In the late 1990s, Nile Rogers was interviewed by Howard Massey for Behind the Glass, a series of interviews with top record producers. Rogers, who is a top-flight guitarist in addition to producing numerous hit records, gives a pretty good explanation as to how computer-based recording and editing changes how music is made:
The old restrictions in technology forced us to do things right. It forced us to have to make decisions. It forced us to spiritually be so in tune with the other people that magic had to happen. It made you step up to the plate, whereas now, when I go to play on someone's record I feel uncomfortably free--and I almost hate that. I can actually play on a record all day long and do ten different solos and take all these different approaches to the rhythm and all this kind of stuff. And then the producer has to look at all this work like a film-they have to go back and edit and figure out which bits they want to use. Whereas in the old days, when a person hired me to work on a record, I had to get it right, right there. You had to play great, you had to be smokin', and there was no way that they could fix it and make it better.When I played on Michael Jackson's last record, I knew what they were going to do, so I said, "Hey, Michael, here's like a billion ideas. I'm going to play all this cool s***, and you go off and do it." So I didn't have to write it, so to speak. I didn't have to give them the definitive, perfect, guitar part; I gave them lots of definitive, perfect guitar parts, and they decided which ones to use. That's weird to me. Once you're unlimited, you'll never play that same way--you'll just go on and on and on and on. It's like the ultimate jazz person's fantasy: "You to tell me I'm going to solo for the rest of my life, and you guys will think it's great?"
Having infinite options also means you don't have the pressure on you...
It's pressureless.
-which means that you won't necessarily work as hard as you would if you knew you had just two takes in 20 minutes to get it right.
You can't help it. You see, I grew up in the days of, time is money--as Madonna would say, "time is money, and the money is mine." And I like that, I love that.
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