Yes - I have always had best luck when recording live in the studio.

My first efforts at recording were VERY difficult and stressful, because you are searching for perfection, and inevitably you mess up playing something that you have played perfectly live a hundred times.

Then I switched to the mode of having the band in the studio, and just doing our live thing the way we always do. It is so much easier. Most of the time you can get a tune down in a single take, with maybe an occasional false start.

Of course, you have to have enough live gigs under your belt for this to work. But if you have it together live, you can take that into the studio and do it the same way (more or less).

-David