To me, and I know this is a very unpopular opinion, but I think there was a huge line of demarcation when computers got involved in post production- mix down etc... but I suppose really starting with the drum machine.
As soon as the music tracks are put on a computer screen, and the sounds can be moved around, this was the big game changer.
In some ways I blame Rush, or maybe Steely Dan. The drum tracks on Rush albums got tighter and tighter from Caress of Steel through Moving Pictures. Peart really sounds like a machine, like it's programmed at Permanent Waves into MP. I mean there is basically no lateral movement. Steely Dan albums followed a similar overall production trajectory of precision peaking at Asia and Gaucho.
At the time, and this was before computer pro tool editing etc.. it was just shocking how slick the production was on these albums, but the vibe on the street was that it was due to the INCREDIBLE playing of the musicians.. whether it took 100 takes to get it perfect, we all knew that at some point, they had to get it... to get that amazing take. While producers and engineers like Ken Scott or Terry Brown, or Gary Katz etc.. we still felt that the musicians were the ones ultimately getting it down and these side people did some kind of magic to get the best out of them. Who knows if they spiked their morning coffee or other antics, but it was greatness captured in the take, punched in or not... performed by these Godly musicians!
The drum machine was the first huge game changer. Now we had precision with perfect meter as a given. Sounds improved as samples improved, then triggers put on the drum heads would trigger a perfectly recorded sound (that was not the sound of that drum being hit) even for a real drummer, and those percussive hits could be gated, subbed out and quantized to the nearest 18th, 16th note etc easy enough.
Pro Tools arrived and then basically if you had the money and time, ANYTHING could be fixed, cleaned up, enhanced and albums could all sound like Rush or Steely Dan as far as perfect production. However, there was a difference... at least for those who knew.
It was no longer the artist's performance that was captured perfectly, it was the artist captured then enhanced, manipulated etc by the producer, engineer etc, and this allowed everyone into the game of super polished studio releases. It essentially took a turn toward homogenization.
The public got used to this precision sound in the 1980's and it's my feeling that prog really lost it's advantage to the listener's ear.
Now anyone could theoretically release something "amazing" with regard to speed of notes played, perfect sounds, precision drumming and bass tracks. Even vocals could be fixed by pitch shifters and other digital manipulations.
All of this enabled "Steely Dan" or "Rush" sounding production on recordings. But unlike the 70's, it wasn't necessarily the musicians doing the work, but instead the studio computer magicians making the bands sound quite unrealistic.
Another way to think about this is that before computers, bands and producers were listening to the tracks with their ears only, they couldn't SEE the tracks sound waves...
and then when computers came onboard, they could SEE the music on a screen, the sound waves, and were becoming very concerned about how the files LOOKED. They could SEE things that were off.. not aligned and that could of course be fixed.
So there really was this huge division in how music was being recorded, created or now rendered.
I'm not suggesting that any kind or rock or pop music has ever had truly honest intentions... but the entry of computers into the game really changed the expectations of both the musicians and the listening public to the point that most any natural tracking would sound too loose and or sloppy for mainstream radio or major label offerings.
This then required that musicians themselves get up to speed on all the software etc, or needed to find extra money to pay someone to "properly" polish up the release as compared to the old way of track, mix, master, press it, release it.
Ultimately this is what happened, and most of the major studios closed down and went out of business due to home recording.
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