amen and amen, good sir.

Couldn't agree more!!

I'd rather listen to a bad recording of a great performance than a great recording of a bad performance.

Thank you Larry! I've been wrestling with balancing spending a ton of money on gear with spending my time on improving my ear and brain to become a better producer. I listen to recordings I did on cheap gear with minimal mixing knowledge and low track counts, but with a phenomenal drummer, bassist, guitarist and vocalist, and they sound as good in many ways as the ones I do now with 12 more years of tracking & mixing experience and tens of thousands of dollars in gear acquisitions.

As much as we all love and focus on the journey from song to master recording, the proof is in the destination, not the amount of "indie cred" one can claim.

Don't forget - it also has to be a good SONG!

so true… also for other disciplines…

In "Motown. The View from the Bottom", Jack Ashford writes: "The 'real experts' said that the equipment had to be the answer to making hits, so they would overhaul their consoles or purchase new ones for their studios. Some felt it was the Motown engineers, while others felt it was the dimensions of the Studio A. Some wanted to take a look at the wooden floors to see what kind of wood the floors were made of. There were so many asinine and dumb impressions. Most people overlooked the simple truth and essential element - the musicians, The Funk Brothers".

Well, sounds like their rules met the goals of an honest recording :-0

Justifiable rant Larry. I tell my students that it's all about performance, not the latest, greatest piece of gear.

Performance trumps the medium every time. Neil Young's "Sugar Mountain", Replacements "Pleased...", and Aerosmith's self-titled debut...'nuff said.

Good rant, Larry.
As others have pointed out, the keys to a good recording are A) A good song, B) A good performance. Good being completely subjective in (A) and in (B) meaning in tune and in time. Everything else in a recording should be done to support and enhance (A).

Know you material! Rehearse it! Play it right?Why did we let the bass guy get away with 26 punch ins?I'll never know.

"Back in the day," a lot of bands performed new material live for a good while before recording it, not only to nail down the songs but to get audience feedback. By the time we recorded, we had a much better idea of what worked, and we could pull it off, although we might expand the arrangement in the studio with a producer. I think there's still value in that approach.

Well said Steve. A valuable approach even today. Outside for the overly-manufactured Rihanna style of production, that's how the bands who are really making waves still seem to do it - according to what I've observed anyway.

Indeed.
1) Great Song
2) Great singer/player
3) Great instrument
4) Great mic
5) Great pre/signal chain
6) Great converter
7) Great monitors
8) Great engineer
9) Great mastering engineer

I'm happy if we even get the first one "great."

It's also worth suggesting that a lot of new bands who lack experience and just plain talent will use this minimalist approach as an excuse for a poor performance. It's "rough" or "raw" sometimes means they can't be arsed to learn their stuff, but want to put something out there anyway. Like, "it's only a demo" is a sad excuse for not doing your best?

Well, it's horses for courses, I just spent a weekend recording a band with a singing drummer who hadn't played for twenty three years and suffered from bipolar disorder. I have fixed a few wayward beats here and there but I have left it still wonky on the time front. I decided that rather than fix it and churn out an other quantised recording that I would leave the timing idiosyncratic and allow the listener to move to the recording rather than move the recording to the listener. Yes I agonised over this, but ultimately the band were powerful enough to ride the oddities through and even though it's weird I think we made a fairly unique recording. Not unlike the first Liz Phair record the more you listen to it the more it seeps into your soul. I did however used Eq and compression!

t

Doing things simply takes tremendous effort if done well.

Seriously, nostalgia seems to cloud som many peoples minds. When did progress become a four letter word? If a little digital manipulation and enhancement can make the song sound better, then why deny it?

“Better the
rudest work
that tells a
story or records
a fact, than the
richest without
meaning.”
(John Ruskin, 1819-1900, English art critic and
social commentator.)

My biggest problem with young artists is that they usually won't accept criticism of their performances. In the old days (I'm in my sixties), you had to listen to producers and engineers; they had the keys to the studio. But today an "artist" can say "To heck with you. I'll go home (or to a firend's house), and record it myself." And there really isn't an answer to that, is there?

A colleague of mine recently mixed a live gig with the intention of not using EQ at all. He relied solely on mic choice and mic placement. He's very, very good at that sort of stuff although the client might be alarmed (if they'd known) about the approach. Rare skills, though.
Bring together a good band and a good engineer and anything's possible. There is a difference between failings and limitations created by circumstances that a good engineer can overcome.