I'm not saying that I'm a crappy musician (though I say that to myself a lot lately, cause I haven't finished much stuff in the last couple of years - though my engineerings are great, at least that's what all my friends say). I'm critisizing the general "blah blah" from the media and the so called "professionals".
You know, they say "this and that has to be standard and you have to have it, else you're nothing". And those who stick to their own style, techniques and equipment (like I do) have to suffer in several ways. One of them is the critism to have crappy equipment - even though that isn't true, Waves is in no way better than Voxengo and Kjaerhus (lately even crysonic!), it just costs more. And the other thing that's also bound to that, is the thing that "if" you have that (crappy) equipment, you get no deals cause some fgt decided that certain "tools" are standard, which you don't have, and therefore nobody wants you to do anything on their tracks.
I had to learn that myself the hard way, and I've seen that over and over. From one of the (fun) remixing communities I'm coming from, there was one who was like "you have a nice equipment, but get rid of your Behringer crap" to someone who offered engineering jobs. And I was like "the hell?" - Like I said, I use Behringer equipment (a mic preamp, two analog mixers of the Eurodesk/Rack series, soon the BCR/BCF and the Minimon) - does that make me a crappy engineer automatically?! I'd say no.
Also, I adapted the K-System by Mr. Katz (from Digital Domain). Still I'm being bitched at "make it louder - it's too quiet" and I'm like "I won't or do you want your tracks to be squarewaves and without any dynamics?!" and then the client/listeners are once again "you suck". Does that make me automatically a crappy engineer cause I'm sticking to a standard that maintains the sound and clarity of the early 90ies, doesn't kill your ears in an instant and works even for DVD streams?! I'd say no.
This is what I'm critisizing. We small studio users/engineers have to suffer from what the media ports in other heads, or the so called "big time engineers" set in terms of standards (among them Mr. Nichols!). You don't use/have this and that - you're automatically not "professional" and are nothing more than a mediocre engineer.
YEAH RIGHT! [/sarcasm]
So yeah, I'm not saying I'm crappy, it just pisses me off how the "game" is played. However the war we're fighting was already lost before it even started. And this is the most sadening and annoying thing.

Kinda reminds me of 
