Recording software has revolutionized music making

Before the rapid advances in computer technology, the only way to capture music was to play it on live instruments and record it. This entailed putting together a band and having a place where you could play at a loud volume, and both of these things are challenges. If you aren’t a musician, you may not realize how hard it is to assemble a like minded group of players of a similar skill level who are not already engaged with another group. And once live drums are involved, things are going to get loud, so you aren’t going to be able to practice in your apartment or when your roommates are trying to sleep, study, or watch a movie.

So if you really wanted to make music, you had seek alternatives. One person could use multi-tracking to create a complete piece of music alone but it takes a lot of versatility to be able to play every instrument proficiently, and even if you have a drum set and you can play it, it is hard to mic drums for recording. This problem was mitigated by the advent of the drum machine, so if you had a multi-track recorder at home and a drum machine and you knew how to play bass and guitar or keyboards, you could record complete songs. And of course you can still do that.

However, music creation software programs have changed everything, and you can now make music with unlimited layers using every instrument known to man while sitting in front of your computer silently with headphones on. There are purists who think that this is “cheating,” but they said that about the electric guitar, too. In the end, your skill as a musician is going to shine through no matter how you make music. So when you use programs like Reason, Fruity Loops, Cubase, Garage Band, etc., you are simply learning to become proficient utilizing a new wave of musical technology, and the results will speak for themselves in the quality of the finished product. If you have never tried any of these programs, dive in and see what you can do, whether you are an experienced musician or not. It’s a lot of fun, it is creative, and your skills build upon themselves so you get better and better over time, making it a good investment in yourself.