Well I've been sort of lying. I won't be 60 until Oct. I was just trying it out for feel.

My approach may be different then most but I still use old school recording technique that I've use for years. I think in most cases there are way, way to many "tools" at our disposal. Tools that we don't really know how to use yet but think we need to use them all. In my opinion put everything away in the closet except :
1. your computer
2. a good quality sound card
3. mixer --if the sound card only has line ins & outs
4. Monitors
5. mics

Treat your DAW like a multi track tape deck. Record nice clean, no effects, and reasonably hot tracks. Do multiple takes or cut & paste as a last resort.
Now the mix. You need 2 tools, other then reverb for ambience, parametric EQ & multi band compressor.LEARN HOW TO USE THESE TOOLS.Don't use normal shelving graphic EQs.Think of your song as a big stew not as individual ingredients.A song with vocals is going to be very heavy in the midrange frequencies.You need to cut the mids on other instruments because they will both be additive AND subtractive in the mix.Treat all frequencies this way. Learn the frequency range of the instruments you use so you can prevent clash.Do not listen to individual tracks and treat them individually. Chances are that a good mix will yield individual tracks that sound a lot less then nice.
In your stew what do you think the result would be if you tasted and seasoned each ingredient by itself and then dumped it into the pot.
Just something to think about.
BTW Rube Goldberg was not very good at recording.

John
ESI Gigaport HD+
Lenovo Turion II /4 Gig Ram/ Win7x64 be
15.6" Monitor
"The only Band is a Real Band"
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