I am presently in the throes of producing my fourth classical music album. Even over the relatively short span of years that I’ve been making them, the process has changed dramatically. First of all, we used to say we were making “a CD,” but now we call it “an album” because so many consumers obtain music as a digital download and no longer even own a compact disc player. “Album” covers both possibilities, or even vinyl records now back in fashion.
Without attempting to list exactly 10 lessons, I will try to explain in easy language several aspects of today’s recording scene.
Changes in Recording Music Today, Demystified
When I first used a commercial recording studio in the late 1990s, it happened to be the famous RCA Studio A in Nashville, Tennessee. I was there recording my classical harp concerto with a symphony orchestra, using the same massive mixing boards and tape recorders with 15-inch-wide reels used by the country music legends. By then, though, the big recorders were using digital tape rather than the old kind of magnetic tape, but they still took up a lot of space and had to be kept in a “cold room” off to the side of the recording booth and controlled remotely from the booth because they put out so much heat.
