The Day Pro Tools Killed Music

Editorial

I got into a good old fashioned yarn this week with a passionate friend who is firmly of the belief that Pro Tools has been the main assailant of great music in the modern era.

For those new to the Pro Tools phenomenon, it’s basically the place where most of the world’s albums are created on these days. Pro Tools is high-powered digital editing software that takes away clunky tape reels and blade cut editing from what we once knew as the recording process replacing it with exquisite noise-free digital audio conversion, powerful and portable enough to carry around on your average laptop.

For the sake of the discussion let’s hereby refer to my mate as ‘Dude’. Dude reckons that what Pro Tools has done is give artists way too much scope to layer and multi layer track upon track and perfect all the natural human nuances (like mistakes and bum notes) that give classic records their character and persona. Dude also reckons Pro Tools, and all other digital editing technology takes away the need for artists to actually perform and be any good, therefore blaming mass mediocrity on talentless commoners having way too much power to destroy the musical craft with learned techno cunning.

I agree that many modern recordings lack the ‘human touch’, and that rock ‘n’ roll in its divine provenance had very little to do with getting everything right. What would a Carl Perkins or a Jimmy Page guitar track sound like with all those beautiful sloppy fretboard misfires being replaced with better versions from another take? What would a Ramones record sound like with AutoTune splashed all over Joey’s vocals? It is true that all this production power provides the user with an endless bounty of possibility, and the eternal temptation to destroy everything great about great rock ‘n’ roll.

But you know, so what? I’m sure when the coloured pen was introduced to society, all the painters around the world might have thought they were done for too. We still had Jackson Pollock didn’t we? Pro Tools, like every other evolutionary step in art is just a medium and can only be judged on how it’s applied by the user.  There’s no reason why you can’t still set up two microphones in the room Sun Records style, and just go for it in Pro Tools. Nobody says you have to use all 96 tracks in the making of your grand rock opus. Try telling The Black Keys to use up 92 spare tracks!

It’s not the first time ‘the need for more’ mantra has surfaced in the music biz, but sometimes I wonder why so many people rate pristine audio production and great rock ‘n’ roll as kindred bedfellows. For me, the truly great recordings in rock ‘n’ roll were the crappier ones where all you heard was a few guys set up in a room, absolutely going for it in search of the elusive magic take.

But that’s just me, and Dude agrees. You can say whatever you want about this new plug-in and that new plug-in for Pro Tools, whatever. It’s impressive, and sure the technology will only get better. But all this whiz-kid multi-layering, Auto Tuning, and meticulous editing is never going to replace having some sort of talent performing the Uncle Buck out of a song at other end of the mic.

Unless we all train ourselves to believe that great songwriting and musicianship was something we all had to do in the old days to get anywhere in music. Sadly, that’s not such an unbelievable thought.

Dave Larkin, Citysearch

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