Yes, you just don't understand my point as I'm having trouble communicating it here. The joy of digital communication. Anyways, let's seriously not pretend that anyone can practice guitar for a year and become a virtuoso. Let's not pretend that it is nearly as simple as learning how to make a recording sound technically good through the use of machines. I'll happilly take a 909 and a 303 recorded on a dirty tape deck over something that I just find boring. Now, given that this doesn't seem to happen too much anymore for records that come out, when all someone can do to explain to me why one track is "better" than another is because some studio tricks were used, which can be implemented by reading how other people did and buying the right equipment, I'm simply not impressed. It's a chinstroker argument that I will not accept. When it comes to the music snobs who aren't focussing on audio engineering and focus on the exceptional playing of an instrument instead, even if I don't like the music I can
appreciate the playing. It's a skill that requires just a bit more than cash and access to technology. What I enjoy about techno so much is how simple it is to produce incredible sounding results with very little investment especially if you are willing to experiment with what you have in front of you. If you've got lots of money to blow, you could even make it easier for yourself by not having to use daisy-chained DIY approaches. Then, it's as simple as grabbing a book or jumping on the net, reading some basics, and taking some notes about the settings you like on your recording. You can make it unbelievably methodical if you so choose and merely tweak some parameters here and there where need be. This is something that can be learned in a 3 month crash course. Thus, I'm really not all that impressed by it. With machines, everyone has the power to make their composition come out sounding exactly how they want it to sound. The largest hurdles are pretty much coneptualization and lingo. That is
something that is completely different than learning to play scales on a sitar in a 39/32 time sig at a fast tempo and have it sound good. It may sound like shit to me from a subjective standpoint in the end. But, to get to the level of being able to do it requires far more effort and work than learning how to get the best EQ and compression out of your drum kick in a techno track that was able to be recorded without even having to use a microphone. In the end, the technology that exists makes it possible for much more people to become gifted audio engineers than musical prodigies on an instrument. And that is because the machine does more of the work than the person.