WHAT IS IN THE BOX PRODUCTION ?
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Thinking Inside The Box
Producing music using a computer
Writing music âin-the-boxâ means creating your entire track within a sequencer or DAW, without relying on any physical hardware other that your computer. In the last 15 years or so, the technology at play here has advanced by huge leaps; putting powerful production systems within the reach of more and more people. Gone are the days where you need vast amounts of money and, crucially, a dedicated workspace to create dance music. Now, you can write your music at your desktop, or even on the train, using a notebook or tablet. Most low-cost sequencer packages still offer surprisingly powerful suites of virtual instruments and effects. And often, they have features that help you to compose your music too, such as arpeggiators and preset patterns.
There was a time when this kind of music production was seen as an amateur approach, unable to deliver the results that a professional studio set-up might. And while some of that perception remains in professional production circles, most would agree itâs now very possible to create professional quality, âhigh-gradeâ music in this manner. Indeed, many pro producers have abandoned their more traditional studios for the ease and simplicity of in-the-box production. The question is: how should you approach in-the-box production to ensure youâre getting the best you can from your system?
Creating and altering audio using computer technology is known as digital signal processing (DSP), and it involves some complicated mathematics that tax even powerful computer processors. The best systems rely on dedicated âDSP Chipsâ to generate and process audio, but in most cases the same chip that is processing the rest of your computing will do this job.
For this reason, every flop (a âflopâ is a computing term meaning âcalculations per secondâ) that you can squeeze out of your processor will give your software more power to work with. Turning off your virus-checker, reducing the unnecessary âbells and whistlesâ of your operating system (such as animated window transitions, translucent or animated backgrounds etc.) will help to increase the amount of power your sequencer can harness. You should also make sure you donât have any programs running that you donât need. A good music production system bears little resemblance to the flashy desktop systems that most people use in their day-to-day computing â they will have more in common with the systems used by scientists and mathematicians to run experiments.
With the breakneck speed of advancement in processor technology (look up âMooreâs Lawâ), itâs easy to think processor performance is an outdated concern and you have more than enough power for your production. Donât fall into this trap. Modern computer operating systems are not built solely for music production and they prioritize some other types of processing, like your graphics display, above the threads that process your music. For this reason, every task your computer is running will have an impact on the latency and power of your sequencer. Running your processor close to maximum capacity will cause more and more degradation in the performance of your music, particularly if you work with audio samples that will typically put higher demands on your RAM and processor.
While the relative merits of analogue versus digital music creation can be endlessly debated, no one can argue that the low-cost audio technology present in many âfactoryâ computer systems cannot deliver the quality of sound we would expect from professional gear. The technology in low-cost sound cards or on-mainboard audio components just isnât designed for professional music production. This means youâre monitoring your music at lower quality, with less âheadroomâ for your mixes, and depending on your hardware spec, with less processing power and higher latency for your effects and track summing. Very high quality software systems such as Pro Tools HD rely on proprietary rackmount hardware to deliver pro-grade performance and digital signal processing â but they donât come cheap.
There is a middle ground, however, in the form of external (USB or Firewire) based interfaces, or professional internal (PCI or PCIe) sound cards. Many of these deliver good performance without a huge price tag. This should be considered essential gear for an in-the-box producer. You simply canât do serious music production without it.
Whether you work on a Mac or a PC, there are many sequencers and DAWs available to use, and they are not all created equal. You might think that the more expensive the system, the better quality it is, but this might not necessarily be the case. The algorithms that mix together your music tracks within the sequencer (the process called âsummingâ) are all different from DAW to DAW, and they all produce a slightly different sound. While the differences can often come down to personal taste, itâs difficult to argue that some are better than others. This can make the difference between flat-dynamics, âmuddyâ bass, and shrill top-end versus having well-defined, punchy music.
The âunder-the-hoodâ part of your DAW that handles this stuff is known as the âAudio Engineâ, and the best ones can handle 192kHz digital audio and 64 bit floating point calculations; essentially giving you more performance from your audio.
Everyone has their favorites, but Pro Tools is often regarded as one of the best audio engines, and is my personal choice for summing. However, since Pro Tools is not really designed for EDM production, dance music producers often do the main compositional part of their work in another package (such as Reason or Live) and transfer the track âstemsâ to Pro Tools for summing at the end. This is probably the method employed by the most professional producers working in-the-box. If you want to squeeze the best sound you can out of your computer-based production, you should experiment with different audio engines and processes such as this.
Donât believe anyone who tells you serious music production canât be done âin-the-boxâ. If theyâre making this statement, theyâd probably be amazed to discover how much of the music they enjoy is produced in this manner. At the same time, donât underestimate how difficult it is to get truly professional results from a typical computer system, and make sure youâre doing all you can to help the process along. One thingâs for sure â âin-the-boxâ production is here to stay, and given itâs rate of technological progression, itâs easy to imagine a future where it makes much more sense than more traditional hardware-based production, for better or worse.Â
