Happy Tuesday, yāall! Hope yāall are staying safe while getting ready for the coming holiday season. If youāre checking us out but have yet to subscribe, I want to invite you to do so now! Itās free, and youāll get every article we post sent direct to your inbox:
This week, I want to introduce a beat-making challenge to help us get into the holiday spirit during the absolute madness that is Winter 2020. I also want to do a quick roundup of what I think have been some of the most interesting developments in the music tech world over the past year.
With that said, letās get into it.
Reflections on Music Tech in 2020 šļø
One very important part of the Program Change universe is our commitment to highlighting new tech and gear trends that make music-making a more accessible activity. 2020 has seen some important shifts in the industry, with global lockdowns precipitating a massive uptick in equipment sales, and I wanted to reflect on a few of the developments Iāve noticed this year and what they may mean for the future of music creation.
1. The rise of #MODBAP
If I had to name a person of the year for music technology in 2020, it would be Corry Banks, aka BboyTech. Corry went from blogging about music gear on his blog Bboytechreport to starting the music-making movement he coined āmodbapā: boombap hip-hop made with the gear and techniques of modular synthesis. For the completely uninitiated, check out this live video from NAMM 2020 (which feels like it was 5 years ago):
Corry has moved beyond starting new genres of music and into creating brand new musical devices, with 2020 seeing the release of his Per4mer Eurorack Module :
I find this inspiring for two reasons. First, itās important for hip-hop musicians to have gear made for us, by us. Modbap Modular feels like the first music-tech company that has come directly from a subculture within the larger hip-hop community. As is stated in the Values section of their website:
In HipHop we have always used music tech tools that weren't designed by us or for our genre. Modbap is the first black owned and designed eurorack synth company. Our tools are made for hiphop.
Which brings me to the secondāand more importantāreason this company is so inspiring to me: Modbap Modular is the first and only Black-owned and designed eurorack synth company. In fact, to my knowledge, it is the only Black-owned music tech company (please, correct me on this if Iām wrong). As a Black man and someone who identifies strongly with hip-hop culture, it is abundantly clear to me how little these facets of my identity are represented in the music tech industry. Gear companies are more than happy to profit off of the cultural capital of prominent Black musicians who use their products, but are rarely interested in hiring Black engineers, designers, and creative directors to develop products that incorporate our creative voice. Modbap Modular signifies an important step toward proper representation in the music tech industry, and Iām excited for what their success can mean for the future of bringing great products to the hip-hop production community.
2. Koala and the coming wave of mobile music-making
Iām a firm believer that mobile music-making is set to go mainstream this decade. Just as access to laptops with file-sharing programs encouraged the dominance of the DAW as the primary vehicle for commercial music creation in the past 15 years, the ubiquitousness of smartphones in modern society will bring about the adoption of music-making apps by young creatives on the cusp of the inventing the next generationās ātrapā or ādubstepā.
Of the seemingly endless array of music-making apps available now, the one that has impressed me the most has to be the Koala app by Elf Audio. For those who donāt know, itās basically a 404 in your phone, and its adoption by the likes of Dibiase has bolstered itās legitimacy as a formidable beat-making tool:
I can personally attest that some of the most inspiring beats Iāve stumbled across through social media this year have been works done on the Koala app. Whether you just want to try beat-making without spending hundreds on gear and/or software (itās $3.99!), or youāre a seasoned producer who is purposefully looking for constrained environments that foster creativity, Koala is leading the charge of app companies who are inspiring communities around new music creation tools. Weāre even seeing the start of āKoala producersā, such as impressionablesound, whoās entire beat-tape-as-Instagram-page is dedicated to flips cooked on Koala:
All it will take will be one mobile-musician to either achieve critical acclaim or hit the Top 40 for one of these apps to become the next Ableton Live or FL Studio. I donāt know if Koala will be the one, but I know that 2021 offers a wide-open opportunity for young, innovative producers to get in early on what will inevitably become the biggest trend in music-making.
3. What Guitar Centerās bankruptcy tells us about the changing landscape of music gear retailers
Guitar Center proved to be less like the Best Buy of music instrument stores and more the Circuit City. While Iām sure they will bounce back from last month's bankruptcy filing, I canāt help but view this as a remarkable development in the saga of music retail, especially in a year where, according to Rolling Stone magazine, music gear was a booming industry.
Only time will tell the direct cause of Guitar Centerās fate and what it means for the industry overall. This could be a simple symptom of a years-long shift toward online retail and Guitar Centerās inability to pivot. Or perhaps itās indicative of the rise of dedicated resale websites for music gear such as Reverb.com, which would match retail trends seen in other industries (most notably fashion).
However, a part of me has to wonder if a big part of Guitar Centerās problems lie right there in the name. One passage that struck me in the aforementioned Rolling Stone article was this:
The Reverb team has been seeing an increase in professional audio orders ā particularly among people whoāve traditionally purchased guitar or drum gear on their site in the past. In other words, theyāre seeing players that they can assume are guitarists or drummers purchasing their first audio interface, microphone, or desktop synthesizer, among other pro audio gear.
Iām not saying the guitar is going to die any time soon. The article also explicitly mentions that acoustic guitar sales have been up at Guitar Center, and all of these sales numbers are victim to selection bias if viewed as indicators of industry trends. But every time Iāve gone to a Guitar Center in the past few years, Iāve noticed one consistent trend: a very small and very crowded pro audio section. Itās as if theyāve ignored the most significant music-making trends of the past 20 years, and I find it hard to believe this will continue to be a sustainable business model in the coming decade.
With hip-hop and electronic music dominating popular music globally for the foreseeable future, music retailers are going to have to specifically cater to these audiences if they want survival. Iām not sure what the future will hold in this regard, but I canāt imagine music retail businesses will be able to keep the lights on solely by being safe places to play the solo to Stairway to Heaven.
Beat Challenge - Holiday Edition āļøš¤¶š¶
We had a ton of awesome participation for our Halloween Beat Challenge over on IG, so I knew we would have to do another one. This is the kind of stuff I love doing with friends to help us practice our skills while we all re-interpret the same source material, so Iām excited to be able to share in this activity with all of you. The rules are simple:
Everyone uses some part of the sample, in whatever style and using whatever gear you like.
Post a video of your sample flip to your IG (post or story is fine) or Twitter, and be sure to mention @programchange (@program_change on Twitter š). Deadline to submit is Monday, December 21 at 5:00pm Pacific Time
Our favorite submissions will get featured in next weekās newsletter!
For the sample, I wanted something that fit a Christmas/winter holiday theme, but I realized that most popular Christmas music is written in a major key, which isnāt super common for sample source material. So, I did a quick search of āChristmas songs in minor keyā and happened upon this really cool video from Youtuber doddleoddie [timestamp 0:45]
So, this time around, feel free to use any of the reinterpreted tunes from the above video (or any of her 3 āchristmas songs in a minor keyā videos). IMO, these kinds of a cappellas are perfect source material, and itās already got me thinking of other opportunities for Youtube digging. Shoutout doddleoddie for making these videos. I canāt wait to hear what yāall do with these sounds!
Bonus: reading list for this week š
Noise Engineeringās fantastic interview with Corry Banks (BBoyTech)
Synthtalk's interview with Marek Bereza, the creator of the Koala sampler
Micro-Chopās article on the advantages to making a Christmas-themed beat tape
Rolling Stone on the increase of music equipment sales during 2020's first lockdown
Thatās all for this week, folks! If you like what you read, please consider sharing us with a friend:
Looking forward to checking out everyoneās beat challenge submissions next week! If you have any questions for me, suggestions for articles, or if you just want to chat, DM me on Instagram or Twitter, or shoot me an email at daniel@pgchg.com. Til then, much love from Los Angeles āš¾š