You can sum a lot of this up with "Then computers and the internet happened...."

I remember when bands got 1 million dollar advances to do an album. 1 million dollars. That led to them doing things like renting castles in England to record in. That studio clock runs whether you are working or playing ping pong in the rec room.

There's no better example for me personally than my working with Rog. We live 3600 miles apart, but when I send him files he has them in minutes. He works on them and sends them back usually the next day. I critique what he did, he makes changes as needed, and sends it again. Once I like the mix he pulls out that magic dust he uses to master and then I get them back one last time. We've never met, likely will never meet, but we have a fine, respectful working relationship.

A local band here in the Cleveland area (now long disbanded) went to England to have Hugh Padgham mix an album for them. And it didn't sound any better than the ones done by the local guy they usually use. We have a studio here called Suma. That was the home base for Ken Hamann, who won gold records for his work with Grand Funk. His son Paul took over when Ken passed, and every band in the area wanted to record there because he was just that good. Sadly we lost him a few years back to cancer.

Studios will always be needed but by a different demographic than in the past. A lot of "if we could only record in a real studio with a real engineer" bands will still rent studios to take their one shot at fame and fortune, but be realistic about the odds. Think about this. There are 32 teams in the NFL. That means that for the entire male workforce, there are 32 starting QB jobs. And the odds are probably better at you getting one of those jobs than being a major force in the music business.