Digital Music Production and the Loss of the Human Touch

With the arrival of synthesizers, contemporaryrecorded MIDI sequence, allowing it to have the
music has become an area where MIDIdynamics a real person would play when
performance rules over actual human beingsperforming.
playing their instruments in a live session in manyThis opens a whole world of possibilities in which
cases. The advantages are very clear: it ismusicians might not be necessary at all. There
cheaper than hiring musicians, no more extramight come a moment in the future where all the
takes since you can edit MIDI performances,music you hear in the radio was created by
room acoustics lose importance, and many others.someone at his house with a laptop and a pair of
But is this enough? Are these synthesized soundsmicrophones. Some people think this is likely to
created with mathematic algorithms able tohappen.
replace the human touch? I often think that a lotNevertheless, I hold the opinion that synthesized
of the music produced by hobbyists sounds verymusic will keep its very important role in music,
generic or lifeless. The thing is that in the rightjust like today, but it will never replace having real
hands, these MIDI performances can rival thepeople playing musical instruments and creating
sound of live musicians.harmonious masterpieces. There is something
With innovations in technology we are gettingabout that sound, a very organic sound that will
closer and closer to replicating all the nuances anever be replaced by computers. Even if the
person can inject to a musical piece. For example,exact dynamics and all the other nuances were
Propellerhead Software has a component incopied, the result would still lack that feeling of
Reason 4 that can inject a certain groove in abeing alive.