It happens every time there’s an advancement in the audio industry, be it drum machines or automated mastering. A certain group suggest that it’s the end of the profession as we know it. Drum machines came in the 1980s, and the prediction never came true. More recently, we’ve seen the emergence of automated mastering, and I’m putting my house on the same happening.

Neither of these technologies will fail, but they won’t replace the people doing the work either, and it’s for a simple reason.

There are two types of tasks, Algorithmic and Heuristic. 

An algorithmic task can be repeated, like sticking doors on cars in a factory or a task on your computer where the math is the same every time. Algorithms are good. They take repetitive tasks that, frankly, anyone can do and automate them.

Conversely, a heuristic task has no determined outcome. It requires trial and error, a best guess, or a rule of thumb. Furthermore, this task often requires intuition and a certain amount of emotional input.

Because computers are becoming more powerful every day, so are algorithms. Algorithms require a lot of maths, and powerful computers have enabled complex maths to take nanoseconds rather than weeks or even years to compute.

As algorithms become more powerful so computers can make even better guesses at what the outcome will be. With this thinking, one could argue that it’s only a matter of time before the kind of processes we are seeing with the likes of iZotope and Neutron 3’s Mix Assistant become more mature and a computer will be able to identify the tracks in a mix, fix the issues, draw from a bank of mix decisions you have previously made and produce a mix that identical to one you would have done. The same could also be said of mastering, or in fact, any creative task.

It’s entirely possible for that to become a reality, but where the argument falls over is on the matter of motivation.

I love automation as much as the next person. Come to my house, and you’ll find it everywhere. Lights come on as you walk in and out of rooms and certain times of the day. I have a robotic vacuum cleaner (Son of Botty… it’s number 2 as Botty died) who zips around the house when we are out to pick up all the dog hairs. There’s a reason I have both of them. I either can’t be bothered or don’t like doing what they do. So some smart person has invented little robots to do those things for me.

Motivation

In my book The Book Dad Told Me Not To Write, I talk about accidental business owners. There’s perhaps no industry where this is more prevalent than the music industry. Accidental business owners are those people who find themselves running a business but didn’t set out to do that. Many of us are running our businesses because we ended up making money out of something we love doing.

And this is where the idea that there’s an app or piece of software for every task fails. People love doing a lot of the jobs algorithms claim to be able to do the same or better. The truth is that many of us don’t care if they can because we want to do them ourselves. In reality, robots are nothing more than a replacement for hiring someone to do the jobs you hate.

I recently painted my front door. It took me a week to do it. I stripped (the door), sanded, filled, sanded again. I even found some wood rot that I had to cut out and fix. Lastly, I painted it. I could have hired someone to come and paint my front door. They would have probably done a better job, and I’m fortunate enough to be able to afford a professional. However, I decided I wanted to paint the door. Doing so gave me a sense of achievement, so much so that for several days after completing the job, I kept walking outside the house, day and night, to admire my work.

It’s the same with audio professionals. Many of us are doing this, not because it makes us a living, which in many cases it does and in some doesn’t, but because it makes us happy, it gives us a sense of achievement and pride.

There are plenty of great algorithms out there already that are helping audio professionals in their tasks. In many cases, they help us to do the things we hate to do or are monotonous. However, some developers are missing the point in trying to sell us algorithms for tasks that are heuristic and that we love doing ourselves. It may surprise some developers that some of us love to work out how to solve an audio riddle for two reasons. The first is that the challenge itself makes us happy; secondly, it’s knowing that we’ve taken a step further in perfecting our craft. Our work is not a means to an end; it’s a journey we love being on.

My wife will sometimes ask me to solve a problem. A few minutes later, when I’m mid-flow in figuring it out, she’ll tell me not to worry about it. That’s the worst thing she could say to me at that moment. I’m worried about it for a simple reason… so I can beat it and have a sense of achievement.

If you ask many mountaineers why they climb mountains, they give a simple answer, because I can. If someone were to build an elevator, then they wouldn’t use it. If you offered them a better way to climb it, then some would also ignore you. It isn’t the summit; it really is the challenge that they love.

I wonder if you’ve ever had a wonderful meal, perhaps at a fantastic restaurant, or it might have been a really dirty burger. The food is sublime, however as you eat the food, there comes the point where you start to realise the inevitable, that at some point it’s going to end. For many of us, recording, mixing, and mastering is this; this is perhaps why many find it so hard to finish a mix! We love the process, the art, the craft, the journey. Finishing is the worst part of the process for some.

Looking Down A Big Hole

A few weeks ago, I found myself in a really big hole. I’d gone on vacation and asked a shooting crew to shoot an advert for a new product that was coming to market. When I got home and looked at the footage, there was a huge error in otherwise stunning footage. They had used the wrong item in the shots; it would need to be re-shot. We rebooked the shoot, knowing time was against us, but we knew we could reshoot and edit in a day and save the project. Then the actor got COVID, so we were in the proverbial! At this moment, ‘necessity had to become the mother of invention’, and we had to use motion graphics and a lot of time, patience, and artistry to replace every single frame of every shot. I’d love to show you the before and after of what was achieved; it was a miracle, and anyone looking at the footage would never know what we had to do. I can’t show you the shots, a few close people like the client have seen what was done, but most will never see it.

In one way, I could be bothered that some of our best work is unseen. However, it doesn’t really worry me, and that’s for one reason. I saw the challenge and then wondered if it was possible to use our skills to solve a problem. It was the mountain to climb, and we did it. Doing that was the motivation and, in many ways, the reward. I love knowing that we did such a great job that everyone who watches the ad will never know we did it and how we did it.

Yes, we got paid, but that was secondary to the real reason we did the work. The adrenaline rush of hitting the deadline with a great job was so good.

For The Love

Turning audio production into a process that you have to get to the end of is missing the point entirely.

Many of us are craftspeople and artists who want to try things the hard way. In doing so, we discover new things about audio and about ourselves. Our creative muscles have been stretched, and we’ve learnt something new. We feel a real sense of achievement.

I love automation; I love magic plugins and software that helps me do things I don’t want to do myself and speeds them up. But if you’re going to offer me some software that stops me from doing what I love, well, you’re wasting you’re time.

The only people who want to use it either can’t do what it does or don’t want to and there’s plenty of them out there for these products to succeed. And yes, there’s also plenty of people out there willing to pay for people to use these tools so they can save money.

As for the rest of us, we'll carry on doing what we love, it’s our craft. Take that away and you’ve taken away our purpose for doing it in the first place. We don’t work in audio production because we have to, we do it because we love to!

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