The danger in technology is not the power the technology has, which can be misused by a person, but that the natural flow of the use of technology argues for banality and conformity and the mundane. And it argues against the unexpected and the accidental and the perverse. So my only advice to music technology people is to be very careful when you automate the process of making something prettier, or regulating something. It’s now kind of normal for people to tune their vocals in the studio to the extent that one vocalist is just as good as another; for a lot of utilitarian tasks, it could be anybody. And as tools become more powerful, you run the risk of reducing essentially everyone to interchangeable elements, because the quirks and the idiosyncracies and the oddities that make us able to discern the difference between one person and another, those disappear. (…) The natural utility of [these tools] argues against the irregularities and the perversities that make music brilliant rather than delivering what is expected.”

Steve Albini