Hmm, yes, there's VST's, ribbon controllers, ableton Push and the samplers, arpeggiators and sequencers builtin to DAWs and many synths. And Max for Live is ama

Hmm, yes, there's VST's, ribbon controllers, ableton Push and the samplers, arpeggiators and sequencers builtin to DAWs and many synths. And Max for Live is amazing. I have devoted thousands of hours voluntarily as an adult to guitar, mandolin, clarinet, violin and viola, among others (after many years of involuntary music lessons as a kid), I think it's worthwhile, but there's definitely a trend to using e.g. drum VST's in recordings in such a way that it's hard to discern that they're not live drum tracks.