Sampling / MIDI / Cubase - It's all here now and it's dictating the pace and shape of modern music.

Much modern album music will use sampling techniques to produce the final studio sound and an entire industyr has sprung up sub-licensing original music keeping old rockers in royalties.

Honest examples include Gabriel's - "Rise" and the Verve's - "Bitter Sweet Symphony", but all those drum hooks on other tracks sound so familiar because their often lifted from James Brown or other classic artists.

Is this helping or hindering music?