[bvm]

That's a pretty extreme approach! It reminds me a little of my all time favourite musicians, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings - who detail their process here: http://tapeop.com/interviews/85/gillian-welch-and-dave-rawli...

One of the relevant quotes:

Q: Is everything recorded live?

G: Totally.

D: Yeah, everything is live. It is pretty much all from takes one, two or three. Very few mixes. This is the first record we've done that Stephen Marcussen [our mastering engineer] listened to and said, "Okay, Let's transfer it." We didn't compress or EQ anything. Just transferred it from a machine of his that we really like, through the nice converters and a clean signal chain.

In my more limited experience having a minimalist workflow can have benefits that stray way beyond sonic purity: it encourages discipline and allows you to concentrate on the task at hand . The minutiae of your workflow are less important than simply having one.

[sehugg]

Frank Black (from the Pixies) did a lot of his solo studio albums this way too: http://forum.frankblack.net/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=961

[elmar]

thanks for the detailed reply.

All that I can say is that Water Lily records sound amazing if you never listened I recommend then highly.