ABSTRACT
The transition from analogue to digital audio technology has had a profound impact on all aspects of pop music production. And although the transformation from 'live' musician to studio musician has already taken place in pop music, few have drawn attention to it and its impact on the art of music. The absence of a score and the importance of the record as the central artefact of pop music also encourage those who study popular music to address sound recordings as the definitive 'text'. The fade-out is an obvious example of a sound characteristic of pop music that bears no relation to acoustic reality. Multitrack recording, signal processing, musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) sequencing, and sound synthesis and sampling are the four essential techniques which dominate the creative processes involved in the production of pop music. A further limitation of MIDI is the present lack of accurate voice tracking devices.
