Square one – the late 1990s
When we first launched our debut issue in 1998, the average musicmaking process was considerably different to now. Let’s look at what those home musicians of yesteryear had at their disposal…
Though recording studios had relied on trusty analogue technology since the very inception of recorded music in the late 19th century, the advent of digital tech had seen less demanding storage solutions gaining significant ground by the beginning of the 1990s. The digital tape of the ADAT format (Alesis Digital Audio Tape) was encroaching on its analogue forebears for professional audio storage. However, before long, this 8-track-limited format would be soon rendered obsolete by the rapid acceleration of computer hard drive space. With this, came the growing development of Pro Tools, Cubase and their ilk. Though it would take a while until they would become accessible to home producers. A gamut of digital keyboards, samplers, recorders and sequencers were therefore required to make music at home.
Higher learning
By the mid-90s, the price of decent home recording equipment had become way more accessible to the average consumer – though setting up an effective recording workflow at home took considerable know-how, with few shortcuts. Those serious about home production would live in a wired-up world of increasingly digital hardware units, with the infant state of computer-based production being something only for those with cash.
This meant that the home producer of the mid-90s would have to know exactly what they were doing from the off, with a top-down view of their gear routing process. Unlike today, there were far fewer entry points for newcomers into the production world.
Typical tech
Before the birth of the virtual instrument, external hardware samplers, such as Akai’s celebrated S Series, were essential for creative musicians, and pivotal for the manufacturing of dance music – then in its heyday. Samplers such as this, and E-Mu’s SP-1200, were used to capture and manipulate audio, and then performed back using either a sequencer or MIDI keyboard. Though samplers are still wellregarded tools for some, their centrality to the home production process has waned significantly. Many of these hardware samplers, such as the aforementioned E-Mu SP-1200 are still irrevocably tied to the genres that were birthed from their use, the SP-1200’s 12-bit sampling engine featured 10 seconds of sample time, and was used by many of hip-hop’s pioneering producers.
Until the arrival of Propellerhead’s inaugural software synth ReBirth in 1997, creating synth sounds still required the acquisition of a physical synth (unless you sampled them, as many home producers did). Fortunately, things had changed significantly since the space-demanding complexity of previous generations, with the microchip revolution allowing greater internal digital modelling inside many 90s units. Stateof-the-art digital stalwarts like the Yamaha DX 7 and Korg M1 were still commonplace in many studios of the pre-computer world.
For many, a multi-track home recorder, such as Tascam’s once ubiquitous Portastudio would serve as the central component of a home studio setup. Originally tape-based, before becoming CD and (eventually) MP3-bounceable, multi-track recorders like this would basically consist of a scaled down mixing console, and allowed those without large recording budgets to capture their work at home, and mix/sum it without having to fork out for studio time. Though they’re now considered redundant relics by many, in the late 90s these were pretty widespread.
“The home producer of the mid-90s would have to know exactly what they were doing”