Now Comes Digital

Digital was THE game changer. We didn’t know it when it started but my goodness how life has changed. That 40 pound TEAC Reel To Reel has become Pro-Tools and Q-Base, software that allows a musician to record studio quality sound from his/her bedroom. Unlimited tracks and unlimited mixing and effects followed quickly.

I went through many stages of digital over the years. But first there was just the music. Listening and performing has changed dramatically but it was always about the music. I remember the joy of sitting in my basement, with my huge headphones on, and marveling at the way Pink Floyd’s “One of These Days” raced back and forth from headphone to headphone, ear to ear, seeming to travel right through my head. I would listen to it over and over. I remember trying to get my mom to listen to the Saxophone solo in “Us and Them” she just brushed it off as Drug music. Elvis Presley it was not.

Multi-track stereo Long Play (LP) records were a thing of beauty. Much better than the 45’s we started with there were 10 – 13 songs on these records. We actually went to the record store to purchase the records. The best record store was the locally owned store with the guy who knew every record and artist in the store. You could sit for hours and talk to this guy about music. Who had the better guitar solo in Hotel California? Which was a better concept album Tommy or Quadrofenia? Who was the better guitar player Eric Clapton or Jeff Beck? Who had the first guitar distortion on a record? Did Rock & Roll spring from the Blues or was it a melting pot of Blues, Country, Jazz and Blue Grass? What guitar did Jimmy Page play on Stairway to Heaven? This guy had all the answers or opinions. The local music store, sadly, has gone the way of the Betamax.

Great memories but back to digital. From analog we moved from digital recording onto tape to digital recording onto your hard drive. This seemed to happen very slowly, like a glacier. Then all of a sudden digital exploded. Enter the development of the MP3 file format. The sharing of files across the internet had been possible prior to this, but files were generally either too large to be realistically exchanged or of too low a quality to serve any real purpose. With this pioneering digital format, however, the wall holding back true online musical collaboration came down, and this field took of with alarming speed. Then Napster happened and everything changed again. The music industry shut down Napster but many look-alikes followed. Digital was truly on its way. Next Portable Digital. Since Napster and then ITunes, Streaming has taken over. Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music and many others. Just by saying Alexa Play some Chicago Blues I can listen to the Best Blues Music ever created. Many are cutting the Chord over the last 10 years. Sling, Tivo, Roku, YouTubeTV have allowed people to cut the cable & TV Satellite chord. Sirius & XM Radio have allowed people to listen to whatever music they want in their car or on their tablet.

Ric Cushenan, MBA, is CEO of Cush Media. Ric has over 25 years of Marketing music performance and sales experience with Newspapers, Targeted Publications and Search Engine Marketing.
Cush Media, www.cushmediaonline.com is a full service on-line marketing company. We specialize in web site development, SEO, SEM, Social Media, Behavioral Targeting, Tracking through on-line analytics and Jingles.