Creativity Quote by Randy Castillo

Castillo’s line reads like a drummer’s version of a peace treaty in the analog-versus-digital wars: a preference stated plainly, then instantly defused before it hardens into dogma. “I prefer” signals taste, not doctrine. The second clause - “but that does not mean” - is doing quiet rhetorical heavy lifting, anticipating the kind of gatekeeping that haunts studio talk, where format choices get mistaken for moral character.

The subtext is survival in a changing industry. Castillo came up when tape was the default and the sound of rock drums was literally shaped by physical limits: saturation, headroom, the gentle glue of compression baked into the medium. Saying he prefers analog is also saying he values a certain kind of drum truth: weight, warmth, and the sense of air moving in a room, not just a signal captured cleanly. But he refuses nostalgia as an identity. He’s carving out room to be a working musician, not a museum piece.

Context matters: by the late ’90s and early 2000s, digital recording and editing weren’t just new tools; they were new economics. Budgets shrank, timelines tightened, and producers expected recall, cut-and-paste precision, and quantized perfection. Castillo’s sentence nods to that reality without surrendering his ear. It’s pragmatism with pride: the sound matters, but so does getting the job done, meeting collaborators where they are, and not mistaking workflow for worldview. In one breath, he protects craft and dodges the culture-war trap.