It wasn’t long before software actually started to surpass most hardware, and for all the times you hear Jack White harping on about dubbing to two inch tape, it’s far more convenient to just boot up your shareware (read: free) copy of Reaper and simply hit record. Over time, however, music software blossomed, and transitioned from fiddly time wasters, doomed to the forgotten directories on an Commodore Amiga cover disk, to the plethora of usable and sturdy apps we have available to use today. It wasn’t always this way – back in the early ’80s, when the MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) protocol was in its infancy, computers were still glorified word processors, and while some brave souls were attempting to generate experimental sounds ( Max Mathews, please stand up), most of us were simply stuck waiting half an hour just to load a copy of 3D Monster Maze, only to be met by a read error at line 348. If you’re going to be recording music, chances are you’re going to need some software to do it, and there are plenty of options.
Sure, there are always going to be some contrarian sorts who take it upon themselves to record to dictaphone tape and pen their sheet music on rolls of dried human flesh, but nowadays they’re in the minority. We’re at the stage in history where using music software isn’t so much an option as it is a necessity.
