In the beginning was the word, and the word was analogue. Analogue shone on the world of sound recording, and it was good.
For a long time, good people made good music with analogue, and looked no further for their needs. But then a shadow fell across the face of the music makers. The shadow was cast by a new force called digital. It broke analogue’s spell, and the world was remade...
In analogue days, a mixing console determined its own form. It took what it needed from the music makers’ knowledge and rewarded them not only with beautiful music, but also with a shared language. It spoke with its very being. The music makers simply had to look at a mixing console and they knew its intentions. And through these same indicators they could ask of it what they needed.
They asked of analogue and analogue responded – not always as they had expected but readily and with such warmth that they loved it only more. They came to revere analogue in all of its many forms, and with all of its imperfections. Digital had arrived without form. It tried to define itself as analogue’s better, but the music makers struggled to accept it. It adopted different forms, coveting the love that analogue enjoyed.
There was no doubting the power that digital’s high priests had invoked. Digital was more capable than analogue and could adopt many guises. It could enter spaces analogue could not, and perform feats beyond analogue’s dreams. Yet it struggled for acceptance.
So while the music makers’ love for analogue did not die, digital courted many of them with its power and promise. New music makers arrived, and were readily seduced.
Gradually analogue began to lose its hold over the music making peoples. While many still sang its praise, only a few remained truly faithful. In its darkest moments, analogue’s faithful feared that it would become an obscure cult, often preached but known to few.
Digital did not wish the music makers or their music harm, however. It had, its followers argued, simply been misunderstood. And digital learned well from analogue. There was a place reserved for analogue in a digital world.
The prophets and the acolytes of analogue and digital met and debated. Their worlds touched and engaged. Digital allowed analogue to share in its control, while analogue revealed the workings of its spells and taught digital its laying on of hands. Together, they made new and bold promises to the music makers.
Lost faith; New idols
Many of the priests of analogue joined with the priests of digital, their past differences put aside. They believed that the remade world was to be as good as the old – possibly better. But what had become of music’s faithful?
It appeared that, while digital had adopted one form to the music makers, it had taken another to music’s faithful. And they had readily accepted it into their lives...
They had lost touch with the music makers’ mission and were now worshipping new technologies that journeyed with them. The amulets and tablets bestowed by digital had beguiled them with games and tricks. But their new faith had betrayed them; their ears had become deaf to the beauty of music and the lessons of their elders.
The music makers discovered a new mission; one shared with the elders of analogue and the doyens of digital. They needed to redeem a lost generation. Their old institutions were failing and their most inspiring demonstrations of power had been usurped by ingenious games and eclipsed by fantastic visions.
Again, the music makers found their world troubled and torn. Some of them became martyrs to their cause. Some joined with the games players. Others fell into deep despair, betrayed by those they had sought only to please.
Could the children of the music makers be brought back into the fold? Could they be born again into the world of beautiful sound? Could they be saved from their new Babel?
