Which Gear or Software Do You Think Will Most Shape How Music Sounds in the Near Future

The Lounge General Discussion
#23

Since i’ve been producing music (since about 2003) I feel like 2 major things changed:

-The bar to produce, release and promote music has dropped to the point where basically anybody with a laptop and a €500 budget can release their own, professional sounding music to a potential audience musicians 50 years ago could only dream of. Besides the gear being cheap and the platforms being accesible, it’s not even necessary to really have any musical training or skills: you can just download some loops from splice and autotune your voice.
-because of this, the world has been flooded with music, much of which is of questionable quality. I used to be special because I could record and produce music, so my music was played on radio/tv and posted on certain websites which generated an audience. Right now none of that has any value anymore: people dont rely on radio stations or blogs to promote music, its just an enormous ocean of music online, and the only way to stand out is to make your music visually attractive.

So my guess would be that music evolves in this direction: I think people will be able to easily create and release entire albums using nothing but a mobile phone, and this proces will require hardly any work: apps will automatically provide the right chord progressions and rhytms if you want to, and totally clean up your voice. Most music will sound generic, and I’m thinking there will be short lived trends/genres based on certain apps which allow the user to create a certain kind of song.

To make their ‘music’ stand out people will train themselves to ‘play’ or perform something in a way thats visually attractive, so I expect to see a lot of (finger)drumming controlers and other spectacular looking instruments which rely more on looks than sound. Musicians will be performers/influencers first and the actual music will be an afterthought.

I really hope this prediction is false though…

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#24

I think the biggest changes come from the willingness to do stuff that’s ‘wrong’ or seemingly unsophisticated

A bigger threshold would have been noticing that the amplified sound was breaking up and being okay with it, rather than upgrading the equipment to cope. - yay. distortion

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#26

Good points, nothing to disagree with here.

Now buy my Erica Bassline.

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#27

None, none at all. At this point, only music and musicians can bring music forward. Isn’t that evident, just looking around at things now?

#28

:laughing:

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#29

Comb Filters!!!

Izal medicated toilet paper makes for the best filter.

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#30

Bath Salts

#31

1980’s sounds have been back in Pop music some recently. Maybe next people are dipping back into 90’s and early 00’s style stuff again…
Grunge?
Boy bands???
:neutral_face:

Also, I’m half worried and excited about AI music becoming a thing. I love seeing technology progress, but I’m skeptical about how we as humans handle things generally.

I’m just going to stick to making noises I like for the time being.

#32

I’m already hearing a lot of 90s rave in some corners of contemporary dance music. Check out Tim Reaper, Octo Octa, Bicep, recent Luke Vibert, Kessler, KETTAMA, Avalon Emerson, HAAi. The Chemical Bros have barely changed their sound and are still making good records.

1 Like
#33

I kinda hope we’d see a true DAW in a box soon, like say you have Octatrack mk. 3 or mk. 4 or w/e, that would be a physical groovebox with physical knobs and buttons and so on, but you had the option to add a tablet as a screen to it and under the hood it would be running a fully fledged DAW with VST support etc.

So you could use it as a “performance sampler” and it would be as fun as an OT or DT, but add a screen and it’s a computer running a DAW and an interface for all your gear. I guess all we need is for Arduino to develop a bit more so that it’ll be powerful enough to run a DAW. 5 years maybe?

#34

Well two names pop up in my mind … MPC (ONE, Live,X) and Maschine+ come close to this … and … have even a screen built in :wink:

#35

Nah, they’re a step in that direction but ultimately a bad compromise. They’re limited as a DAW and the small screen is horrible to work with. And they’re far from the intuitive fun of a DT or even an OT, much more like a workstation than an instrument.

Or at least the newer MPC’s are, haven’t used a Maschine+.

#36

Check out a MPC X … I have one … it’s very physical. Because the pads are really great to play on and all those other buttons and controllers are very handy. Only thing I miss are the faders of the previous models. But this would cost a complete row of Q-Links. Inside this thing is a real digital mixing desk. Those new MPCs are production tools supporting us from the first idea til the release of a track.

The screen is IMO just right and if we are sampling, a touch screen is very useful to zoom in and slice the samples.

#37

I think whatever device it is , it will be restrictive by nature as this often leads to creativity . Just like the elektric guitar shaped rock’n roll and the TB-303 acid house . It wasn’t that 72 channel Neve mixing desk that kickstarted new sounds or movements and i doubt any DAW will have this honor either . Enough examples of underground stuff made in Ableton 4 , 17 years ago , that sounded way more futuristic than what mainstream producers are doing in Ableton 11 today . I don’t believe AI will shape any sounds or styles… it will only be extremely good at copying them and produce more of the same at a much faster pace . So other than some iconic device , i’m guessing progress will come from those who are willing to take the time and effort needed to make a difference regardless of what they are using as tools .

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#38

This … amen … :+1:

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#39

Lyra. Definitely my number one pick influencing the sound of future productions. I’m sure other Soma machines will also have a lasting impact.

On the software side, Trash 2 and iOS apps like Fieldscaper.

#40

I think it will be shaped by young people who muck around with what they can afford, so often times a pirated copy of FL studio and some cracked VSTs. Not so much by us middle-aged synth-dads/moms that hoard gear and philosophize about the creaminess of analog filters on internet forums :rofl:

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#41

And following you, I think Behringer recent product line will help these youngs people on there creative process

#42

We have so much variety in music at the moment. Almost the whole human world can share music and the scenes it sits in across time and borders. It’s gonna be difficult to say there’s any one sound anywhere. A lot of that thinking (e.g. “how guitars/punk/303s changed everything”) is US- and Euro-centric thinking anyway.

I think climate change, pandemics and our evolving response to surveillance will change cultures around the world, which in turn will have a greater but subtler effect on music. I don’t think gear or techniques for composition, performance and production will shift the needle like they did last century. It’s already basically impossible to make big waves in music now.

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#43

Akai: “let’s make something that’s absolute shit but that people will think is legendary in 20 years. it worked for Roland…”

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