I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think – Socrates
So it seems some of my comments in the past about the use of technology in theatre sound production and reproduction have been misunderstood, or perhaps, misinterpreted.
I mostly love using technology, people close to me take (a little too much) pleasure from calling me a geek. Just saying…
A little background, if I may be so bold! Professionally I started using hardware and software for show control in the mid to late 80′s starting with a Commodore Amiga A500 and Stage Manager software controlling an Akai S950 sampler (I still have this computer along with an A600 and an A1200). I currently own about 14 computers, in various states of repair, from a super slow, but beautiful early 80′s Toshiba MSX (with 64K of RAM and still in it’s original box!) through to my super-fast Vaio laptop, I have both PC’s and Macs and enough software to sink a ship. I say all of this not to show off in any way, but as a way of perhaps stating (to those of you who don’t know me) that in no way, shape, or form, am I a technophobe, or Luddite. I was also the first person to purchase and use a TiMax system and one of the first people to use Akai S6000′s for show playback, in fact, I bought four of these before they were even released.
However, something I constantly undertake is a re-evaluation of what I do, considering not only my methods but also the equipment I use. I’m always happy question myself and also to be proved wrong. Ask questions and challenge everything.
So…feel completely free to make a decision for yourselves about the points I’m actually questioning below…is this piece below really a criticism, or just simply an (my?) honest observation of a situation? I suppose it will always just say what you, the reader, wants it to say and for whatever reason you choose, let that be exactly just so, personal interpretation is a great thing.
Sometimes humour doesn’t always translate that well and for that I apologise in advance.
I do hope that you, whoever you are, see my questions and my arguments for what they really are. They’re hopefully a positive effort to address certain issues and not a negative appraisal, or response, of a current situation.
Lets all work together to build a better future.
Once you stop questioning, you start dying.
Living Live To The Macs (is this a PC Question?)
I recently had to write a piece for a forthcoming exhibition catalogue. The unedited opening reads like this (as yet I’m not sure if this is exactly what will be published but…).
“Sound Design and Art isn’t about technology, musical instruments, or spoken words, it’s about exploring energy which vibrates the air, a physical action which, however created, will always cause some kind of emotional response within us. These waves of constantly changing air pressure define our perceptual, emotional, spiritual, and psychological spaces, they help us to understand our environment and most importantly ourselves. What we hear provides each one of us with an enormous amount of data, which we learn to comprehend and process (often subconsciously), this information then enables us to make informed decisions. Listening and responding to sound is something we do, every second of every day from around four months before we’re born until the day that we die. We can shut our eyes but we can’t shut our ears, we can look away but we can’t listen away. Sound is omnipresent and to ignore its existence is to dismiss one of the most important tools we use to understand our world.”
This statement forms the basis to everything I do, simply I create air movement, in the form of sound waves, which will hopefully affect the audiences emotions and feed them information which will offer them the data required to make decisions about the play or production they’re watching. Simple.
I think it’s crucially important, if you’re going to improve as a practitioner and a person, to spend time questioning what you do, how you do it, and why.
I spend a lot of time (maybe, some would say, too much time) considering a number of questions and I’m always open to change my views should someone convince me otherwise that I’m wrong, or supply me with information which wasn’t available to me when I was formulating my opinion.
So, the question I’ve been pondering recently and which I wanted to share, is how we measure progress and are we actually really progressing, as a profession [sound design], in the way we perhaps think we are, as we work towards essentially creating some kind of response in our audiences.
So some here’s questions I’m considering, along with some conclusions which I’ve made.
I want to consider whether we are actually making our lives any easier, or more creative and whether the technology we use in order to simply create sound waves comes at a price which we’re not really accounting for. I started my career just at the time when digital technology first started to be used in theatre, replacing tapes of various shapes and sizes and CD’s as the main way to playback audio content. To create my sound waves, this energy which I use, I do need certain tools but how much of my technical armoury frees up time for me to concentrate on what I’m actually employed to do, create an emotional response in, or inform, an audience.
So this is how I see things right now, I can choose what mixing desk, loudspeakers and amplifiers, cables, microphones and outboard equipment I want to use, I can mix, match and select what’s exactly right to produce the sound I want to create. All my equipment is pretty much compatible with each other and whether, or not, I use a particular item is not really dependent on any other item of equipment which I may want to use…however what software I use is completely dependent on what operating system the computers I’ve chosen to use are loaded with. My sound playback and recording environments are decided by my preference for a Mac, Windows, or a Linux, Operating System…and the truth is that I feel that I’m being held to ransom by an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with sound…it’s frankly a ridiculous situation. It’s an extra decision I don’t want to have to make because I’m really not that interested. It’s a decision which isn’t based on the quality of what I want to produce but solely on a personal preference. If DigiCo, Soundcraft or Cadac produced mixing desks which only worked with certain microphones or used connectors which weren’t common across the industry we’d be up in arms. If Meyer loudspeakers only worked with DigiCo desks and d&b only with Cadac we’d find the whole situation ludicrous, but with software it seems that this situation has become a perfectly acceptable. The choice of software I use is too often dictated by the operating system I, or the company I happen to be working, for have bought into and not by what I may consider as best for the job I want to do. I’m now finding that limitation which is being placed on my work totally unacceptable.
So, there is no doubt that my computer based studio tools have opened up new horizons and enabled me to create work I could only have dreamt about a just few years ago. I’m able to select and sort through almost my entire, several terabyte, library of sounds and effects, preview and drag each one into my editing software and process and change until my hearts content. Using computers for the creation of sound, music and effects can be wonderful if they’re used properly (much like any tool). The results achieved in a studio are often just limited by ones own imagination. We’re all in such a wonderful situation when compiling, creating and designing our sounds.
However…using computers as core item in a live playback situation seems to be a whole different ball game.
Every piece of show control, or sound playback software, I’ve ever used has at some point crashed on me and after 20 plus years of using computer based show control software I still feel as if I’m a ‘Beta Tester’ and not a customer who has often invested a lot of money for a tool. I remember my first Akai S6000 sampler, anyone who also remembers these will probably concur that this was a fantastic tool, a rack mounted piece of hardware, which in my opinion no software based program has (yet) come close to emulating in a live situation, but the early versions of the operating system for this were simply appalling! The words ‘Fatal Exception’ and ‘SCSI Error’ still bring a shiver to my spine! But it did still allow me to do so much with it’s 230mb of RAM!
However, since then, no piece of software I’ve used in a live show situation has been 100% reliable either. One major factor which really disturbs me is that if any piece of software fails it rarely gives any indication that it’s going to do so and it usually has quite spectacular consequences. Although unsatisfactory in any situation I would suggest that this is totally unacceptable in front of a ticket paying audience. The people who we are paid to please and in return pay us for the privilege of doing this. It is not the same as the human factor we all buy into when attending a live performance such as an actor, perhaps, forgetting their lines.
When my software does fail then the only option (after initialising the back up! ) is to contact the developer, or manufacturer, visit one of an increasing amount number of message boards and email lists, to try and find a work around, a solution, or at the very least an explanation of some kind about what has caused the problem encountered. Unlike a physical item, we can’t take software to pieces and attempt to repair it, we, the customer has to wait until a software engineer finds and codes a solution, hopefully has time to test it and the manufacturer issues yet another update for users to download. Some companies are much better at doing this than others, but there is nothing worse than investing a lot of money in an item and not having 100% confidence. How many of us have sat in an auditorium during a show, just hoping the software and hardware will remain stable and won’t crash (just like it did in rehearsals!) and certainly hoping that it behaves itself in front of the producer, director and importantly the audience? Is that really an acceptable situation? Just a question. A question which I ask you to answer honestly.
So lets look at what many of us often now do, in 2011, in order to playback a simple sound in the theatre, to create a little bit of physical sound energy to evoke a response in our audience. Firstly we need to purchase a computer, readily available, pretty much everyone in the western world now has one, they’re often massed produced and as a consequence, we have to realise that in most cases the manufacturer of this important item of hardware has no real interest in us, what we’re doing, or why we’re doing it and certainly little realisation of our actual requirements. When things do go wrong they will firstly blame the software, the software vendor in response will then blame the hardware and then by way of compromise they’ll both then blame the choice of sound card, or sometimes just ask you send it back and you may get it returned within 14 days, or so. None of this is really acceptable in a professional, or any performance situation. So we tend to buy two computers, one as a back up, just in case. One happy shop owner and another happy manufacturer…because most Facebook/Twitter users just need the one.
Now before we part with any money we do some extensive research and we’ve decided upon an operating system and bought a computer with the proper chip set, more RAM than we need and a hard drive that spins very fast indeed. In fact we’ve done so much research that by the time we’re ready to place the order our specification is way out of date and no longer available because things change quickly in the world of computers. So anyway, the boxes eventually arrive and we unpack them and we’ve remembered to also buy a big monitor, keyboard and of course a mouse, because the whole thing is completely useless without those essential extra items.
So, we load our chosen operating system this allows us plenty of time to perhaps tidy the studio a little in between swapping DVD’s in an out of the drive. We then configure the graphics driver so we have a nice clear display before connecting to the internet and start downloading the updates, because, as always the operating system which has been released and supplied is full of little bugs and security flaws (OK I admit I tend to be a PC user now!). We then spend time stripping back the operating system, getting rid of all those pointless little processes and programs which can slow down the performance, configure our display, and we can now start installing our audio software before, once again, downloading and installing even more updates.
We then attach our sound card configure the machine to recognise this crucial item, making sure we make a clear note of which port we’ve used, because if we re-plug our sound card or any other peripheral into another port then it will totally confuse this expensive piece of hardware and we’ll probably have to reinstall all the drivers again.
Whilst doing all of this I’m usually aware that my time for creating sound is being diminished and I’ve got lots of ideas to work on. We then need to open up our playback and other sound software and also configure these so that they will also recognise the external sound card (for both Audio and MIDI).
For arguments sake we’ll say that luckily on this occasion the hardware, operating system and our software does actually support and recognise our sound card, because last time it didn’t, so we thank the god of cyberspace for all those updates we’ve spent many hours downloading, it was obviously valuable time well spent! And we play some sound and all is wonderful. We feel particularly relieved because it was just a few years ago that we had to buy equipment especially manufactured just for replaying sound and nothing else, by manufacturers who fully understood our needs and didn’t have to rely on another completely unrelated company who may at any time update, or cease supporting, the host system which your software relies on. All we had to do was unpack a box insert a disc and press play, little more than a minute from opening a box to getting fully functioning audio, that was really tough so thank goodness for all this progress! Off course, if we create a show on one computer with a particular configuration and sound card and then migrate that to another completely different set up then the consequences can make our already long days even longer! I really do believe that (because of clever marketing) we tend to perceive items of software as individual stand alone products, which if they were there is no doubt they would be magnificent! But they’re not. The problem for me is the fact that software has to be hosted on a device and within an operating system for which producing sound is only one of a whole number of other things it’s been designed to do. It isn’t purely a device for sound.
So anyway, we’ve got our show system up and running, each and every item of equipment is eventually communicating with each other just as it should, we have cables, drives and flashing lights everywhere and as such look dead cool and as an added bonus that stage manager, or principal actor, who you’ve had your eye on all through rehearsals looks visibly impressed as you navigate around your mini version of NASA….something to hopefully prove that there are indeed some extra, added, benefits to all of this.
Let us consider that in 1980 Revox released the B77 reel to reel tape recorder, which would both record and playback. There was a Mark 1 and a Mark 2 and a few various other types which had been modified for use in particular situations, you simply bought the one you needed. The B77 replaced the A77 which was released in 1967 and in the 13 years of it being manufactured Revox released just 4 different updated versions, all of which were very minor electrical and mechanical modifications. It was a sturdy, solid and well engineered, a professional item of very high quality equipment, an industry standard, which did exactly what we needed it to do, no more, no less and all for the equivalent price of a decent sound card. We could even buy spare parts and repair it ourselves if it ever failed. The software I’ve just used on the production I’ve just opened in Manchester was version 10.6 (although 10.7.8 has just been released) and it’s only been around for about 6 years. Is that really progress? The 13 years it took Revox to release those four updates was an amazingly inventive time with respect to sound, just listen to The Beatles, Sgt Peppers’ (recorded on a 4 track) or what the bands such as Pink Floyd produced back then using little more than tools which were specifically designed for two jobs and two jobs only, the recording and playing back of sound. On a less technical note what those tools were wonderful at doing was capturing truly great performances, whereas now we all to often tend to use computer based tools for trying to recreate what can be passed off as great sonic performances. How much music, including my own efforts and certainly mainstream commercial releases are now actually designed rather than composed, working to a formula rather than an emotional response to a situation? How many times do we just add a midi groove because that will sort it out? But that’s another entirely different question to consider.
So has all this extra and expensive effort resulted in any real advantages over what we had before? Has it really offered us much with respect to time saving and speeding up our process? Well if everything is functioning as it should and once we’ve put in all the extra effort to get it all working then the answer is probably yes. But what it has also done is require us to purchase more items of equipment in order to carry out what can be essentially a very simple task. Great for manufacturers but not so good for the customers who rely on these tools to earn a crust. Some of us are fortunate and live in rich nations (despite the current economic crisis) but alas many users don’t. We’re now using equipment which can easily fail, or corrupt, or simply decide not to continue talking to another item of hardware and which is based around catch all operating systems designed to be all things to all people. Let’s not forget that the really complicated bit of what we do is having a good idea and creating an emotional response to support the work carried out in the rehearsal room. Am I wrong in asking for the critical systems we use, in order to offer our idea to the audience and support the work of the actors, should be most of all, simple in design and to use, but have the ability to undertake complex operations if so required? On most shows now I spend too much time configuring hardware and software when I should be creating content. I spend too much time finding solutions to problems, caused by the systems I now use rather than finding solutions to artistic issues such as creating sounds which will affect a response in the audience and support the production I’m working on …
The Mac versus PC argument isn’t one we should ever be having. These are discussions about the difference between the platforms we use to host our software and has nothing to do with sound. What we need to be discussing is how we improve our work, our creative and technical sound skills and how we produce wonderful experiences for our audiences.
The fact I may want to use a piece of software which only runs on a Mac O/S can be frustrating, because I want to be able to choose the tools I need rather than the ones a developer, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs decides I can use, what’s it got to do with them how I choose to do my job anyway? If I’m sat in an auditorium and someone plays 48khz 24bit sample on a PC and then exactly the same piece from a Mac I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, because essentially there isn’t one. Any real difference in quality will come from what sound card we’ve chosen not the operating system we prefer. We have [all], in so many ways become victims of fashion, clever marketing and the power that Gates and Jobs have over a situation they have no real concern about. I’m seeing designers being seriously affected by issues they have no control over and little real understanding of, which is distracting them from just actually getting the work done and creating marvellous sound designs. Lets be honest though, we all love gadgets, but my advice, if I have any, is this – if you find a piece of software that is stable and does exactly what you want then think very carefully before you upgrade or change it, no matter what the next versions marketing material tells you, as I’m convinced that you’ll often be trading something you’re comfortable with for something which will require even more regular updates for the next year, or so, before yet another version hits the streets. The latest software, or hardware, does not, and will never make you a better sound designer, your ideas are everything, not [just] the tools you use to realise them. Why spend countless hours learning yet another new piece of software when that time can surely be better spent creating something wonderful for your productions and the audiences who are coming to experience them, only you can actually do this, your computer can’t. The customer needs to be the one who decides if a new piece of software offers any real benefit. Maybe it will, or maybe it won’t, but surely it’s better that you’re the one who decides and not the salesman. However we all know that the commercial world which we all live in will eventually decide for us, manufacturers simply stop supporting our software and leave us with little option but to renew and upgrade. Something I did with Logic, and it financially broke me for a while, thanks guys.
For me, our livelihoods are now far too reliant on computer hardware manufacturers many of whom aren’t concerned in any way with what we’re using their products to do and operating systems and software which seems to be constantly in development and we’re forever hoping that the next operating system release still supports our peripherals and software, it seems to be a crazy situation we’re finding ourselves in, a situation which benefits Apple and Microsoft shareholders far more than us the user. When an operating system, or piece of software, ceases to be supported by a manufacturer then our choices become limited.
Personally all I want are tools I can use to create sound and be able to reliably replay my design to an audience, I really don’t want to have to be a proficient computer expert as well, because I just don’t have the time to be one of those along with everything else I’m supposed to do.
I personally don’t think that we’ve necessarily progressed in the way we perhaps believe, or others tell us, we have, what is definitely occurring is a seismic shift in the way we’re having to approach our work. I don’t want to spend any more of my valuable time downloading updates and uploading error reports, defragging hard drives and cleaning registries all I want to do is create sound and none of this in any way has anything to do with that, I want create sonic waves and I want to affect someone’s emotions…and this may very well be something that Microsoft or Apple specialise in with regards to marketing the products they want us to buy, but they aren’t specialist when it comes to providing tools for us to do this with our sound designs.
We haven’t even started discussing the now industry standard mixing desk which was developed around the unstable Windows ME O/S long after domestic users had written that off as not being a viable, stable release …the acceptance of mp3 as a suitable audio format and the over use of compression, the fact that the first thing we often do when mastering our work is load a pluggin with the word ‘tube’ in its description, emulation can be useful but will it ever really replace the real thing? Oh and networking our systems, what the heck has that to do with sound design, getting machines to communicate over a network has just taken up so much of my valuable creating time recently.
…but one thing, please don’t mention the fact that I can make Mac system dual boot, too much of my time is already taken up with looking after one operating system so I certainly don’t want to spend even more time looking after two, or even three!
Strangely, when I was writing that last section, in all honesty, my computer crashed and I had to start again…and once I’d finished I then went into technical rehearsals where the show computer lost all its midi drivers, I don’t know how, or why, but it delayed precious technical rehearsal time and took two hours of finding then downloading updates and reinstalling software to rectify. In a professional situation, especially one where time is such a valuable and precious commodity, this is entirely unacceptable to the whole process and not least to our fellow collaborators of actors, directors and other designers.
Nevertheless I’m hopeful things will eventually improve and benefit users, because very simply it has to. I’m a great supporter of the open-source hardware and software communities, because I believe any real progress will come from those who’s main incentive isn’t quick financial gain and flooding markets with products but a commitment to improving what are essentially work tools. I also believe that there are great benefits from research and development which is carried out amongst networks of people, teams whose sizes are not dependent of personnel budgets, profit margins, or deadlines. I’m certainly a great believer in encouraging ideas and work which results in progress but in order to do this I think we really need to be able to stand back and assess the situation we’re in and make informed decisions about where it’s all leading us. I really don’t believe we should go back to using CD’s and tapes but I do believe we need to explore building stable operating systems developed especially for our requirements and hosting our specialist software (and an update just once a year rather than every other day is far more acceptable and would allow me to get on with my job). The future is in all of our hands lets not mess it up.
Shouldn’t we be the people dictating to manufacturers about what we actually want them to produce rather than be the ones being enticed by the sexy marketing of things we’re told we need because they will make us better at what we do, more in demand, more productive, better designers, offer us more tools which we don’t really need? Again, that’s just a question.
I’m just being open here, in the pursuit of positively moving forward and I’m more than happy to be proved completely wrong on every count.
This was part of a presentation given at the USITT Convention held in Charlotte, North Carolina, on March 9th 2011.
All opinions expressed within this article are entirely mine and not those of any of my employers.
I’m going to buy an iPad, oh yes I am, oh yes I am.
© 2011 Steven Brown/Listen Hear Sound Projects. All rights reserved.
