It's remarkable how far digital sound has come over just the past decade. I used to find it relatively easy to distinguish a MIDI recorded instrument from a real one. It seems this is becoming more difficult to do the more advanced digital technology becomes. The most current DAW software today contains thousands of MIDI sounds, many of which sound very authentic. It is not uncommon for studio musicians to produce entire albums without recording a single real instrument. MIDI brings a world of versatility to every musician regardless of their instrumental skills. For example someone who can't play the bass guitar, but knows their way around a keyboard and a DAW, can create quality sounding bass tracks and never touch the actual instrument. They can then take the track and edit the balance levels within a project, add effects, loop it, copy it and do many other things in the DAW. MIDI also eliminates problems with performing on a real instruments such as bad intonation. It is also easier to stop, delete and rerecord tracks on a MIDI keyboard. The MIDI keyboard will also sound the same regardless of the environment or recording space. There are many factors to consider about acoustics and microphone choice when recording real instruments that are irrelevant to plugging in a MIDI keyboard.
Despite all the conveniences and possibilities of digital sound, I still place high value on recording real instruments when applicable in my Music Tech classes. If a student can play an instrument I want to help foster that and give them the opportunity at some point to record themselves in the studio and edit the tracks they create in the DAW (usually GarageBand). Most of the recording projects we do in Music Tech combine recording MIDI instruments and 1-2 real instruments or vocals. I was glad chapter 2 in the Bauer book (p. 30) discussed audio-to-digital converting (ADC) and how that works technically. We do this all the time in my classes yet I never stop to think about the process by which analog sound becomes an editable digital file. After reading this chapter I feel more equipped to explain this process to my students.
I also came across a really great article through feedly from the Designing Sound feed call "ADC, it's as easy as 1 10 11". I thought this was so relevant to this discussion about how far we've come from analog to digital sound and all the advantages of today's music technology. The article contains interviews with many professional audio designers for movies, tv and video games, in which they discuss the old methods of analog production compared to how versatile and efficient the new digital methods are.
http://designingsound.org/2015/02/adc-its-easy-as-1-10-11-a-retrospective-from-the-pros/
You got me thinking when you said you still place high value on recording real instruments. In the discussion of all this technology, it's interesting to think about how the definition of "creating music" is shifting with the use of MIDI technology. Using notation software like MuseScore and Noteflight made me realize that music is becoming more accessible to everyone. This week I created a drum set part having very little experience playing a real drum set. I think it's exciting that anyone can explore music notation easily but I hope that over time we don't loose an appreciation and support for live music.
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