By Germaine Smith, Staff ReporterTHE DAYS when a huge room, miles of wires, several pieces of expensive amplifiers and dozens of pieces of equipment to start making music are long gone.
Because of rapid advances in technology, young geniuses or not quite geniuses can now sit before a computer screen and compose memorable melodies and catchy beats which will later flood the dancehalls and warm up the airwaves.
The question has been raised, however, that if the music coming from the 'mini' studios is in some way inferior or more mechanical when compared to that produced in the big studios.
There is the school of thought that the analogue equipment traditionally used by the studio giants are 'warmer' than those coming from the small ones, which use digital equipment.
In the end though, does it really matter in what size studio the music is made?
"It depends on what you want to get out of it," explains veteran musician Dean Fraser. In his decades of experience, Dean has worked in many studios, both large and small. For him, it is not a matter of preference but the feel you want to achieve.
DIGITAL SOUND
"You can get anything from the small studio, but, because it is digital, it is not as warm. The big studios have harmonies and melodies, but the digital studios have several sounds that the large ones don't have. To put it in short, the studio is just what you want to get out of it," he adds.
This digital sound refers to sound that has been transfered from sound waves into binary digits on the computer.
Basically, the sound is coded inside the computer as the digits 1 and 0. The analogue recording however is an exact representation of the orignal sound which is transfered to an electric signal via a microphone, then transfered back into sound waves upon exiting the speakers.
One of these large studios is the Marley's Tuff Gong Recording Studio on Marcus Garvey Drive in Kingston.
They boast a facility which is 30-feet long, 40-feet wide and roughly 25-feet high. Inside the 'voice room' of their studio there are several instruments available to be used alongside the voices and the option is there to record by analogue or by digital means.
For percussion artiste Stickie Thompson, the sound coming from such a huge studio has 'belly', as opposed to that from a smaller one.
"It is the difference between the sound coming from a church and a bathroom," he says to differentiate them.
"Here in this studio we have drum sets for live performances, organs, a piano, guitars and other instruments for up to seven or eight musicians to play at once," he adds. Engineer at the studio, Roland McDermott, adds that their size has allowed them to host the mlitary band for a recording.
With today's technology, however, the average Jamaican studio has been reduced to less than half of the space Tuff Gong uses and the equipment enables producers to do almost any form of editing that they can do in a large one.
The basic equipment a young producer needs to get started with a home recording studio can cost anywhere between US$3,000 and US$5,000.
For more complicated arrangements and for 'brand name' equipment the costs will go up. The basics that are needed, however, are a well-equipped computer, a large hard drive to store all the digital data, a central 'interface' which transforms sound from the musical instruments to digital data, high quality headphones/studio speakers, musical instruments and microphones.
To top this off, good software programmes to edit, create and store the music are required.
DECREASING QUALITY
All of these can fit into a room which is just 12-feet long and 12-feet wide, saving a lot of space, but reducing the use of live instruments for recordings.
Because of this, small digital studios have been accused of taking away the 'warmer' sound that music produced in the larger studios has.
Dancehall purists argue that because rhythms are fairly easy to produce by these methods, the quality of the music goes down, the digital users mass produce rhythm after rhythm.
"It's not a result of the equipment," cautions musician Grub Cooper. "It's a result of a bandwagon thing. With the advent of digital technology, it has opened up the door for several people... It is a case of economics, as certain producers just want to cash in on the rhythm as much as possible," he explains.
"The quality of the music will depend on the person using these tools," adds Jeremy Harding.
Harding has been seen as one of Jamaica's premier 'computer producers' since he hit the dancehall scene with Beenie Man's Who Am I on the 'Playground' rhythm.
"It's about the type of person who wants to get involved. Some guys are just trying to get some money quickly, so the quality suffers," he said.
Another argument thrown forward is that with the technology changes and smaller studios becoming more prevalent, it has caused a flood of young 'beat makers' to enter the music scene.
These rhythm builders are seen as just digital geeks who make catchy melodies using computers in the small studios, but who have little musical knowledge.
"If they are talented no problem," reasons Richard 'Shams' Browne.
Shams is head of B-Rich records and creator of rhythms like the 'Orgasm'.
"Everyone is working with computers now. The sound is obviously different. The computer gives you back everything and gives you no unnecessary noise. Nowadays though, some record music digitally but run it through an analogue board to get back that warm sound," he explains.
"If they (producers) have no talent it will affect the music in terms of direction. They will make certain tunes which are poor, like singers going off key etc. This is not good for the music."
With technology changing as quickly as it is, the small studio scenario in Jamaica does not seem poised to fade away or give way to the larger ones.
With equipment getting cheaper as they get better, studios will only multiply as more aspiring producers get hitched to the technology.
