A post in The Recording Revolution identifies 3 roles in recording, and uses a three legged stool as an analogy. The 3 roles are Engineer, Producer, and Pro Tools operator (which without a DAW would be Assistant Engineer). The article concludes by stating that today's engineer must be all three: "You have to think like a producer, engineer, and daw operator in order to cover all of your bases and give your songs the star treatment they deserve!".
Therein lies the myth - that 3 highly skilled individuals can be rolled into one person and still achieve great results. Think about this for a minute. If one professional could do all three tasks, then the pro session would have one person (thus saving two peoples pay). The fact that they don't is due to there being extremely few people who can actually do even two of these things really well. Engineer-Producers do exist but in the pro world of recording they will not attempt both jobs at once. Why then would an amateur be able to handle all three tasks? The answer is that they cannot. This in part explains why in the huge volume of home recorded material there are not many truly great songs made.
Therein lies the myth - that 3 highly skilled individuals can be rolled into one person and still achieve great results. Think about this for a minute. If one professional could do all three tasks, then the pro session would have one person (thus saving two peoples pay). The fact that they don't is due to there being extremely few people who can actually do even two of these things really well. Engineer-Producers do exist but in the pro world of recording they will not attempt both jobs at once. Why then would an amateur be able to handle all three tasks? The answer is that they cannot. This in part explains why in the huge volume of home recorded material there are not many truly great songs made.