The last decade of the XX century marked the appearance of a large number of private studios for recording music in Macedonia. Nevertheless, this provokes no scientific interest, despite the fact that recorded music participates in a much greater proportion than live music in music communications.

    The study of recording music in Macedonia was one of the interests of the newly formed department of sonology at the UKIM School of music. One of the goals of this department was the recruitment of human resources that could find jobs in the recording business.

    Even though the process of recording has several aspects such as artistic, scientific, technical etc., we decided to concentrate on the technical aspects, i.e. the recording equipment used at the moment.

    Consequently, we divided our survey into four major tasks:
 

- history of studio recording

- computer hardware used for recording

- music hardware used for recording

- music software used for recording

    The lack of adequate technical literature in Macedonian is a problem for the individuals who are not fluent in English. We consider our mission to spread an awareness of the technological changes and their cultural effects. Therefore we included a description of the technical features of the digital equipment used in the studios in Macedonia, the integral version having been prepared for Macedonian readers.
 
 

A brief  history of the recording studios in Macedonia
 

    The history of the recording music in Macedonia is related to Macedonian Radio (established January 28th, 1945). In the late 40s  and  early  50s  music  was  mainly  broadcast  live. The first specialised music production recording studios started their activities in the mid 60s. In the mid 70s the Macedonian Radio moved to a new building where three specialised studios for analog recording were established.

    The early history of digital recording is related to the use of MIDI sequencers. Among the first studios based on MIDI recording are: Buzarovski’s (in 1985 he bought Korg SQD-1, in 1987 he started using Macintosh computers with Mark of the Unicorn’s Performer and Professional Composer and printed the first computer scores in former Yugoslavia) and Slave Dimitrov's and Toshe Pop Simonov's who used Atari and Amiga computers in the mid 80s. The combined use of MIDI sequencers and analog recording was typical for this stage of the development of recording techniques in Macedonia. In 1989 and 1992 there were an additional 3 studios based on the same technology.

    The first HD recording goes back to Dimitrije Buzarovski, who purchased Digidesign ProTools in 1992. Using Sample Cell, also from Digidesign, Buzarovski expanded MIDI recording in the sequencer Vision, and then imported the MIDI files in the ProTools MIDI sequencer. After that these MIDI files were used as an orchestral playback for the recording of voice and instruments.

    The first HD digital recording, which included digital editing, was completed in December 1992, during Buzarovski’s stay at Arizona State University. He recorded the song “Silence” from the cycle “Songs of Peace and War” with the American singer Nan Hughes.

( Dimitrije Buzarovski “Songs of Peace and War”  - Silence, performed by Nan Hughes, mezzo and Dimitrije Buzarovski, synthesizersMP3/PeaceandWar.mp3  )
 
 

    In June 1993 he recorded a second composition “The Skeleton and the Beauty”.

( Dimitrije Buzarovski “The Skeleton and the Beauty” performed by the author  MP3/Skeleton.mp3  )
 
 

In July 1993, the first recording of “Silence” was broadcast via the net on PBS (Public Broadcasting Station) in the US accompanied by an interview with Buzarovski. This interview was recorded and edited using his equipment. Using vowels and consonants from his speech, Buzarovski artificially composed the final word “thanks" as an illustration for non-destructive and non-linear editing.

    Meanwhile, we developed several more studios using Atari computers, while the first PC 386 and PC 486 appeared in 1995.

    Digital recording using DAT started a parallel development in the early 90s at the Macedonian Radio. DAT recorders were used mainly to create the masters for CDs and rarely for live recordings of concerts. Still, the editing was done in analog format.

    In 1999/2000 the first studio for educational purposes was established at UKIM SM. The financial support came from the TEMPUS  project JEP 13567/1998 -  Development of Electronic Music and Audio Recording Courses. The members of the consortium were UKIM SM, Trinity College of Music in London and Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag.
 

    In our study of the development of recording studios in Macedonia, we limited our research to the studios in Skopje - Macedonia. This was because the largest concentration of musical and cultural events is in the capital of Macedonia - Skopje. From our charts we could see that the real expansion of recording studios in Skopje - Macedonia started after 1995.
 

    Despite the fact that the Macedonian Radio had a much better starting position in terms of financial, technical, human and other resources, the majority of the recording businesses moved to private studios in the second half of the 90s.

    In our historical study, we were not concerned with genre distribution, which is a problem concerning other types of research. However, the newly formed recording studios were oriented towards popular genres.
 

( Darko Dimitrov “Na pat do Makedonija” performed by Kaliopi - produced by D.Dimitrov, studio Dimitrovi   MP3/Napat.mp3  )
 
 
 

Computer hardware in the recording studios in Skopje
 

    Our research concerning computer hardware in the recording studios in 2001 in Skopje proved that the use of Pentium II and Pentium III PC platforms prevailed. Macintosh computers are much less used and Macedonian Radio and TV still uses only DAT recording.

    There are two reasons for the dominance of PC platforms:

    - financial (PC computers are cheaper)

    - there is much more PC hardware and especially pirated software which could be provided for “free”.
 
 

Music hardware for recording
 

    Due to the present insufficient hardware capacity of commercial computer technology, DSP needs additional hardware to enable smooth and professional running of the recording processes. One can expect that the further enlargement of the processor's capacity in the future will contribute to the decline of additional hardware. Nevertheless, the computers specialising in audio recording will need interface hardware for the physical inputs and outputs.

    Usually we cannot divide hardware and software for recording in different categories, as they come in packages. Each company tries making its product as self-sufficient as possible by adding a larger number of tasks, which can be accomplished by buying only one package. Such an example is the Capybara sound computation engine, which is basically a computer within a computer. It integrates an enormous number of tasks related to DSP. We should keep in mind that all recording hardware/software, besides its creative, technical and other purposes, has a marketing logic, in which each product should have its own consumer niche.

    On the other hand, the compatibility of the hardware/software product with other hardware/software raises the consumer's perception of the value of the product. That’s why it is very difficult to make a clear classification of the use of hardware or software in the studios in Skopje, as they contradict each other in lot of aspects.

    One approach is to divide the use of the music hardware (cards) in accordance to the platform where they are installed: PC-Pentium, Macintosh and cards which can be used with both platforms. There is a general tendency to produce hardware/software which will be compatible for both platforms.

    In general we have noted the use of the following hardware:
 

-Sound Blaster Live Platinum

- Yamaha DSP 2416

- ADAT/EDIT package, ADAT WAVE PCI 24bit

- MOTU 2408

- Capybara 320

- ProTools

The frequency distribution of each hardware corresponds to the frequency distribution of the computer hardware.
 
 
 
 

Music software for recording
 

    We have taken into consideration only the software that is used for recording and postproduction purposes (and again skipped other software such as Sample Cell, which is used as a sampler).

    We were also only interested in the audio recording software, or audio sequencers, because MIDI sequencing is a usual part of the audio sequencers.

    In the beginning of HD recording in the early 90s, two different types of software were used: one for sequencing (including recording), and one for editing. Later the producers started integrating them into one software (ProTools, Logic Audio). In the research of the software used in the recording studios in Macedonia, we presented both the sequencers and the editors, because some of the studios use them as separate programs. Here we see the correlation between the computers used as basic platforms and the music hardware and software used for these purposes.
 

( Davor Jordanovski “Zrak” performed by  Blagica Paneva - produced by Valentino Skenderovski ,studio Enterprise  MP3/Zrak.mp3   )
 
 

    We would like to stress that this is the first attempt to collect data about recording studios in Skopje and Macedonia. During this study we faced serious difficulties, as most of the owners of the private studios were not very co-operative in giving us classified information about what kind of equipment, (e.g. hardware/software) they use for recording. This is because they are concerned that they could lose their prestigious role in the recording market.

    Still, we think that the data we collected will be useful for the future planning of the development of audio recording in Macedonia. Our particular interest, both from an educational and scientific point of view, was to carry out this initial research in order to gain experience in the collecting of information, and to use it as a basis for the future planning of educational activities in the Sonology department of UKIM SM.