In what way has music production been democratised?

Music production has also been adversely affected by the Internet: bands and artists no longer need a record deal to promote their music. The Internet has enabled free publicity and this extends to record production itself.

With the development of technology, recording has become democratised: paying a lot of money to a professional recording studio is no longer necessary: many bands/artists use small devices to create their own 'mini-studio' and, on a smaller scale, some computers and mobile phones now include recording software.

Once the desired effects have been made, a band can promote themselves using their websites, generally on MySpace, and offer free downloads or snippets as a subtle carrot to sell albums. This may seem somewhat trivial to us nowadays, but this was the major hurdle for prospective 'stars' little more than a decade ago. It is unbelievable to old musicians like my dad that the cost of advertising has been significantly subsidised by the fact that artists can promote their stuff for free. It solves so many problems, particularly financially, but it's only a matter of time before record companies do something about it and start to make websites offers they can't refuse.