Innovation v Hype

[Howdy Doody Time]

I just downloaded my weekly quota of back issues from Tape-Op Magazine and have spent the morning reading old but interesting interviews, and of course adverts for innovative new gear (new in 2010), and digital reproductions of analogue swag as well - Manley Massive Passive by UAD for example.

It's interesting to check out web pages from the period to see if the vendors are still operational, and it highlights the changes in recording gear over the past decade, but it makes one wonder how much of this is Hype and Gear-lust, and how much is genuinely welcome innovation. I suppose the former probably finances the latter. One interesting reviewer of another Pultec EQ plugin said boldly that no emulation will sound like the real thing, and no two real things will sound alike anyway, due to the age and condition of the various components, the amount of iron in the transformers etc.

This seems obvious when one thinks about it, but it also focuses ones attention on the veracity of the quest in the first place, and of course that of other impulse buying triggers for goodies such as compressor/limiters that might sound marginally different (if at all) to the ones you already own.

Reading back issues certainly made me think anyway.

[Bob Bickerton]

It’s a really good point.

There’s a lot of hype around say, the UAD analogue emulations, but, as it turns out, they are plug-ins I enjoy to use, not only because they sound good to my (cloth) ears, but also because I enjoy the workflow of using GUIs which emulate analogue gear.

The same applies to physical gear. As an example there’s a lot of hype around a U87, but actually it’s a very good and flexible microphone. Other manufacturers may say their mic is like a U87, and their claim may or may not be born out in usage.

At the end of the day it’s how something’s sounds and how easy it is to use that counts. When you’re considering something that you can’t trial, SOS reviews and comments from respected posters here become indispensable.

Bob

[Zukan]

TBH, I think there's always been an uncomfortable balance between innovation and 'big it to sell it'. However, some companies are truly innovative but that in itself can create problems. If the buyer cannot see or embrace the new tech or process then product development is rarely pursued, and that ends up being a 'loss' for us users.

The hype has been there since day 1 and will never go away. It's the nature of our industry and all retail falls into the hype moniker.

If you take a look at Roland you will see that a lot of their products have been both innovative and powerful and yet they have a habit of not following through with product development. I remember when they commissioned me to create the library for the VP9000. I spent the best part of six months on that project only to be told they were dropping the product. I got paid but we lost another really good product. This has been pretty much the norm for Roland. Emu was another company that was innovative and I was one of their main sound designers and platform builders for years and yet when they amalgamated with Ensoniq to benefit from their hardware Creative closed both companies down and sent us home. We lost some amazing tech there.

Yamaha is another company that has created some innovative products but because their main income comes from other sectors (motorbikes, electric pianos etc) they rarely follow up with interesting concepts. They are very good at updating and improving certain features of their hardware but they rarely explore the really innovative tech.

I love innovative boutique outfits and this is why, for me, Synthfest is always a breath of fresh air. I get to demo some wonderful concept products and hang with mad creators. I just wish brand companies would take a risk and create products that inspire as opposed to 'fill a gap'.

[Drew Stephenson]

Over in the HiFi world Philips seem to have a similar problem (maybe 'had', i'm a couple of decades out of it now), they were frequently accused of being great innovators but terrible marketers. And they often seemed to get confused about how to use their Marantz brand effectively.
Still, it does create an opportunity for the small guys to get a foot in the door.

[Folderol]

Philips were prolific innovators, but they weren't good ones. They never did sufficient 'what if' type research.

My first memory of this, was on 405 line (valve) TVs where they fitted front panel control knobs that were all plastic with molded very long thin shafts. They were nowhere near strong enough to handle the stress of ham-fisted average users and soon broke. To compound the problem the shaft would break deep inside the set where it was impossible to reach from outside, requiring considerable dismantling of the set. At the same time, the bracket that supported the controls was fitted with push-on plastic 'nuts', these had been there just long enough that the heat from the valves made them go hard and brittle, so they were a devil to get off, and then broke up so had to be replaced with ordinary nuts. That in itself required unusually long nut spinners (no chance of getting your fingers or a spanner in there).

In the 1970s they also produced a very expensive ghetto blaster that was just about 100% plastic with all the mechanical parts, including hinges. radio switches and levers. A friend asked me to fix one that had strangely locked itself solid. It didn't take long to find out why. The entire frame had slightly distorted, as had all the levers. It was quite un-repairable. In their infinite wisdom, Philips had used a thermoplastic, and my friend had kept the unit on a window sill - it wasn't until late spring the problem showed up!

I avoided Philips like the plague after that one, and refused to even look at repairing any of their kit.

[Drew Stephenson]

Yep, that figures!

[Hugh Robjohns]

In their infinite wisdom, Philips had used a thermoplastic, and my friend had kept the unit on a window sill

Oops! I can just imagine that conversation in the product development meeting!

[CS70]

Really I think most of the hype is due to us - buyers and users - rather than the manufacturers. Surely, they sometimes sugar coat thing is a bit (UAD's last "it's not a DAW" from the other thread made me chuckle) but the main reason is self-delusion: attributing properties to kit that are actually properties of the user - ourselves.

Given a supposedly innovative item, the key question to me is: can I do something with it that I couldn't before? Or - given a modicum of learning - can I do something that I could do before, but much faster and/or at a much lower cost?

It's usually easy to answer to these questions and find to which degree a specific product is innovative or not, regardless of the marketing.

[Howdy Doody Time]

I suppose the reasonable question might be what can be innovative about a product that is essentially backward looking. Recently though, I have read here that UAD's approach to emulation is more sophisticated than the norm, so that's clearly innovation applied to emulation, but it still leaves the other question "Why bother" if no two Pultec MEQ's ever sounded alike in the first place, which one do you want to emulate.

Maybe back in the day, studio staff worked with fairly unsophisticated gear by todays standards, but they were highly skilled and/or experienced, and the performers really could perform, singers could really sing as well as work a microphone properly, and songwriters had mastered their art. I suppose while innovation can replicate the sound of the equipment of the day, no amount of innovation can replicate those skills.

[Bob Bickerton]

I suppose the reasonable question might be what can be innovative about a product that is essentially backward looking. Recently though, I have read here that UAD's approach to emulation is more sophisticated than the norm, so that's clearly innovation applied to emulation, but it still leaves the other question "Why bother" if no two Pultec MEQ's ever sounded alike in the first place, which one do you want to emulate.

Maybe back in the day, studio staff worked with fairly unsophisticated gear by todays standards, but they were highly skilled and/or experienced, and the performers really could perform, singers could really sing as well as work a microphone properly, and songwriters had mastered their art. I suppose while innovation can replicate the sound of the equipment of the day, no amount of innovation can replicate those skills.

I’m sure the musicians, singers and songwriters of today might have a different view

Bob

[The Red Bladder]

The last time anybody produced a genuine innovation in audio technology, it was Melodyne. That was 12 years ago!

Just look at the lack of innovation in audio and music technology in general - the electronic synthesizer was invented about 85 years ago with the creation of the Hammond Novachord, but it took until 1964 before Moog used semiconductors.

Korg, for example, has produced three new synths in their entire history - everything else was just repackaging those three or copying (licensing) designs from others. (1) the MS20 with it's pitch-to-CV. (2) The Prophecy and stable-mate the Z1 (3) the Triton. Since then, all they have done is to repackage and slim down and refine those same three technology 'platforms' and sell the same stuff, but in different boxes!

Altogether the MI and audio markets have fallen into a rut of doing nothing new, creating no new technologies, exploring no new concepts, but just rearranging old stuff to look as if they have a hundred engineers beavering away, creating new features! The MI industry has found plenty of ways to make stuff cheaper but has done nothing to make anything genuinely new.

Is it all hype?

Well, it sure as hell ain't innovation!

[Hugh Robjohns]

That feels a bit harsh...

The audio industry is a very mature one, so genuine innovations are inevitably going to be few and far between, just as they are in other similarly mature industries.

Cars have had a wheel in each corner and an infernal combustion engine in the front for quite a long time. The use of electric motors and batteries isn't new... it's just become more cost-effective and popular in recent times.

[The Red Bladder]

Yup, it's harsh. The blunt truth often is! There are dozens of ways to capture and create sound, but the MI industry sticks to four types of microphone and one type of speaker.

If you want genuine innovation, look at what is being achieved in film and video. Developments there are just racing ahead. Autosync without clocking. Match-move perfection. Object removal. Vactors are now realistic and a reality (people long-dead are now appearing on-screen!) Large Format (LF) movie cameras are going to be the standard. Cameras that move, zoom and frame the image by themselves using AI. 16-camera OB rigs that fit into a suitcase (inc. the cameras!)

[Sam Inglis]

Some innovations just take a long time to find their place in the market. One example would be Ambisonics, which was invented in the ’70s and is only now finding mass acceptance. Networked audio / audio over IP is another thing that had been around in one form or another for many years before it finally took off.

I suspect that AI will be the next innovation to make a big difference, but again, it'll be a while before that happens.

[Berylito]

> Korg, for example, has produced three new synths in their entire history - everything else was just repackaging those three or copying (licensing) designs from others. (1) the MS20 with it's pitch-to-CV. (2) The Prophecy and stable-mate the Z1 (3) the Triton.

??? The MS20 was a logical extension of the 770, the Prophecy and Z1 came from the unreleased OASYS, and the Triton was the successor to the Trinity.

And you left out the Wavestation.
And the OASYS.
And the M1.

Bx

[Hugh Robjohns]

Yup, it's harsh. The blunt truth often is! There are dozens of ways to capture and create sound, but the MI industry sticks to four types of microphone and one type of speaker.

I get the point you're making, but the reality is that there are several other kinds of mic technology* which are already used in other industries. MI hasn't embraced them all (yet) because they don't offer any practical advantages over the current tech... but the advances in DSP is already changing that with things like HOA and phased-array systems.

And there is definitely more than one type of speaker technology....

If you want genuine innovation, look at what is being achieved in film and video.

Sure... there is some very impressive stuff coming through... and it's because there's been seriously big money floating around in the Film/TV industries for decades now. Audio is and always has been the very poor cousin... but even so advances in DSP and AI will be trickling through. It won't be long before a single mic system, will be able to identify, capture, and isolate individual sound sources performing in the same space at the same time. We already have amazing good voice-morphing... More will come in the not-too-distant future.

Digital speaker and room correction has raised the quality of speaker tech considerably in recent years, but it would be very nice if someone came up with an altogether better technology platform.

But I wouldn't describe the MI industry as being entirely stagnant...

*Beyond the familiar ribbon, moving coil, electret, DC-bias capacitor and RF-bias capacitor (oh wait... that's five not four!) we should probably ignore the prehistoric and low-quality Carbon Button and Water microphones... But piezo mics are still a valid option in many applications, and the MEMS capsule already dominates the smart-tech market. There are also several variations on optical mic technology, and the Microflown (thermal) mic system -- which are already used in other industries. And then we have Ambionics and Higher-Order Ambisonics (HOA), and multi-capsule DSP-based phased-array microphones which have only become practical and cost-effective with the advance in DSP tech...

[The Red Bladder]

Of course there are many types of speaker and there are more than four or five microphone technologies - that's my point! The MI market does not WANT any real innovation!

"What? Six speakers! Eight speakers and now you want to put four more in the ceiling? No thank you! We just want stereo and nothing else!"

The audio community and the listener at home just want a lot of pretty toys.

Just listen to the inane drivel that comes out of the bedrooms of all your readers! Goofballs noodling with synths and sequencers and calling that 'music'!

You may remember (a few months back) that I complained about live music Blu-Ray disks and streams not being in real surround, but just being in stereo and having crowd noises added to the surround channels. Well, it just so happens that after I wrote that, I discovered that a close relative has become a leading mastering engineer for BR and DVD disks and has done umpteen of these things - so I asked him why he did that.

The consumer does not understand that to have a 5.1 sound, you must have a 5.1 system. If he puts a real 5.1 option in the set-up menu, loads of consumers would either not find it or would not understand that a bog-standard TV set cannot reproduce 5.1.
If we put it in real surround, loads of disks get returned as defective!

This willful stupidity permeates the audio community as well. They don't want any real innovation. They think stereo is 'pure' somehow - despite all the imaging problems that not having a centre speaker creates.

When Fairlight and others created sampling, I thought that it would change the face of music and we would have a similar revolution as we did when guitars went electric and we got amplification. After a few brave efforts, all we got was the sound of idiots noodling in their bedrooms.

The MI industry is not in the business of throwing pearls to swine, so they give the customer what they want - noodling machines.

Some of the noodling machines have got strings on them and some have got keys and buttons, others are cheap, mass-produced plywood hoops with plastic stretched over them - but they are all just noodling machines for the masses.

[Eddy Deegan]

Just listen to the inane drivel that comes out of the bedrooms of all your readers! Goofballs noodling with synths and sequencers and calling that 'music'!

Careful, you'll get that broad brush stuck in a doorframe one of these days!

Some of the noodling machines have got strings on them and some have got keys and buttons, others are cheap, mass-produced plywood hoops with plastic stretched over them - but they are all just noodling machines for the masses.

I'm sure a lot of people who buy music tech noodle on it aimlessly (and nowt wrong with that if it floats their boat), but many use them for performing and serious or semi-serious recording as well. I've heard a lot of great music created by people in their bedrooms from sources like Soundcloud and Bandcamp.

The challenge for the industry is to provide equipment that suits as many people as possible. People have to eat

[Hugh Robjohns]

The MI market does not WANT any real innovation!

Nah... I don't think that's true... I think they want innovation, but only when it is genuinely beneficial, genuinely practical, and not just a fashionable gimmick.

If we put it in real surround, loads of disks get returned as defective!

Ah... the great unwashed, unknowing public...

I was talking with a friend who records audio for mostly classical and operatic DVDs and Blurays. He had a similar problem with dynamic range. The technology obviously allows real-life dynamics to be captured, and so the production people wanted real-life dynamics on the finished discs. Sounded great in the viewing theatres... but almost all the discs were returned as defective because people at home either couldn't hear the quieter bits, or got blasted out with the louder bits.

Obvious really and my friend, being ex-BBC, was fully aware of the need to manage the dynamic range in the recording for domestic consumption (it would have been different if it was for a Cinema broadcast type event, of course)... but his advice was initially ignored.

They think stereo is 'pure' somehow - despite all the imaging problems that not having a centre speaker creates.

It's simple, practical, domestically acceptable, a lot better than mono, only slightly less enjoyable than surround, and very affordable... added to which a straight ITU standard 5.1 speaker setup is entirely crap for imaging anyway...

...they are all just noodling machines for the masses.

If it makes them happy, what's the problem?

Personally, I'd far rather listen to someone's bedroom synth noodles than watch any of the billions of Instagram, YouTube, and FaceBook home-made videos.... Not sure the amazingly advanced video industry has actually improved mankind's lot in that respect...

[Drew Stephenson]

Just listen to the inane drivel that comes out of the bedrooms of all your readers! Goofballs noodling with synths and sequencers and calling that 'music'!

I think there might be some kids on your lawn...

[Eddy Deegan]

Just listen to the inane drivel that comes out of the bedrooms of all your readers! Goofballs noodling with synths and sequencers and calling that 'music'!

I think there might be some kids on your lawn...

It wouldn't be so bad if they were playing football, but they're playing synthesizers

[ManFromGlass]

So if we suspend judgement on the resulting "music" for a moment, how can anything innovative succeed without major hype for mass acceptance? And by definition doesn’t mass acceptance infer a dumbing down so innovative is lost?

[CS70]

So if we suspend judgement on the resulting "music" for a moment, how can anything innovative succeed without major hype for mass acceptance? And by definition doesn’t mass acceptance infer a dumbing down so innovative is lost?

Hm, something truly innovative is simply so big that doesn't need hype.

Nobody hyped digital recording, for example - heck, there's still loads of people who are against it purely because of the word "digital" - but it had totally revolutionized recording because it allows you enormous quality an incredible little cost - something it simply wasn't possible before.

Same with digital camera - no hype at all (and it took a lot of time for them to become the mainstream), but also things such as the incredible tolerances which we can now reach in metal manufacturing due to both materials science and hyper-precise computer controlled tools... which silently and quietly - with no hype at all - has made car engines able to increase the power/size ratio to an incredible extent.

Stuff like that is game-changing, but often moves from being under the radar to being simply "normal".

[Matt Houghton]

The last time anybody produced a genuine innovation in audio technology that I am currently aware of, it was Melodyne.

FTFY

[Eddy Deegan]

So if we suspend judgement on the resulting "music" for a moment, how can anything innovative succeed without major hype for mass acceptance? And by definition doesn’t mass acceptance infer a dumbing down so innovative is lost?

I don't think 'dumbing down' loses innovation, though perhaps it masks some of the detail and configurability. Some things don't need even that ... consider the transition from CRT monitors to the flatscreens of today, or the ongoing take-up of SSD storage in preference to HDD etc.

These are great innovations that are pretty much 'plug, play, enjoy the benefit'.

With music tech it's usually not quite so simple due to the more involved nature of the process of music creation, but I'd still say we're benefitting from innovation all the time in ways we don't even think about, such as better digital clocks leading to better quality interfaces, the ongoing increases in performance and reductions in size and cost of components etc.

The exact definition of 'innovation' in this context is open to interpretation of course ... the threshold between 'improvement' and 'innovation' may be somewhat subjective.