What do you miss about music before technology came along?

It used to be so simple, you played some chords, sang some words and entertained your mates. Is that still enough? Now everything needs plugging in, connecting up, mixing, fixing, effecting and editing before it sees the light of day :).

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Nobody misses anything that doesn't exist. Amplifiers and PAs were already needed to deliver a performance. Before the computer era, you couldn't even imagine all this electronic stuff. In the seventies, no one needed a mobile phone or a home computer. I see all this modern stuff as tools that you can use, but don't have to. In particular, they are tools and electronic helpers that you use and not the other way around. In fact, out of convenience and stupidity, people sometimes tend to let the software's technology take over. In the end, you lose your own creativity and sovereignty over your work. :)

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it was simpler, i guess, i do miss acoustic jams with my family around a smudgepot in the winter.

[img]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81kZpIjFcPL._UX250_.jpg[/img]

but i love the technology. as someone who writes stuff, i would always forget stuff i came up with. it's easier to record and capture those 'moments' now.

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I wouldn`t be able to play (and sometimes even upload some of that stuff to Wikiloops) without the technology. Comes with the keyboard/synth territory and current limitations for getting together with others.

What I do in fact miss is not the simplicity we may have had in the past but the sheer lack of locations for public jamming/performing. There used to be a time where I could have named 20 odd locations here in Hamburg where I could just drop in, have some fun on the piano, join in jam sessions, get a beer for free and go home. Nowadays those pubs, clubs and concert halls don`t exist anymore or have changed their business models and will gladly charge you rent if you want to play.

In that sense I am glad that technology acts as an enabler for me to be able to play and jam here on the Loops. That`s not to say that it`s easy or that tech providers are making it easy. Just browse through the 400 page user manual for Yamahas montage or modx series and you`ll know what I mean. I`m just glad that I have a bit of an IT background otherwise I`d be restricted to playing a triangle in the cellar.

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i also think the ease of technology has come a long way too. wrestling with windows 95, my sound blaster sound card, and trying to record my guitar while windows occasionally blue screened was no fun.

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Imperfections... they used to be part of music, people accepted them, it was even part of some music styles. That's what gave flavour and personality to music. Nowadays it's like everything has to sound absolutely perfect, clinical, or else suddenly your music is no good. Bullshit. Who wants to listen to robots playing perfect music? Where's the human in music nowadays? A lot of modern music doesn't sound good because of that... I probably sound like a boomer for a Gen Z music listener... Yeah I'm a forty year old boomer :D

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I miss the time where they did not have an alphabet salad trying to define generations. Honestly, as if all x billion people who were born on a certain date are the same ;)

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Yes, I agree, they're not clones obviously, but there are some trends that more or less define each generation. They were born and raised in the same web, social media and digital bath. All that affects one's thinking.

And after Gen Z? Gen AI? Post-human generation :D

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Cubase vst eh? I think that was the first windows recording version? I had a Turtle Beach sound card, the era just before sound blasters and it was the most fun I'd ever had recording. I had naughty copies of everything going, all those £200 a throw Waves vst's. Those were great days for a home recorder. Before that it was a Tascam cassette portastudio, what a step up! As I always had the fastest windows computers for autocad (also naughty copy), the whole thing, though illegal was basically free. I did eventually buy autocad and nowadays I pay for everything, but back then I used to steal every software I could.

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What I do miss is being forced to play in a band as the only way to make "rock" music... or reggae or whatever. It's simply impossible to achieve those moments of bliss where it all comes together and seems impossible to break or spoil without a bunch of other people playing together in real time.

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I miss everything pre technology. I'm a bit of a Romany who would like to live the simplest life possible. I would be a minstrel traveling around performing outdoors with loud instruments like shawms, pipes, trumpets and drums.

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LOL "naughty copies of everything" :D

i remember that time, piracy was in full swing! i had keygens and cracks of all the good stuff :D were you into news groups back then zedders? NNTP protocol i believe, but yeah, was usually my source of stolen software :)

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What do you miss about music before technology came along?

Me nothing, but my amp in the closet for awhile probably miss me :)

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Like Tof said, Im glad I will never carry and amp or a cabinet up a flight of stairs ever again.

Analog audio still beats digital audio. Its not even close.
Digital audio is like CGI compared to live action stunt shots...Realism favors analog.

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If I remember correctly, I worried for a while about screwing up the computer I earned a living on then went crazy one night and downloaded cubase vst and stacks of other stuff... then lost my nerve as my computer was still working. Back then it would cost me days trying to recover a hard drive or whatever and computers were so expensive! Now I'd just shrug and get another one. I was spending £3-4K on a computer then, big money all those years ago. I can't remember where the music software came from as I just hit it once and never looked again.

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