I'm worried!

[ComposerLDG]

Based on some of the drivers I've dealt with I'd love to see a few horses around.

Thanks, Paulie, for making me spit tea all over my monitor!

[mojobone]

Give me a jug, a rub-board and a diddley-bow, and I can make music. Recording it at broadcast quality and delivering it in popular formats might require some tech.

[AndrewScott]

A really interesting test would be to fill a concert hall with an audience who all have their backs to the stage.
On stage are a professional quality symphony orchestra and a pre-=programmed DAW, playing back through some nice speakers..
Both play the first movement of Beethoven's 5th, but the audience are not told who is first.
I hope that most people would be able to notice a difference, but I wonder how many would be able to say who played which?
I wonder if I could?
Listening to some of the promos on Steinberg's site, for example their virtual piano:
http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/vs ... start.html
it disturbs me that as self-proclaimed music afficonado it sounds bloody amazing.

LDG puts it well:

On the flip side, two or three decades ago, I did not have anything approaching the new opportunities that are available today. Look at what we can do with music production, and look at all the avenues available to us. To pull off then what we do now, I'd have had to have access to a concert hall and musicians on call ready to drop whatever they're doing and meet me in 30 seconds.

I still feel sorry for the blacksmiths though.

[mojobone]

Blacksmiths are doing okay; buggy whip makers, not so much. Maybe there's a lesson, there.

[AndrewScott]

Guess it's time for me to accept, in gracious AA fashion, and with true serenity (and I mean that serenely) that I cannot change this disturbing trend.
With courage I will dedicate myself to the process of create, submit, forget, repeat (ironically making full use of sampled instruments).
I look forward to Michael's wisdom on the first day of the 2015 Rally when he promises to reveal his cognition about how to make 10X as much from our music as we are now.
I can't make it to the rally, so I hope the speech gets publicized soon after.

[mojobone]

I'm not sure, but he may be holding off on that, 'til Sunday morning, judging by the Rally schedule.

[charlie2]

Cars serve people better than horses did. They were a progressive/positive change. That's why you don't see many horses anymore.

We should ask ourselves...are all the changes we're seeing serving the majority of people or just a few elites.

My bet is those changes not serving people will fade in time. Look at the big picture.

[stevebarden]

I despair for the future of musicians.
Orchestral sound samples have become so good I often find myself wondering as I listen to a movie score whether the recording used real musicians or was it all produced from a computer.
And if I as musician can't tell the difference what about the general public?
How long before real musicians aren't required anymore for recordings because the samples are so much cheaper and sound just as good?

Any thoughts?

Andrew, the way you are feeling about this today is the same feeling drummers felt in the 1980's when the drum machine was born.

Don't panic. Nobody's going away. Well maybe trombone players.

[AndrewScott]

the same feeling drummers felt in the 1980's when the drum machine was born.

Exactly. Who hires a drummer anymore for session gigs?

Trombone players often get ridiculed for their lack of desirability.

For example,
Q. What's the least used sentence in the English language?
A. Isn't that the trombone player's Porsche?

Come to think of it, the joke still works with most instruments.