ABSTRACT
Technology has always been important to contemporary music. Recordings are disseminated by wax cylinders, shellac and vinyl records, radio, TV, CDs, digital downloads, and streaming audio and video. A live performance is an experience, capable of multiple repetitions and commodifications, but which happens only once and is available to a restricted group of consumers at that time. Live performers use mics in varying ways depending on the instrument. Drums often have microphones all over them, either suspended on mic stands or on clip-on microphones that attach to the drum frame themselves. Audio amplifiers were developed in 1912 and for the first 60 years of their existence were based around vacuum tube technology. In the 1970s, they changed to solid-state technology based around the transistor. The size of students' live rig, the wattage of their amplifiers, the size of their speakers, and the number of channels in their mixer all depend on a lot of things.
