Editing Record producer (section)

=== Digital production ===
The 1980s advent of digital processes and formats rapidly replaced analog processes and formats, namely, tape and [[Phonograph record|vinyl]]. Although recording onto quality tape, at least half an inch wide and traveling 15 inches per second, had limited "tape hiss" to silent sections, digital's higher [[signal-to-noise ratio]], SNR, abolished it.<ref name="Simmons-2006" /> Digital also imparted to the music a perceived "pristine" sound quality, if also a loss of analog recordings' perceived "warm" quality and better-rounded bass.<ref name="Simmons-2006">{{cite book |first=David |last=Simmons |title=Analog Recording: Using Analog Gear in Today's Home Studio |location=San Francisco |publisher=[[Backbeat Books]] |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gYuMOUYwgvIC&dq=tape+digital+analog&pg=PA26 |pages=26–27 | isbn=978-0-87930-864-3}}</ref> Yet whereas editing tape media requires physically locating the target audio on the ribbon, cutting there, and splicing pieces, editing digital media offers inarguable advantages in ease, efficiency, and possibilities.

In the 1990s, digital production reached affordable home computers via production software. By now, recording and mixing are often centralized in DAWs, [[digital audio workstation]]s—for example, [[Pro Tools]], [[Logic Pro]], [[Ableton Live|Ableton]], [[Steinberg Cubase|Cubase]], [[Reason (software)|Reason]], and [[FL Studio]]—for which [[plug-in (computing)|plugins]], by third parties, effect [[Virtual Studio Technology|virtual studio technology]].<ref name="Kadis-2013" /> DAWs fairly standard in the industry are Logic Pro and Pro Tools.<ref name="Joseph-2016">{{cite web |first=Kiesha |last=Joseph |url=http://blog.first.edu/audio-recording-software-avid-pro-tools-vs-apple-logic-pro-x |title=Audio recording software: Avid Pro Tools vs. Apple Log Pro X |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180811031857/http://blog.first.edu/audio-recording-software-avid-pro-tools-vs-apple-logic-pro-x/ |archive-date=11 August 2018 |website= F.I.R.S.T. Institute |date=11 Feb 2016}}</ref> Physical devices involved include the main mixer, [[MIDI]] controllers to communicate among equipment, the recording device itself, and perhaps effects gear that is outboard. Yet literal recording is sometimes still analog, onto tape, whereupon the raw recording is [[Analog-to-digital converter|converted to a digital signal]] for processing and editing, as some producers still find audio advantages to recording onto tape.<ref name="Simmons-2006" />

Conventionally, tape is more forgiving of [[overmodulation]], whereby dynamic peaks exceed the maximal recordable signal level: tape's limitation, a physical property, is magnetic capacity, which tapers off, smoothing the overmodulated waveform even at a signal nearly 15 decibels too "hot", whereas a digital recording is ruined by harsh distortion of "[[Clipping (audio)|clipping]]" at any overshoot.<ref name="Simmons-2006" /> In digital recording, however, a recent advancement, [[32-bit floating point|32-bit float]], enables DAWs to undo clipping.<ref>{{cite web | first=Matthew | last=Allard | title=Sound Devices MixPre V6.00 adds 32-bit float USB audio streaming | website=Newsshooter | date=2020-01-15 | url=https://www.newsshooter.com/2020/01/15/sound-devices-mixpre-v6-00-adds-32-bit-float-usb-audio-streaming/ |quote= "With 32-bit float, you no longer need to worry about clipping during your best vocal takes or instrument solos. Any recorded moments exceeding 0 [[dBFS]] can be reduced to an acceptable level, after recording, in your DAW"}}</ref> Still, some criticize digital instruments and workflows for excess automation, allegedly impairing creative or sonic control.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Zak | first=Albin J. | title=Review of Timothy D. Taylor. 2001. Strange Sounds: Music, Technology, and Culture. New York: Routledge | journal=Current Musicology | date=2002-09-29 | issue=74 | doi=10.7916/CM.V0I74.4910}}</ref> In any case, as production technology has drastically changed, so have the knowledge demands,<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Pras | first1=Amandine | last2=Cance | first2=Caroline | last3=Guastavino | first3=Catherine | title=Record Producers' Best Practices For Artistic Direction—From Light Coaching To Deeper Collaboration With Musicians | journal=Journal of New Music Research | volume=42 | issue=4 | date=2013 | issn=0929-8215 | doi=10.1080/09298215.2013.848903 | pages=381–395}}</ref> although DAWs enables novices, even teenagers at home, to learn production independently.{{sfn|Burgess | 2013 | page=199}} Some have attained professional competence before ever working with an artist.<ref name="Newman-2018" />