Art of Record Production 2019

Technology and Studio Practices in Record Production Research: Object, Subject, Variable and Data Collection Tool

Record production research brings together an array of disciplines, research questions, researchers and methodological approaches. Our varied and distinct perspectives, at some level, share (at least) one axiom: there would be no record production without technology. Recording technology, signal processors, instruments — tools for capturing, creating, manipulating, storing and reproducing sound; knobs, faders, touch pads and screens, control surfaces, mice, track balls, and other interfaces; every piece of hardware and software has constraints and affordances that warrant study.


For nearly a century, record production was for the most part practiced in a recording studio. Producing practices were deeply entwined with the studio’s socio-technical affordances. However, for an entire generation of musicians and engineers, ‘the recording studio’ (and the technologies and practices that it once embodied) is anyplace we decide to put down our laptops. Our well-established ideal of studio production is remediated by computational and networking technologies. Accordingly, we must consider if/how the traditional studio roles of the ‘producer’ and the ‘recording engineer’ are perhaps also remediated concepts — concepts that need to be reassessed and rethought; and new roles, such as that of the software engineer, and ‘software’ itself, need serious consideration. As researchers, we are confronted by a new set of problems in defining the objects of our inquiry and how to effectively develop new methodologies to study them; and in this context, the idea of remediation itself may be a problem as it gets in the way of understanding what is fundamental to common practice in fully digitized music production. In addition to surveying how the field is currently addressing these issues, the panel will consider how various methodological approaches enable exploration, and also, the challenges of studying technology, its use, its effects and it affects.