On October 20th, Digital October hosted a live-linkup lecture with Craig Anderton, Vice President and Evangelist for Gibson, the world-renowned manufacturer of musical instruments and equipment.
Well-known musicians from different generations and genres came to his lecture to speak about the role of technology in art: Rudolf Schenker, founder of the legendary rock group the Scorpions, hero of the Russian alternative stage Noize MC and Andrey Ivanov, founder of the electronic project Triplex. The discussion moderator was Alexander Anatolyevich, the legendary VJ from Russian MTV.
For an hour before and after the lecture guests had the opportunity to personally try a new musical technology: RockSmith, a game that has taken the simulation genre to a new level, leaving projects like Guitar Hero in its rearview mirror. It allows the user to learn how to play rock hits by connecting a real guitar to an Xbox, PlayStation, or Windows computer, even if he or she is picking up the instrument for the first time.
But let's get back to Mr. Anderton. He co-founded Electronic Musician, a major industry publication, and has collaborated with many key manufacturers both of software and of digital devices for recording and creating music, setting the standards for high-profile studios and for home recording alike. His partners have included Native Instruments, M-Audio, Roland, E-mu, Alesis, TC Electronic, and others.
But he’s even more highly prized by the industry for being the kind of person who’s capable of putting the most complicated information solutions into terms that music-lovers and professionals are able to understand.
He has been invited to write the manuals for a number of cult developments, from E-mu Emulator II, the sampler released in 1984, to Guitar Rig, the contemporary virtual guitar processor. Anderton also wrote Electronic Projects for Musicians, a collection of step-by-step DIY instructions for putting together musical gadgets, as well as approximately thirty books containing practical advice for working with the core programs for musicians that have emerged over the past 20 years.
Over the course of the live-linkup, Craig discussed:
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whether or not the ordinary tablet could become a universal musical instrument
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the future of music and the role of the computer in it
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how the development of digital technology is affecting the process of simultaneously creating and recording music.
