I come from a generation of musicians whose only hope to record was to pay piles of money or be signed by a label to be able to go in to a REAL studio. And sometimes the highest tech piece in there was a 2 track tape Ampex! You were lucky if you had more than 4 channels on the mixer! I saved my nickels and dimes to be able to afford 2 stereo cassette decks and a small Radio Shack mixer. I spent hours recording on one machine and bouncing back and forth between the two to build my multitrack masterpieces. I'm glad I went thru that process, though, because I learned so much about mic placement, sibilance, level settings, etc! When 4 track came out it was the epitome of the Pro Tools revolution for bedroom songwriters everywhere. Then George Martin bouncing the Beatles back and forth on 2 4 tracks for Sgt. Pepper. Along came 8 track and the rest is history.......
It is so funny to see people on these forums moaning about having to wait so long for a software upgrade! I would bet that the amount of brainpower to develop software for recording is equal if not more than it took to develop 1 track tape recording in to the 512 track monstrosities we see now a days.
Trust me on this! We have it better now than we have ever had it when it comes to setting up a home recording rig that is very capable of churning world class recordings.!!!!! If I had this technology when I was a kid, there is no telling what could have been accomplished in the collective community.
BTW, not much has changed over the years. We still spend piles of money or have to get signed in order to get great recordings!!!!!!! LOL!