When I first started recording songs in about 1990, I had a tascam cassette 8 track recorder, it was new at the time around 2000.00 and i was a true newbie at recording. I was trying to do all sorts of things with it, and bought an alesis effects unit with all the goodies. Every song that I recorded was totally washed in some sort of an effect. Garbage was what I did for about 2 years. I sold that recorder and late bought a 4 track fostex from a pawn shop for 100.oo. I learned to record on that, it was simple, straightforward and I would only use reverb when really called for. Later came the Adat in 95, Roland v8, computer, etc. I still dont have a polished commercial sound with my recordings, and really dont want that. But, I do not have any over use of effects to look back on now. The old recordings before Reverb came along still stand the test of time. They sound clear, clean, and dont date themselves. I listen now to some of the classic rock songs that I loved in the 70's and can hardly listen to them because of the horrible effects and amount of used. I can listen to a song and pretty well date it by the effects used in it. They have a purpose, but, I think they have to be precisely placed to stand the test of time.