Buy, by and by

When it comes to music technology, one of the great uncertainties is timing and budgeting. Ian Dearden offers some advice of how much to spend and when to spend it.

 

When do you buy a computer? How do you set about choosing from the vast array of models , all offering dazzling multimedia performance specifications that will be slow in six months time? How do you select software that will help you to meet the needs of the curriculum, stimulate students into creating new work and develop IT skills? What will happen when it crashes, as it inevitably will, and how do you go about integrating it with other technology - samplers, electronic keyboards, recording devices? How much will all this cost and most importantly, when are you going to learn how to use it?

Anyone interested in using digital technology in their teaching, whether in science or the arts has to face these questions. The answer to the first is simple - there is never a good time to buy a computer, so the sooner you get your hands on one the better. The solutions to the rest are trickier but can be answered once you have a clear sense of the musical projects and artistic processes you want to try in the classroom.

It's worth bearing in mind that there is no definitive electronic music workstation to aspire to own. Indeed the concept of buying to own rather than buying to use is the first pitfall. Music technology magazines are heavily laden with advertising for the latest, updated, bigger and faster systems.

They offer all the latest devices at 'unbelievable new low prices', sometimes so low that they are frightened of revealing it in print - '£CALL' and '£BEST' they cry. I've always thought this a smart way to get you on the line and sell you what they have rather than what you need. In any case, I know of no two musicians who work with identical systems and I've worked happily in a studio where the computer was obsolete and the software at least three versions old, choosing to spend my money on a decent pair of monitor loudspeakers to look after my ears!

Nevertheless, there is a broad concept of a workstation that is now accepted as a standard and it certainly has a computer at its heart. An adequate model with a screen, printer, multimedia loudspeakers (beware of their dodgy quality) and modem will probably cost somewhere in the region of £1000.00. Add to that the cost of some software, and you will probably have to spend around £1300.00. However this is only a beginning and you should consider the following costs. A MIDI keyboard, sound module and MIDI interface could cost a further £800.00, a mixing desk, sound processor, amplifier and loudspeakers perhaps another £1600.00 and if you choose to develop work with your own recorded sound then a sampler, minidisk recorder, headphones and stereo microphone, another £1200.00. Whilst these are not huge sums, they need to be weighed against the the amount of use they may attract and the number of students who are able to work with the studio at one time. Let me offer a an example from my own experience at the University of Hertfordshire. We have six workstations like the one described above for the sole use of first year students and in an average week the studio is open from 09.30 until 17.30, Monday to Friday. This gives a weekly total of 240 hours of workstation availability to 40 students. Therefore, in theory each student can have up to six hours of access to a workstation each week to carry out their own work. Now do the calculation based on one workstation and 200 students, reduce the available hours to 5 per day and factor in (if possible) time-tabling restrictions which make the facility unavailable. This will give students under 10 minutes each at the workstation at best. The situation might improve if students were able to share sessions, but in my experience two at a workstation is a maximum as there is never usually enough to be done at any one moment. It would clearly seem ludicrous to invest in a workstation which centralises so much technology and expense in one place for so few people to use at one time.  

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