The Great Debate, when the Computer arrived....

[Skullhead]

To me, and I know this is a very unpopular opinion, but I think there was a huge line of demarcation when computers got involved in post production- mix down etc... but I suppose really starting with the drum machine.

As soon as the music tracks are put on a computer screen, and the sounds can be moved around, this was the big game changer.

In some ways I blame Rush, or maybe Steely Dan. The drum tracks on Rush albums got tighter and tighter from Caress of Steel through Moving Pictures. Peart really sounds like a machine, like it's programmed at Permanent Waves into MP. I mean there is basically no lateral movement. Steely Dan albums followed a similar overall production trajectory of precision peaking at Asia and Gaucho.

At the time, and this was before computer pro tool editing etc.. it was just shocking how slick the production was on these albums, but the vibe on the street was that it was due to the INCREDIBLE playing of the musicians.. whether it took 100 takes to get it perfect, we all knew that at some point, they had to get it... to get that amazing take. While producers and engineers like Ken Scott or Terry Brown, or Gary Katz etc.. we still felt that the musicians were the ones ultimately getting it down and these side people did some kind of magic to get the best out of them. Who knows if they spiked their morning coffee or other antics, but it was greatness captured in the take, punched in or not... performed by these Godly musicians!

The drum machine was the first huge game changer. Now we had precision with perfect meter as a given. Sounds improved as samples improved, then triggers put on the drum heads would trigger a perfectly recorded sound (that was not the sound of that drum being hit) even for a real drummer, and those percussive hits could be gated, subbed out and quantized to the nearest 18th, 16th note etc easy enough.

Pro Tools arrived and then basically if you had the money and time, ANYTHING could be fixed, cleaned up, enhanced and albums could all sound like Rush or Steely Dan as far as perfect production. However, there was a difference... at least for those who knew.

It was no longer the artist's performance that was captured perfectly, it was the artist captured then enhanced, manipulated etc by the producer, engineer etc, and this allowed everyone into the game of super polished studio releases. It essentially took a turn toward homogenization.

The public got used to this precision sound in the 1980's and it's my feeling that prog really lost it's advantage to the listener's ear.

Now anyone could theoretically release something "amazing" with regard to speed of notes played, perfect sounds, precision drumming and bass tracks. Even vocals could be fixed by pitch shifters and other digital manipulations.

All of this enabled "Steely Dan" or "Rush" sounding production on recordings. But unlike the 70's, it wasn't necessarily the musicians doing the work, but instead the studio computer magicians making the bands sound quite unrealistic.

Another way to think about this is that before computers, bands and producers were listening to the tracks with their ears only, they couldn't SEE the tracks sound waves...
and then when computers came onboard, they could SEE the music on a screen, the sound waves, and were becoming very concerned about how the files LOOKED. They could SEE things that were off.. not aligned and that could of course be fixed.

So there really was this huge division in how music was being recorded, created or now rendered.

I'm not suggesting that any kind or rock or pop music has ever had truly honest intentions... but the entry of computers into the game really changed the expectations of both the musicians and the listening public to the point that most any natural tracking would sound too loose and or sloppy for mainstream radio or major label offerings.

This then required that musicians themselves get up to speed on all the software etc, or needed to find extra money to pay someone to "properly" polish up the release as compared to the old way of track, mix, master, press it, release it.

Ultimately this is what happened, and most of the major studios closed down and went out of business due to home recording.

[rcarlberg]

Precision and "great take" aren't necessarily the same thing. In fact, often not -- the "feel" of the first take is often the reason for keeping it. Studio musicians are great for playing charts but they're not known for being particularly innovative.

I agree that Pro-Tools induced ultra-rigidity is bad for music, and that studio tools are increasingly being used to polish turds.

But computers are just a tool, like any other musical tool. As the Terminator says, they can be used for good or for bad.

[Skullhead]

Precision and "great take" aren't necessarily the same thing. In fact, often not -- the "feel" of the first take is often the reason for keeping it. Studio musicians are great for playing charts but they're not known for being particularly innovative.

I agree that Pro-Tools induced ultra-rigidity is bad for music, and that studio tools are increasingly being used to polish turds.

But computers are just a tool, like any other musical tool. As the Terminator says, they can be used for good or for bad.

I suppose one could use that argument for the arrival of the gun. Of course people don't have to use them, but they do. The fact that guns are now common place has had a major impact on society. There have been attempts to limit the production of guns, bullets.... banning hand guns etc. The reason being that their misuse has become an issue worth considering.

For instance, before the invention of the camera, their were only painters. For most it is more convenient to snap a photo than to paint an image that will of course be somewhat of a distortion of that image. However, does that mean we should discard the art of painting because it has become obsolete or outdated? There are still painters around.

But I would suspect the art of recording music without computers is nearly extinct. The old way was a different way of doing things and with different results.

Is it possible this distinction could be applied to music in historical retrospect at some future point in time? Music made before and after computers?

[Rarebird]

I suppose one could use that argument for the arrival of the gun. Of course people don't have to use them, but they do. The fact that guns are now common place has had a major impact on society. There have been attempts to limit the production of guns, bullets.... banning hand guns etc. The reason being that their misuse has become an issue worth considering.

For instance, before the invention of the camera, their were only painters. For most it is more convenient to snap a photo than to paint an image that will of course be somewhat of a distortion of that image. However, does that mean we should discard the art of painting because it has become obsolete or outdated? There are still painters around.

But I would suspect the art of recording music without computers is nearly extinct. The old way was a different way of doing things and with different results.

Is it possible this distinction could be applied to music in historical retrospect at some future point in time? Music made before and after computers?

Well, there are also photographers, whose work is considered art. Just because there is a tool that makes creating something easier, it doesn't mean there is no room for creativity. In the end it is what one does with the tools available.

[Jubal]

"Asia" is a Rock band that spun off some Proggers who decided they needed to make some money. "Aja" is the name of a Steely Band album.
Computers simplified a lot of complex tasks. I for one hated drum machines, and still do. I don't despise that they added greater overall precision to many albums.
I am also thankful that now I can make my own custom mixes and segues, thanks to the developers of Audacity.

[Speare-shaker]

In the days before the super technology, producers used to bring in top-notch session musicians to play the tracks for the guys whose musicianship we were supposed to be hearing and often were falsely led to believe we were hearing. As with the computerized technology, it got ridiculous after a while--perfectly competent musicians were being overdubbed by studio musicians who were no better or didn't sound a bit different. It was a racket--a way to get money into pockets of studio musicians for no other reason than to get money into pockets of studio musicians. I think prog may have played a part in putting a stop to that kind of thing--what studio guy is going to play over Keith Emerson's tracks??

So the trickery and money game went over into technology. But it's really the same shell game being employed. It will be sorted out in posterity just as the studio musician thing is now. Lots of bands once lauded as great are now being questioned as being deserving of even being remembered because their musicianship was faked. And in the future it will be same--how good was so-and-so when all their stuff was so overproduced and auto-tuned that NO ONE could possibly sound that slick IRL?

[Sputnik]

There's no question computer technology changed the game for music production. I think it has been a blessing and a curse.

I agree with many of the points you raise about the metronomic precision of drum machines (not to mention their sounds, especially early on), and the ability of Pro Tools to "fix any mistake," have had a profound impact on what we hear, and to some extent how much music is actually composed. We've definitely lsot some of the "feel" and the "artistry" of the recorded performance.

Whether that contributed to the "death of Prog," I'm not sure. As you point out, this move toward precision pre-dates computers. If you buy Ed Macan's argument that it was late 70s "Corporate Rock" like Boston, Foreigner, Styx, ELO, etc. that blended art rock suerficialities with strong hooks and slick production that really killed (or "engulfed") Progressive Rock, then there is a connection to this move toward precision. Asia sort of iced that cake (though oddly, they eschew metronmic rhythmic precision on their first album, even with alll the butt-bumping 4/4 discoesque beats). YesWest's 90125 sealed the "Progger to pop star" deal, and there I think you have much more rhythmic precision. But widespread computer production was still a few years away in 1983, and "Prog" as we knew it was well and truly dead by 1983.

It only got worse for the big name bands from there, and you definitely see and/or hear the influence of technology more and more though the 80s/90s.

But in the 90s, you also had a crop of bands that were able to use computer technology to enable them to make and distribute music independently. Some of them used drum machines (A Triggering Myth, for example). But they used them far more creatively than what was in the musical mainstream. Others just used Pro Tools or whatever recording package to get a recording they could release. They couldn't afford to do this in a studio for music that was to be sold small-scale. And yes, they used Pro Tools to polish their performances and enhance their sounds to get somethig like a professional sounding studio recording.

Was this "cheating?" In the 70s in a studio you could "punch in" over a bum note or phrase in an otherwise good take. With Pro Tools you could move a note slightly if it was out, or replace it. Same difference to me. A studio recording is different from a live performance. It's supposed to be more perfect. There are tons of fixes on classic 70s albums that we don't notice, few of those performances on record represent one "perfect" take. As a recording artist, you get used to making these fixes sound natural and musical. and I think as the 90s progressed and the techoloogy became better, recording artists were able to do the same thing with computer recording technology, rendering output that was musical and didn't lose the nuances or feel of the performance.

So yeah, the game changed. The big studios shut down because eventually you could largely do at home (or in a smaller, digital studio) what you could do at Advison or Trident for a hell of a lot less money. Given the economics of scale, we wouldn't have nearly as much music today had that not happened. And today, at least within the Prog sphere, I think there has been a revival in the desire to get natural sounds and recordings that "breathe." So in some areas we've backed off from the metronomic precision while still getting the benefit of digital recording capabilities. It's been a bit a ride, with ups and downs.

The other way the coputer has of course helped and hurt is in digital distribution. The computer is a fantastic way to link with music released on a small scale, either in physical or digital format. I have nothing against digitial distribution per se, but they need to work out proper compensation models for artists and find a better way to deal with piracy. What started out as a boon has become a curse, and policy needs to catch up to the technology here. That's a different debate, but it's another way in which technology has impacted music.

Bill

[Wounded Land]

I think I agree with those who say that technology is a tool, which can be used with musical or non-musical results. Certainly technology has made it easier to produce certain musical elements (drummers playing perfectly in time, singers singing perfectly in tune, etc.). One of the results of this is that I am less impressed with musicians of our era inasmuch as they are musicians. No modern singer is going to impress me like Birgit Nilsson, no trumpeter like Clifford Brown, no drummer like Neil Peart, etc. It's just too easy to "cheat" nowadays.

But, with that being said, if all that matters in the end is the music, does it matter how it's made? I know that for myself, as an amateur musician, the ability to nudge things around a little bit in post-production is a wonderful tool. At the same time I do agree with those who think that it all too easy for things to end up sounding lifeless. To me, that's more of a production decision: the ability to say "yes, we can fix that part (tuning, timing, etc.), but we're not going to because the feel is good even though there may be technical mistakes in this performance." I know that, for myself, I am constantly thinking about this when I'm in the studio.

I suppose what it all means is that the illusion of live performance (which was always just that: an illusion) is almost impossible to maintain these days. I can listen to A Farewell to Kings and imagine the three guys in the band playing "Xanadu" together live and making a glorious racket, but it's not as easy to do the same with, say, the new Corvus Stone.

NP: Coheed & Cambria Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Vol. I

[Speare-shaker]

It's always that way. We get this new technology and we just go overboard with it until people start asking, "What was wrong with the old way?" Remember when MIDI became all the rage? No need to hire horn sections and strings when you can just MIDI it up. Now people want to hire the string and horn sections again because the MIDI thing sounds too...well...MIDI. MIDI still certainly has its applications but people have kind of backed off on the MIDI-is-the-answer-to-everything-for-all-time mentality that dominated the 90s. Same thing with soft synths. We all bought them--I sure did. All these presets and no need to have to patch for 10 hours trying to come up with the perfect double bass sound. But suddenly, people started realizing the value of patching and working with pure electronic sound rather than samples and mimickry and suddeny there's this new demand for analog synths which you would have thought was gone forever in the heyday of the multi-timbral/MIDI revolution.

So the recording technology will find balance eventually when people get sick of sounding just like everybody else.

[tallliman]

My main problem with some of the technology is the tendency to lose some of the feel that generally is needed within a track to make them feel real. In some genre's such as metal, this precision is probably for the best as it tidies the music up a little but for rock and rootsy music, it often creates a lifeless track. Having said that, I would have argued in the past that the basic tracks should all be recorded together with focus on getting the right take for the bass and drums but The Mars Volta's Frances The Mute was all recorded separately (although I believe some was live) and doesn't seem to suffer.

I guess I just don't like sterile sounding records with ultra-slick production jobs on them.

[Speare-shaker]

[GuitarGeek]

I am also thankful that now I can make my own custom mixes and segues, thanks to the developers of Audacity.

I've done that a few times. I grafted the acapella intro from the single edit of Yes' Lift Me Up onto the album version, and I also produced my own "special radio edit" of Close To The Edge, just to see if it was possible to make a satisfying (to me) single edit of the piece. I tried to combine the album and single mixes of Chilliwack's My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone), but the two mixes, or at least the two files I was working with, were different enough that "the seams showed", if you know what I mean, it was like watching a monster movie where it's obvious the monster is just a stuntman in a wetsuit and covered in seaweed or whatever.

[Skullhead]

Well, there are also photographers, whose work is considered art. Just because there is a tool that makes creating something easier, it doesn't mean there is no room for creativity. In the end it is what one does with the tools available.

No argument that it is not a creative tool. Of course it is, but it is also a very different process. It certainly allows for an artist to very easily become pretentious. What I mean by that is in the true literal meaning of that word. Pretending you are better than you are.

I can now pretend that I can lay drum tracks as precise as Neil Peart did on Permanent Waves. I can paste in extra snare or tom hits pretending I could really do that. Neil on the other hand, before computers, actually had to increase his skill level as a player to arrive at his speed and precision. Many hundreds of "inconvenient hours" or practice to do so.

But it's not just the inconvenience of practicing that is at stake. Sometimes creative ideas come to a musician during these extra hundreds of hours of practicing. I play drums a bit, and I have accidentally found some unintended uses for accidents or things I have stumbled across while exploring the art of excessive practicing.

To make an "impressive" recording, one certainly doesn't have to practice as much as they used to.

So this begs other questions. Can one tell the difference between real and manipulated? Does anyone even care?
I suppose most can't and most don't care.

But I am sure that in the pre digital age, people didn't have to even consider that distinction, and YES they did care.
Many people went to see "Rush" for example to see if they could actually play like that live. They gained a significant fan base for this reason. They were excellent live. It was jaw dropping really.

Later on, once the computer became a friend of the artist, it was common for the band to play along with the computer driven pulse or computer generated sounds. All this done in the name of art.

I don't know for sure, but when it's all said and done for the musical historians of the future, I believe that the pre computer albums that Rush did will be held in the highest regard. Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant, ELP, Tull, Crimson, I don't think any of these bands works will be regarded as their greatest achievements post computer involvement.

Of course I could be wrong.

[Skullhead]

Well, there are also photographers, whose work is considered art.

I agree with this of course. But I also believe that over time, the great master paintings will be held in higher artistic regard in the worlds finest museums over the worlds finest digital photographic renderings.

[Skullhead]

"Asia" is a Rock band that spun off some Proggers who decided they needed to make some money. "Aja" is the name of a Steely Band album.
Computers simplified a lot of complex tasks. I for one hated drum machines, and still do. I don't despise that they added greater overall precision to many albums.
I am also thankful that now I can make my own custom mixes and segues, thanks to the developers of Audacity.

We have all heard the argument that if you want it bad enough, you'll find a way to make it happen. Suppose for instance that you have these great songs in your head or composed on sheet music etc, but you lived in the 70's not in today's world.
Would you give up? or would you try to find a great live drummer who could track this stuff for you? However it's done, you take on a second job for a while, save your money, buy some studio time, bring in a world class drummer.

Point being, is it possible that the end result might be better if you had a real pro tracking it in real time with all the nuance and human feel one could deliver? Or is the ease of Audacity samples going to get there the same?

[Skullhead]

In the days before the super technology, producers used to bring in top-notch session musicians to play the tracks for the guys whose musicianship we were supposed to be hearing and often were falsely led to believe we were hearing. As with the computerized technology, it got ridiculous after a while--perfectly competent musicians were being overdubbed by studio musicians who were no better or didn't sound a bit different. It was a racket--a way to get money into pockets of studio musicians for no other reason than to get money into pockets of studio musicians. I think prog may have played a part in putting a stop to that kind of thing--what studio guy is going to play over Keith Emerson's tracks??

So the trickery and money game went over into technology. But it's really the same shell game being employed. It will be sorted out in posterity just as the studio musician thing is now. Lots of bands once lauded as great are now being questioned as being deserving of even being remembered because their musicianship was faked. And in the future it will be same--how good was so-and-so when all their stuff was so overproduced and auto-tuned that NO ONE could possibly sound that slick IRL?

This is a big part of my point. How will it be looked upon in the future? I am experiencing this already. Am I ahead of my time? lol

But in all seriousness, I don't have to question 60's jazz recordings for their artistic integrity. The prog bands usually had very distinctive players... so you could tell. But almost all of the new releases I hear from the last decade or longer sound very doctored up. It doesn't sound natural.

[Rarebird]

No argument that it is not a creative tool. Of course it is, but it is also a very different process. It certainly allows for an artist to very easily become pretentious. What I mean by that is in the true literal meaning of that word. Pretending you are better than you are.

I can now pretend that I can lay drum tracks as precise as Neil Peart did on Permanent Waves. I can paste in extra snare or tom hits pretending I could really do that. Neil on the other hand, before computers, actually had to increase his skill level as a player to arrive at his speed and precision. Many hundreds of "inconvenient hours" or practice to do so.

But it's not just the inconvenience of practicing that is at stake. Sometimes creative ideas come to a musician during these extra hundreds of hours of practicing. I play drums a bit, and I have accidentally found some unintended uses for accidents or things I have stumbled across while exploring the art of excessive practicing.

To make an "impressive" recording, one certainly doesn't have to practice as much as they used to.

So this begs other questions. Can one tell the difference between real and manipulated? Does anyone even care?
I suppose most can't and most don't care.

But I am sure that in the pre digital age, people didn't have to even consider that distinction, and YES they did care.
Many people went to see "Rush" for example to see if they could actually play like that live. They gained a significant fan base for this reason. They were excellent live. It was jaw dropping really.

Later on, once the computer became a friend of the artist, it was common for the band to play along with the computer driven pulse or computer generated sounds. All this done in the name of art.

I don't know for sure, but when it's all said and done for the musical historians of the future, I believe that the pre computer albums that Rush did will be held in the highest regard. Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant, ELP, Tull, Crimson, I don't think any of these bands works will be regarded as their greatest achievements post computer involvement.

Of course I could be wrong.

On one hand you have the art of the performer and on the other hand the art of the creator (composer). In the end the use of the computer is not much different from the use of studiowizardy. The computer is just a tool to make things easier, but in the end it is the creator who is in control. It can help to make something more perfect, just like the studio. A composer doesn't need to be a virtuoso, the performer has to, if the composer wishes so. Even in recording classical music, things like rerecording a passage that didn't went well, is used, to create a perfect picture.

I couldn't work without a computer, plain and simple because 'm not able to pay musicians to play what I want them to play. Besides it helps me to hear what I have in my mind.

[Skullhead]

One of the results of this is that I am less impressed with musicians of our era inasmuch as they are musicians. No modern singer is going to impress me like Birgit Nilsson, no trumpeter like Clifford Brown, no drummer like Neil Peart, etc. It's just too easy to "cheat" nowadays.

I think this point goes a bit deeper. If you couldn't fix things digitally, might you be more committed and motivated to improve your skill set? Or work with others who had that skill set.. then you have the cross pollination of a true band experience with more than your own input, and the potential for music to be greater than the sum of it's parts like all the great classic prog bands demonstrated.

Just a thought.

[Skullhead]

It's always that way. We get this new technology and we just go overboard with it until people start asking, "What was wrong with the old way?" Remember when MIDI became all the rage? No need to hire horn sections and strings when you can just MIDI it up. Now people want to hire the string and horn sections again because the MIDI thing sounds too...well...MIDI. MIDI still certainly has its applications but people have kind of backed off on the MIDI-is-the-answer-to-everything-for-all-time mentality that dominated the 90s. Same thing with soft synths. We all bought them--I sure did. All these presets and no need to have to patch for 10 hours trying to come up with the perfect double bass sound. But suddenly, people started realizing the value of patching and working with pure electronic sound rather than samples and mimickry and suddeny there's this new demand for analog synths which you would have thought was gone forever in the heyday of the multi-timbral/MIDI revolution.

So the recording technology will find balance eventually when people get sick of sounding just like everybody else.

Amen, hope that happens sooner than later. But I don't see that happening anytime soon. It's just too easy and tempting to keep using the editing mouse.

[Speare-shaker]

Yes, it will take time. Took a good 10 years for people to get off that MIDI kick. The thing about it was it has to saturate the market. Like if I play a string section on the MIDI keyboard it sounds great. But then another does it and another guy after that. Pretty soon everyone is doing it and all of them can immediately hear that it is a MIDI keyboard and not a real string section and now people start to dislike that kind of thing and wax nostalgic over it: "Remember how great those recordings with REAL strings sounded?" Sooner or later some new artist will come along and want that real string section sound again. So it comes full circle. But it takes and saturation. As soon everybody who is recording both professionally and at home starts to easily recognize the nuts and bolts of everybody else's production values, then there will be a rebellion, a not wanting to sound like that. But this may take quite some time because every Tom, Dick and Harry who watches Idol and the Voice are so enamored with this stuff because they think it's going to take them to the top.

[Skullhead]

Yes, it will take time. Took a good 10 years for people to get off that MIDI kick. The thing about it was it has to saturate the market. Like if I play a string section on the MIDI keyboard it sounds great. But then another does it and another guy after that. Pretty soon everyone is doing it and all of them can immediately hear that it is a MIDI keyboard and not a real string section and now people start to dislike that kind of thing and wax nostalgic over it: "Remember how great those recordings with REAL strings sounded?" Sooner or later some new artist will come along and want that real string section sound again. So it comes full circle. But it takes and saturation. As soon everybody who is recording both professionally and at home starts to easily recognize the nuts and bolts of everybody else's production values, then there will be a rebellion, a not wanting to sound like that. But this may take quite some time because every Tom, Dick and Harry who watches Idol and the Voice are so enamored with this stuff because they think it's going to take them to the top.

All good points, but let's also consider that a lot of horn and string sections have been put out of business. A great horn section is harder to come by these days because they are not making records anymore, and less and less people are going to see them live because of other kinds of music offerings.

I think it's a dying breed.

[Rarebird]

It is not just MIDI, but they idea one can replace anything with keyboards.
If I compare Wings over America with Paul McCartney - Good evening New York City, I prefer the first one with some real brass and woodwinds. Good evening New York City makes me scream: "please Paul, hire some real brass and woodwinds, like you did on Wings over America and don't replace everything with keyboards, it will make it so much more enjoyable."

[Skullhead]

Bruford did an interview a while back where he talked about how the electronic drum kit ruined his ability to play a traditional kit. It took him a couple of years to get back to where he was on jazz kit. It's not just hitting the surface of a pad, but how and where you hit a real drum or cymbal that offers so many tones etc.... and drummers know that each drum has a different bounce that must be learned, but the pads make all that uniform in a effort to make it easier... but Bill alludes that something significant is lost.

[Speare-shaker]

Yeah, try hitting a rim shot snare on a rubber pad.

[Sputnik]

Yeah, try hitting a rim shot snare on a rubber pad.

Actually the rubber pads respond to rim shots and playing dynamics. This has been true for 10+ years, and I'm sure the technology today is better than it was in the early 2000s. It's absolutely not the same as a real kit and never will be, but there are circumstances where an electronic kit might a reasonable solution depending on your goals. Electronic kits enabled some albums to get made that otherwise wouldn't have been made, because recording drums properly is expensive and requires expertise and a location where it can be done. So you have to take the good with the bad on that, but I have may albums in my collection with electronic drums, and while I don't always love that aspect of it, I'm happier that the albums got made at all.

The other thing to consider, that unfortunately a lot of drummers do not, is that you can get a different palette of sounds from an electronic kit than an acoustic kit. So electronics can make a great augmentation to a real kit, or even a replacment to a real kit if you want to go beyond the traditional sound of a drum kit. The problem with many electronic drum kits, especially early on, is that they tried and failed miserably to emulate real drums. The best uses of these things was to take a totally different approach with them, which very few did. That has changed with time, and there are some modern players that make good use of hybrid electronic/natural kits. The technology has also improved tremendously, to the point where when done carefully, I'll be a high percentage of listeners can't tell the difference between something that was played on pads triggering samples and areal kit.

I guess I agree with the poster above that said in effect it itsn't how you get there, but what it sounds like in the end that matters. If you used technology to create an album that is well received and enjoyed by people, I see no issue with that; whether it's using electornic drums, samples, fixing notes in Pro Tools, MIDI, whatever. If the musical result is enjoyed, what difference does it make? Admittedly, this stuff will have a different sound than an album using natural instrumets, but different isn't by definition bad. It can be bad, laughably so in some cases. But Sometimes it works OK, and sometmes works great.

They're tools, and the art is in how one uses them.

Bill