And we're tilting at windmills. I know Im the one always screaming for features in vegas that would let me truly capture great performances, unshackled. But for what? My daily driver musclecar has enough torq to uproot any of the tract houses being built around the desert and enough horsepower to run the quarter mile in under 12 seconds. But for what?

I LOVE having headroom, but still. I have a reputation for doing this audiophile jazz and (oh I hate the term) "ethnic Jazz", where the dynamics must be so that a horn player can break your windows, but you better be able to hear the most subtle brush mark on a snare. But my personal record collection is Misfits, Cockney Rejects, Suicidal Tendencies, Meatmen, and of course, ABBA. Jazz producers would turn green and purple if they saw what I listened to. I can appreciate their performances, and I can appreciate the do it yourself, Kmart special, el cheapo sound of my favorite punk albums as well, especially the songwriting

But for what?

I really got going in this bizz right where the pinnacle of songwriting, plus playing ability, plus recording technology were at a huge peak, seeming to get batter and more challenging everyday. Albums like Judas Priest's Painkiller, Black Sabbaths Dehumanizer, and Bonnie Rait's Nick of time were just coming out. Here I was thinking man this is only going to get better and better! For a brief period the mid to late 80's period of carbon copy bands was gone, and even country players were hiring heavy metal drummers, what could be better?

But for what? Pearl Garden Pilots and all that stuff came out, every band copied the "cat people" vocal style, and the playing just went out the window. How depressing

Now people are craving a technical playing style again, but so very few can do it. Now I have the technical power to fix almost anything, and the new lazy shmoes KNOW it. They decide that they will come in, and play one part right once, and that youll copy it a thousand times to make a song. They expect to sing like crap, total crap, and they KNOW what autottune is. They hear the Three Doors Down song, and arent offended by the pathjetic autotune in automode all over it.

I get a few players in every once in a while, but working bands in arizona are almost non existent, as their jobs have either been imported or exported (the second being a problem all over the country I guess, but the first uniquely endemic to Arizona to a degree even california and texas arent dealing with). I get "big name" holdovers in every once in a while, from past work, and they can play, but even THEY know how much cheaper they can make it with a bit of copy and paste and autotune, and few care about the hit in sound quality.

So here I am again, with the exception of the odd Dixieland Jazz Band, or super shredder thrash band, I am pretty much stuck creating performances. Its a sad world, but thank god for vegas, I wouldnt want to be editing this crap together in nuendo!