The Metaprogrammer

Pick a wikipedia page and chances are that scattered across the world, you'll find a handful or more of purists dedicating themselves to that subject. The internet has made it much simpler for these purists to indulge in their obsession with the meta.

Meanwhile most of the people into a hobby keep on just doing it with the equipment and materials they have. The purists do the hobbyist [1] a service in that they discuss every myriad detail at great length, frequently. The hobbyist gets free research this way, and the purist can continue to feel satisfied in their knowledge of the subject.

1. It's not that purists aren't also hobbyists - but their hobby as often the meta of the subject as much as the doing of the subject.

About five minutes before complaining about how the message isn't important any more became more important than the message.

The big thing we tangle on is always digital vs. analog. Oh boy.... Zzzzz... I've cut tape and editing on analog sucks. Noise on analog is not ideal. Compression and 'natural' bottom end warmth are nice. But that's where it stops. Most of (all of?) these things can now be simulated by plugins. We don't even have to say digital has won because it's so obvious. Analog is there for the minority purists.

This debate has between us has taken many hours over many years. Oh yah, let's not forget vinyl too!..

I've had to recently redirect the argument to musicianmanship, which I feel is really where the rubber meets the road. It all starts at the source. If your source sucks, then you'll have some work to do to fix it. Stuff like autotune, sample triggers, etc. In this way, analog is better as it will demand more of the musician's performance. Hard to swap out the kick drum on analog.

All in all, I personally don't think any non-studio experienced audiophiles would know if something was recorded digitally vs. analog. There are so many things you can do now and unless you know those studio 'tricks', you can't even tell. This has already been the case since the 90's I think. Everything can pretty much be simulated, processed, filtered, chopped, moved, etc.

One great resource for all this is Ken Andrews. Look him up. He's got a lot of great stories and insight on recording.

My advice to my friend: learn the tools and use what make sense artistically. But debate for theory's sake is pointless in my mind.

Then Aristotle wrote a book called "Physics" (though its subject was broader than what we now call physics) and another book whose title has been lost, about more abstruse things. It was typically shelved next to the "Physics" and listed after it in catalogues, and it was alleged that Aristotle thought its contents should be taught later than those of the "Physics", and it therefore came to be known as "Metaphysics": the thing that comes after the "Physics".

Because the stuff in the "Metaphysics" was felt to be deeper and more advanced than the stuff in the "Physics", "meta-" came to mean something like "beyond" -- with indeed a connotation of "X about X", but by no means always. "Metamathematics" is mathematics about mathematics, but "metapolitics" is theorizing about politics, not doing politics about politics.

(The above may sound ridiculous, but it really is where this usage of "meta-" comes from.)

I agree that it's weird to take "metaprogramming" to mean "discussion of things like office furniture, big monitors and text editors", and that "metaprogramming" already has a meaning and that that isn't it. But the problem isn't that "meta" can only mean "X about X"; that simply isn't true.