution took place when it became possible to use samples in the home computer. Almost long forgotten, for many, the Creative Labs Soundblaster cards were a cost effective way of using sample based audio in computers. Over time, again, as computers got cheaper along with memory, computers become the way many used sample based audio.

Today, we take sampling for granted. However many of the virtual instruments we use, and some effects plugins, use sample based playback to create the sound.

Once we had to hire a band, an orchestra, or a foley stage to get the sounds we needed. Sampling changed that for all of us.

Digital Reverb

Another technology we often take for granted is digital reverb. Digital reverb generates a facsimile of a space, or another hardware unit. This can be derived using reverb algorithms or convolution technology.

It wasn’t long ago that most of us had no way of creating a reverb, other than using a room. If you had money then that was a purpose built chamber, or a plate. For the average home user, it was a spring reverb, or singing in the bathroom, or putting your drums in the garage.

Again, in the 1980s, companies like Lexicon (to be accurate the 224 came to market in 1979 but ubiquitous in the 80s), AMS, and Klark Teknik produced some iconic early digital reverb hardware units. The cost ran into the thousands, but the sound became iconic. Suddenly both music and post mixers had the ability to put sound into spaces like halls, chambers, and rooms at the click of a preset. This was revolutionary. Soon they got creative and things like Non-Lin, or gated reverb became popular.

As with the other technologies mentioned above, soon the price of digital reverb came down and the masses could buy things like the Yamaha REV7, SPX90, and later on an entire range of budget reverbs from brands like Alesis and ART which meant every home studio had a digital reverb.

Today, reverbs are available as plugins. There’s a lot of free reverb plugins as well as high quality offerings from brands like LiquidSonics, Valhalla, and Universal Audio. In many cases they sound as good, if not better, than their original counterparts, and for a fraction of the cost.

Summary

The technology above has a direct familial line to the things we use in modern music production. All of our modern tools share the same DNA.

Looking back, some may think that the sound of the gear we had in the 1980s wasn’t that good. A lot of it used 12 or 8 bit sampling, had very limited memory, and A/D D/A convertors were in their infancy. Even the cheap stuff cost a lot compared to what can be had now for almost next to nothing. Ironically, a lot of people are trying to recreate the limited sound of those early devices.

Even with all those considerations, the 1980s were a rocket trip of audio innovation that powered many modern technologies, for which we all need to be thankful.