So...a studio buddy of mine here in Nashville has DVDs of multitrack releases to hit songs, including some by Queen and Michael Jackson.  I was amazed at how "perfect" the songs were with absolutely NO mixing.  For example, "Billie Jean" sounded nearly finished after importing the 30-40 tracks and making a few simple volume and panning adjustments.  The tracks were dry with no effects on them.  You even hear MJ snapping in the vocal booth while he's singing.
 
Here I am cutting, boosting, carving, sidechaining, layering, parallel compressing, saturating, doubling, etc, etc.
 
Such a loaded question, but why does theirs sound amazing with nothing, and my normal mixes sound marginal with all the fixins??
 
I swear I'd be a better mixer/producer if I had that same source material...lol
 
Humbled, 
Rizzo

Talented performers, and fantastic takes captured perfectly with high end gear, by engineers who know their craft - I would say 

Congratulation, You just "got it" 
 
Only record real good stuff and record it so it sounds as good as it's every going to sound. 
Don't hit that button until the part sounds right and can be played or sung at it's best. 
It will mix it self if all the levels were set properly too. 
 
I think a huge problem with unlimited tracking is people just record garbage and then try and make it sound good after the fact. It's why I don't even use Guitar sims. I get the guitar part to sound the way I want to fit the song,,, then I hit the button.. and I play my part all the way through if at all possible. 

Cactus Music
It's why I don't even use Guitar sims. I get the guitar part to sound the way I want to fit the song,,, then I hit the button.. and I play my part all the way through if at all possible. 

Me too. The sound going in has to be just right, otherwise it changes how and what I play.

Back then it was all about "Do it now" Vs. "Do it later".
Most of the time EQ, Compression and even Reverb/Delay FX were printed right to tape.
That was what I did and many, many others did as well. Matter of fact when I first started using Sonar I used this approach and used it for many years. It's a double edged sword as you can either capture lightening in a bottle or capture something that can never be changed. that is the sword of destructive recording.
 
There is something to be said about this way of working. you are left with data that is, in many ways un-editable.
Every mistake, every little nuance caught on tape in the moment. Joe Walsh has been a big promoter on this method of recording. His stories of how the album "Hotel California" was recorded really zooms in on this way of recording.
 
There are only so many "Do overs" you can get before it sounds too polished and over done.
Sometimes those little mistakes add up to become collective work of art. A good example would be to compare it to classic paintings done in, for example; 1600's thru 1800's. An artist used a brush to capture his visions.
I believe this is still the best way to work Vs. using Photoshop to fix little mistakes and add vibrance.
 
There are and will be many different opinions on the craft and how to work using both methods (early and present).
There is no debate though because everyone works in different ways and I could never argue anyone's opinion no matter how bizarre because they are artists and we should respect that. Face it, the best art has been born out of experiment, accident or breaking through the barriers of logic. Which one will you use ?
 
 
 
 

jamesg1213

Cactus Music
It's why I don't even use Guitar sims. I get the guitar part to sound the way I want to fit the song,,, then I hit the button.. and I play my part all the way through if at all possible. 

Me too. The sound going in has to be just right, otherwise it changes how and what I play.

Good points from both of you.
 
I do use guitar Sims out of necessity. rough drafting a song late at night or when a guitar amp is not feasible.
But a real amp has always been my number one choice. James is right, a guitar sound will change the way you play something.
And what Johnny mentioned about playing his parts all the way through was exactly what I was touching on in my previous post.  

Old school composing and recording.
In the times we had only tapes, we could nothing "edit". The song had to be perfect BEFORE we began to record it.
Mostly Compressors, Limiters, effects are done during recording. The band could also play it live perfect.

"the studio" (ie, daw) has become instrument-like itself, with all the knock-on that implies - popsters these days are using their computer as the gateway to making music rather than a guitar or piano, possibly because of accessibility but maybe because of convenience... in order to get the tones on the way in, one has to have acce$$ to the required hardware

The digital realm has changed the way we work. As others have alluded to, working with tape, analog mixing desks and hardware outboard gear was a very different process that had many more limitations. Back then the time and effort used to go into capturing the perfect sound to tape, processing each sound as it was recorded to get as close as possible to the final sound. This was done for several reasons but the main one being the limited supply of hardware processors available even in a high-end studio. Working in the box with digital, the time and effort is spent in post recording - we tend to record unprocessed sound and then process it in the mix simply because we can as we have an unlimited supply of any one processor. In essence, the amount of effort is the same but happens at a different stage, so while mixing from tape seems easy, it's because most of the processing has already done in getting the sound to the tape in the first place - premixing. The final mix will just involve balancing and tweaking and the processors you used during recording are now freed up again for finalizing the mix.
 
The above is the basic answer, but there are a few other factors too. It's easy to over complicate stuff in a DAW. The old adage "less is more" is worth remembering. There are also many more things we can do in a DAW to improve the mix beyond what we could have ever done before.

 in order to get the tones on the way in, one has to have acce$$ to the required hardware
 
I agree to this as it is correct that possibly a majority of just starting out DAW users only have the basics on hand. They may not have made the investment in a good guitar or bass rig, or even got their singing chops yet.
 
But then when those folks wonder why their recording still don't sound like a hit record after they have created a monster with 1,000 loops, 86 audio tracks, 96 midi tracks and effects on everything up the wazoo the answer is going to always be - garbage in garbage out.  
 
Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly no purist and certainly "cheat" a little from time to time. I'll admit to punching in, did that with tape too, but often I just hit the big W_ R and go at it again because I'll get pizzed at myself for making a mistake.
But if I record  let say a guitar track and I'm not happy with the way it sounds,,, I'm more likely to re do it and try a different guitar or amp setting than reach for the digital toolbox.
 
 
Me too. The sound going in has to be just right, otherwise it changes how and what I play.
 
+100