Sound effects

A couple of years ago I was invited to tour Compass Point Studios just outside Nassau in the Bahamas. Apart from its historical significance — this was once the home of Island Records, where Bob Marley recorded all his great hits — the experience was very illuminating. Compass Point is a state-of-the-art studio and I was able to talk to the recording engineer at some length.

There was once a time, he said, when somebody like Paul Simon would arrive with a huge entourage of musicians, take up residence for about ten weeks and the end result was usually a hit album. Today, a vocalist like Céline Dion will arrive with just her musical director. That’s because the huge orchestra that customarily backs her — the desks of violins, violas, cellos, arco basses, the trumpets, the trombones and the powerful rhythm section — all exist in cyberspace. Today, it’s possible to purchase legal samples of every instrument under the sun, enabling the sound engineer to construct an orchestral accompaniment on hard disc, starting with the rhythm tracks and building up through the rest of the orchestra through sampling alone.