Let's take it back and marvel. At this time, hardware music equipment,
and here we're talking about samplers, synthesizers, compressors and so on, were undoubtedly better than their software equivalents. Software was still kind of primitive. They were also very expensive; a decent sampler could cost you thousands (and would have memory measured in MB) and you'd still need a computer to control them all.
The upshot of all this was that even a simple bedroom setup would cost an awful lot of money to assemble, and it was actually pretty tricky to get everything working. MIDI was (and still is) unreliable and complicated, using your one compressor on more than a single track would require tedious multi-tracking... and then you have to try and squeeze a decent mixdown out of this budget equipment. Yep, it was hard work.
So there's a clear argument for software, right there. Load up a DAW today on your budget laptop and you can have compressors and reverbs coming out of your ears. You can have a dozen samplers running, each ten times more powerful than something that a decade ago required a fan to cool the CPU. What's more - they all sound great! No hiss, no earth hum, quality processing on every channel.
This, then, makes software a brilliant starting point, and a great way to learn the tricks of the trade. It's cheap, easy to set up, and
you can get good results straight out of the box. So where's the problem?
Well, the flipside to this, is that because it's so easy to create a clear, crisp and straightforward mixdown, everyone does just that. With only a handful of DAWs out there, and a huge number of bedroom producers, we're getting to the situation where everyone has pretty much the same tools, that are all equally capable of creating the same clear, crisp and straightforward mixdowns. And what that can lead to, if we're not careful, is a lot of samey, bland sounding recordings. Anyone who's on a few promo lists can testify to that.
So maybe we should look at using hardware in a different light? Of course, as a pro engineer will tell you, the best hardware will still outperform the best software. They'll show you a valve EQ that costs more than your house and can make a grown man cry tears of joy. They'll point to a dull looking box that only has one dial, costs more than the GDP of Venezuela and sounds like heaven itself. But this is beyond the reach of mere mortals like us, and we should be looking to more accessible means.
What hardware can offer though, and what it's important to consider now, is a difference in sound, a character, a combination of equipment that you don't get from staying 'in the box'. And this is starting to become a real factor in acquiring a distinctive sonic signature, now that we're all starting out from the same point.
It's all about the flaws, the quirks, and the mistakes you make along the way. For instance, you might have an old synth with an input - you could run your drum track through it, overdriven, to get that crunchy distortion sound without resorting to the same old vintage warmer plugs everyone else uses. Or, instead of overdriving, have the gain super-low so you get noise and hiss for a lo-fi, retro feel. Indeed, just play the thing in, without quantising, chop up the audio and build an idea around the groove that results.
Once you start thinking like this, anything is fair game, and it opens up a whole new world of production possibilities. Borrow a guitar pedal off a friend and run your bassline through it for some fiendish distortion. Even better, get an amplifier, mic it up, and put your drums or lead line through it. It doesn't need to be expensive, classy kit - because to get your productions to stand out, you want weird, quirky, interesting. If it makes a noise, use it. Just got a mic? Record some tambourine loops, or whack some cardboard boxes, or just get out on the street and see what you can find. It's not all just about sounding 'interesting' either - when you start to produce like this, you'll get a whole new set of ideas that wouldn't occur from sitting down at the controller keyboard and firing up the same old synths in the same old DAW, and you can really spark some new inspiration.
Having said all that, you can of course use hardware to beef up your mixdowns too, without breaking the bank. If you have the funds to step up from the 'garden shed' vibes mentioned above, then splashing some cash on just a single good quality piece ofkit, like an outboard compressor or EQ will give you the chance to make your tracks shine like little else. The current generation of DAWs now have superb latency compensation qualities, which make it a piece of cake to run an audio track out through some gear and take it back in the box for final tweaking; in short, to incorporate hardware into your existing setup.
All in all, then, can we really say that the hardware vs software debate was ever really 'won'? Well, no. It looks like a careful balance of both is what really wins in a good, creative setup. So, what have you got lying around and how can you make music with it? Get stuck in!
