Music Production

The world’s very first music

Developmental Changes
Drum Machines

Creating unique drum beats/solos for music has always been a hard task. Finding the tempo,
the kind of rhythm that you want, the genre of the song you’re playing for as well as choosing
what kind of equipment you would want to include in that drum kit of yours if any. Actually
owning a drum kit, as well as getting the equipment to do so, can be very, very expensive, with
the most functional/cheapest drum kit available is going at a price of an estimated $200 - $300.
That is, until Roland - A distributor of electronic, music equipment today such a mics and
synthesisers, developed the world’s first drum machine in the year 1978, the year that rock and
roll was about to become hugely popular, with the era of Elvis Presely, thats been recently over
at this point, many rock and roll musicians have taken over his place in the world. Inspiring to be
the next Elvis Presely in their generations and the generations to come. The Drum machine, at
the time, was a small analogue device, that allowed the user to program any drum beat that
they’ve produced, as well as store the sample that they’ve created to use for later, something
that’s easy to access to compose new songs, in form of directly taking the sample into the next
song or being inspired to create a new one. It’s pretty simple, at the time, to code and input into
a music producing software and can even be played out loud for the people on the outside to
hear it through the use of speakers.

DEMONSTRATE DIGITAL DRUM MACHINE - VIP CHARANGA

Recording Equipment
Ever since we’re able to communicate through speech, we’ve always been able to listen to
ourselves through the natural world, through echoes in a large, secluded area, through sounds
waves that we emit being reflected back at us from hard, reflective surfaces like rocks and an
enclosed, empty space with nothing for the sound to absorb into. However, being able to
capture, store and play back these. The story of sound recording will begin with a famous
engineer, called Thomas Edison in 1877. Different eras of sound recordings came in waves
throughout the years. The 4 Different eras of sound recording:

· The Acoustic Era (1877 – 1925)

· The Electrical Era (1925 – 1945)

· The Magnetic Era (1945 – 1975)

· The Digital Era (1945 – Present day) – Equipment: Soundcard U-PHORIA UMC22

Experiments to capture sounds on to a recording medium has been in the works ever since the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution all the way back in the 1800s. Many industrial pioneers at
the time attempted to record and replicate sound were made during the second half of the 19 th
Century – Notably, out of all the pioneers at the time, Scott’s phonautograph in the year 1857 –
leading into the efforts to then lead the charge into Thomas Edison, creating the phonograph in
the year 1877. Digital recording emerged in the late 20 th Century and has flourished with the
popularity of digital music as well as online streaming services.

The Acoustic Era

Starting off the recording journey, at the very first wave at the beginning of the different eras, the
acoustic era. The earliest known practical recording technologies were entirely mechanical
devices. Starting from Thomas Edison, with the ‘Speaking Machine’, which we now know as the
Phonograph was made by using a large, conical horn was shaped and molded into a specific,
hollow shape in order to roughly collect and focus the physical air pressure changes coming
from the sound waves produced by human vocal cords. Edison, along with one of his co-
workers, John Kruesi Think of the way that the strings of an acoustic or classical guitar vibrate in
order to make the sounds that it does, with the sound hole acting as a makeshift speaker in
order to further.

Songs that changed the production world

Walk this way

The 70s and 80s introduced the world to a lot of great music:Snow (Hey Oh) by the Red Hot
Chili Peppers, Queen’s ‘Somebody to love’, Bon Jovi’s ‘’Livin’ on a prayer’ and etc. However,
there's no such thing as a flawless release in terms of new genres of music. A popular example
of this is with Aerosmith’s ‘Walk this way’. At the time of Aerosmith’s release of the song, the
world of rock and roll was a fairly new genre, typically appealing to rebellious teenagers and
people who just want to live by their own rules. Rock and roll, especially 70s and 80s rock and
roll, have accumulated a unique fanbase that's strangely made out of a more of a conservitive
group than anything else. It’s main audience were usually men in denim jackets that’s joyful of
the sound of the lack of synthesisers and anything that was similar to ‘Digital music’ at that time.

Along with rock and roll, Rap and R&B also had more of a niche, targeted audience, due to the
use of the newly invented, at the time, drum machines. The world’s first drum machine was
released in the late 1970’s and was actually released by Roland, dubbed the ‘CompuRhythm
CR-78, this little analogue device allowed musicians to record a simple drum beat faster, and
more accurately than ever before, even excluding the experience of actually playing the drums,
all you needed was a sense of rhythm to help you produce the onbeat/offbeat sound that you
wanted.

‘Walk this way’ was a song originally written by aerosmith, but was re-released, with permission
from the band of course, by ‘Jam-Master Jay’ along with music producer Rick Rubin, wanted to
re-record the entire song to make it appeal to a much wider audience as well as produce
something that’s recognizable to Aerosmith’s old fans. In fact, they were so dedicated to
recreating the original song, that when creating it, they even asked the original band members
of Aerosmith, Steve Tyler and Joe Perry, the vocalist and the lead guitarist for Aerosmith, to
recreate and distill the most catchy part of the song. The guitar riff that’s at the beginning of the
song as well as the original sound of the chorus and a verse or two, making room for Run-
DMC’s rapping that’s added even more of a generic, rap texture to a beloved rock song to make
it an even more interesting concept.