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I don't recall any Grammys going out to other people that created music authoring programs. That includes the programs that professionals use to author their recordings.

Actually, there's a type of Special Merit Award in the Producers/Engineers area, the "Technical Grammy," that's been given out since 1994 to "individuals and/or companies who have made contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field." I'm not sure how many of the people and companies listed are on the software side of things specifically - pretty sure 2012 winner Celemony is, and of course 2002 winner Apple, but a lot of the other names are unfamiliar.

See: http://www.grammy.org/recording-academy/producers-and-engineers/awards

Ah, correction, writers are still making music.

This is the problem. A good deal of music these days is written by some very talented individual behind the scenes. Thing is that people need a face to attribute all talent to. A pretty face. BTW, Antares Autotune is so 90s... its all about Melodyne these days.

This is not entirely on point. Since it's a rare day on slashdot where I actually halfway know what I'm talking about, I can't resist pitching in :)

Hm. Naming problem. Colloquially they're called 'module trackers' or 'midi/music sequencers', but essentially they're both the same thing: a program that places hardware/user-defined notes in user-designed spots in songs.

Although at the most simplified level I suppose this is correct, they're not really the same thing at the level beyond that. Trackers are step-time. Commonly, each step equates to sixteenth notes (four steps per beat of the bar). Modern trackers may allow you to choose greater resolution, but in the past (and by "past" I'm talking turn of the century here, which was when I used them, not decades ago!) it was pretty common to simply work at double-bpm if you needed more resolution. On the other hand, midi sequencers... well... clearly I can't claim they're continuous, as that's obviously a theoretical impossibility in a digital system. But they don't come across as step like. Resolution-wise, even at the same sort of period ('99), Cubase had an internal MIDI resolution of 15360 PPQN (pulses per quarter note). Most decent DAWs these days (Pro tools, Nuendo) will allow you to spot events to sample accuracy (ie, if you're working at cd quality, you've got a resolution of 44,100 per second) or locked to various types of timecode (for, eg, film scoring). Against, while it's possible modern trackers incorporate this (I haven't really used them for a few years), I would certainly say that older trackers (FT2, IT2, Modplug-as-I-knew-it, Buzz) do not allow you to put your notes on spots as defined by (eg) SMPTE timecode. Also, the "note" in a trackers was traditionally triggering a sample loaded directly within the tracker software, whereas the notes in a midi sequencer drive hardware, or a software sampler/synth/instrument (the most common format being VSTi). Admittedly, these days many/most trackers can output midi and use software instruments too, so I admit the definition is pretty thoroughly blurred. Still, it helps to realise the different backgrounds they've come from, because whilst it's blurred, you still can't really see them as identical.

To the talented, they are a good as a room full of fine musical instruments. To the less talented, they're much like a cat with a tether attached to its tail, labeled 'swing me'.

True!

There are also 'sound editors', like Sound Forge, that allow you to mess with the raw sound data, and Cakewalk and Audacity, which are excellent 'multitrack recorders' with SF-like functionality built in (Cakewalk's a MUCH better program, but as for Audacity, 'free' is a good selling point).

Cakewalk these days is known as Sonar. But even with the old Cakewalk branded versions, considering it a multitrack soundforge would be doing it a bit of a disservice. Like Cubase and Logic, it's essentially a hybrid DAW/Midi sequencer.

None of these could be considered 'music editors', which to me implies something that can take in raw PCM data and let you select out and remove, add, and modify notes. No such program exists to my knowledge.

Well, no, not really, because it's barely possible for computers to pull apart PCM data in that way... In fact as little as five years ago I'd have said impossible, but we are getting there. The closest there currently is would be melodyne. I haven't used it (because it's bloody expensive!) but reviews I've read suggest you can pretty much treat audio as midi - ie, select and alter individual notes from an audio file. Even then, it will struggle or outright fail if the source material is (eg) heavily effected with delays/reverbs/etc. And while it's ok for monophonic audio, you're not going to be able to (say) change the flute line from the midst of an orchestral recording.