I'm very familiar with the tech, and I understand my comment about DAW being an instrument is a little metaphorical ... but the Engineering/Production is now wh

I'm very familiar with the tech, and I understand my comment about DAW being an instrument is a little metaphorical ... but the Engineering/Production is now where the material creativity happens. Obviously it's not happening in 'real time' - but rather, by tuning each bar, each phrase, applying different effects etc. hence they are 'playing that instrument'. Songwriting, melody, possibly musicianship and definitely lyrics are kind of secondary. You can say anything in a song these days it doesn't matter.