mpower,
You've got a good point, and in a way, my fellow musos and i used to do this, well, sort of, kind of, in a similar way, er......?
We would record a group of instruments onto reel to reel. (For the very young amongst us, it's a very large cassette deck, well, sort of!)
Then we would record on a second reel to reel, playing the first R/R and live at the same time. It would create the effect of more instruments playing without hiring a small orchestra.
Now, to be fair, the sound wasn't very good, and natural resonance was entirely dependent on the size of the tiled bathroom we were recording in!
Then we bought an 8 track recorder, but that's another story.
Just a memory of time before VSL!
Regards,
Alex.