Back in the days (when dinosaurs ruled the earth...) I recorded to tape. Tape was expensive and has very limited editing capabilities, so getting a really good take of a performance was essential. During recording the big challenge was to get the best performance possible. This meant both good engineering practice, and some psychology. The trick was to draw the best performance out of the artist (especially singers). Knowing when a singer would peak was essential - some people are one-take wonders, others can go for 15 takes. Sometimes a dummy mic would be used to make the artist comfortable. A good headphone mix is essential to get best results, and sometimes this was manipulated to make the artist sing better. All these things are important when we consider that the artist is trying to perform to an invisible audience.
Nowadays it seems a lot of these procedures have been short circuited by recording into a DAW. This compromises performance in two ways - firstly, the engineer gets preoccupied with operating a computer during the session, rather than focusing on the artist. Secondly, almost every performer now knows that everything can be mended after it is recorded - can't keep in time?, falling out of tune? can't manage the whole song in one go? All these problems can be fixed later, and the artist knows it. The result is that the performer doesn't rise to the occasion, and the music has no X factor.
Nowadays it seems a lot of these procedures have been short circuited by recording into a DAW. This compromises performance in two ways - firstly, the engineer gets preoccupied with operating a computer during the session, rather than focusing on the artist. Secondly, almost every performer now knows that everything can be mended after it is recorded - can't keep in time?, falling out of tune? can't manage the whole song in one go? All these problems can be fixed later, and the artist knows it. The result is that the performer doesn't rise to the occasion, and the music has no X factor.
