I think that the more things change they stay the same. The quality of music doesn't vary with the technology. In other days, there were recordings that cost $75,000 and upward that have been found in cut-out bins. The trend aspect has always been there.

I like being able to produce my own CD's because I can feel as though I'm contributing something that I feel is worthwhile, rather than having that dictated to me by a nebulous market force.

As to the elements of high gloss production, it entirely depends upon what is being produced. I enjoy hearing folk music on the old Asch-Stinson and Folkways recordings that in some cases sound like they were recorded in a cow shed. But the quality of performance with a voice and guitar singing the folk songs I love were enough without having to signal-process everything so that it sounds like the artist is recording in a concert hall or for the radio.

I'll take a good performance of a song over a high-gloss production with all the processing gadgets, great mics, state-of-the-art technology. To me, "It son't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!"

Frank