MakeShiftSo in my own way of thinking, I think my answer would be that it is important to strive to be the best at what ever you do, be it musician or engineer. However, if weighted, the song and performance are still the most important part of the equation.

 
Right on Mike, my feelings as well. I think getting the best sound possible (within reason) is essential. However, it's way too easy to end up doing lab work for weeks on something if you're not careful. To me these days, unless I hear blatant errors on a mix that drive me crazy, as long as it's audible, it's a good mix. I try as hard as I can to accept the vision of the artist while also keeping in mind that they may not have the resources to get anything better.
 
So yeah man, do the best you can, make it audible and put it to bed so you can work on the next tune. :)
 
-Danny

There's room for both sides. It's nice to listen to something really well captured and with tasteful enhancement to make it sonically more interesting. Something, to me, like Natalie Merchant's Tiger Lilly or Nora Jones' Come Away With Me, those are all very good songs and very well captured and produced. That's one whole type of way to go about it and it works really well, and probably the exceptional capture does add something to it, even if not consciously to the non-technical.

But there's also the other side that works well, too. Probably each end of the spectrum works best for some types of music as compared to others. A rougher vibe is often very useful for some types of music, it's not even a compromise. It may be a conscious choice, e.g. Cobain's decision to make the music fairly primitive to offset the fact that he knew he was singing very 'pretty' melodies a lot of the time. And lots of indie stuff is purposefully done in a not overly polished way because it fits the aesthetic (though it may be that that aesthetic came to exist because most indie artists can't afford to do more and it just  becamse the accepted sound of that sort of music.)

A really good engineer should in theory, at least on the good days, be able to get a good capture without unduly affecting the vibe or spontaneity. And some music just requires more thought, on both the band's and the engineer's part. Not everything is a three minute pop tune that can be put down in one shot, whereas a punk band may well only be able to get the right vibe that way. Some music benefits from time and care, Pink Floyd being a fairly canonical example for me.

Well said Dean. I think we have more variables in the way things are engineered and mixed now. A good engineer I think now has to think about the final sound you are after more than ever. And know what to do in order to get there. And be prepared to change too if necessary even if that change happens in the mix stages.

I also like the fact that different types of engineering (pristine and rough etc) can be heard together within the music, opens up more ideas and opportunities. Not only can different music genres co exist so easily now different types of engineering can. 

I have just mastered a hip hop album where they mixed up a lot of engineering approaches and it sounds bloody great and I have enjoyed it a lot. Things happen when you least expect them.

Digital has allowed us now the opportunity for a mix to contain different sounding elements much more so than before. With analogue when you put a production through all those stages then the end result had a sort of similar sound and vibe. Digital is cool in that we can apply very analogue sounding process to some stems and leave others more transparent and pristine. And we can mix much a rougher courser sounding indy vibe engineering approach with clean beautifully captured other sounds etc. 

But its great to capture and do a while mix in one style of engineering too. I do it a lot like most of us I think. I have always said I love the way jazz is being recorded and produced right now. Better than ever before. Period. I don't want to hear aww they did those wonderful recordings back then. Yes they did but they are way better now. The level of detail is exhilarating.