Towards the end of the seventies pop was gaining the momentum and respectability was very high with groups like Yes and Queen who were making “classical” rock records. They were also bringing in big bucks. So the eighties became the “bottom line” decade.

Today’s recording techniques would have been regarded as science fiction forty years ago.

I kind of liked the method of the seventies where they would throw a little bit of money at a hundred different groups – not millions of dollars per group, but, you know, a few thousand. Throw them in the studio, and if five of those groups came out with a hit record it would be money well spent.

I love Logic Audio and have been using it for years. All my track outputs used to come up on my old board in the same order as in the old Mac G4 – 1 through 32, came up as 1 through 32, for instance.

The eighties turned the whole system upside down. They would sign three groups and give them five or ten million dollars each to make three records. Out of those three records maybe one would be a hit. The economy changed, and that’s why the music changed.

When I was five my parents bought me a ukulele for Christmas. I quickly learned how to play it with my father’s guidance. Thereafter, my father regularly taught me all the good old fashioned songs.

His name is David Bowie and he’s nineteen. Would you like to meet him?

You could make some great sounds with technology. That’s what recording is all about. What happens in the studio is very magical, and should be, in my opinion.

But some great records are are being made with today’s technology and there are still great artists among us. Likewise there are artists today who are so reliant on modern technology, they wouldn’t have emerged when recording was more organic.

Originally a record producer more or less hired a bunch of professionals to participate in a recording session, the performers and the technicians, and a music director was put in charge. That directly related to a film producer’s job.