How do you deal with clients with naive expectations?

Really don’t want anything more to do with him.

Oh I didn’t take it that way.

Nothing beats real electrical impulses and real air/space. It comes VERY close, but not quite. Maybe in the next decade my opinion on that will change given advancements in the tech. 

I record the MIDI from my Roland TD-50x and then post trigger SD3.

It doesn't sound like canned drums when it's mixed because the performance is by an actual drummer
as opposed to programming or MIDI Loops etc.

Performance plays a big part in drums sounding "real"

It's not as good as acoustic drums of course but equally it doesn't sound like fake drums either.

I use real percussion, real bass and guitars, some hardware synth stuff and then there's "rubber" drums and piano.
So only two things that are fake - but I play them as proper performances and it makes a huge difference.

Honestly I think it's all the stuff that *isn't* there on samples that makes them feel less lively.

In a mix context, there's tons of stuff that's in the mix that doesn't need to be.  Lots of background noise and extra stuff like fret noises or room noises that gets blended into a mix that would affect how things like compressors would work.  If you were able to remove these things without changing the audio that you want to keep, I'd think the mix would sound less full even though any single piece of unwanted noise wouldn't necessarily be noticed on it's own.

I think it's why folks say that modern recordings have less feeling.  They're edited to the point where there isn't a single out of place piece of audio.

We like to sense human's on the other side of the speaker cone .... not scratch proof grey plastic computers (so to speak)

Plus, things sound bigger and wider when they're not perfect .... it's like one huge musical "flam"

When everything is perfectly in time - notes can hide behind other notes!

Think, character, character, character.

Nothing like the real thing. That's for sure. 

But, I will say this: I can personally take SD3 further (mix wise) if I render all the mic channels out to audio files and mix as I would real drums. I just do better with the tools I know best, I think.

Comes with it's own set of complications, to be sure.

So I'm likely the farthest from being a mix engineer here, but similar to bluesholyman I'm in the software side of daily life, specifically in consulting around software selection, configuration, and deployment. While not an exact one-to-one, there are some parallels and perhaps best-practices that may be helpful in what is being addressed. Take it for what it's worth. I'm sure most of you already know these points.

Expectations & Requirements
My clients always have ideas regarding what they're going to get in the end. However, most of the time they don't ever fully describe that on their own and that eventually leads to discontent. Start the process by asking a lot of specific questions to determine their expectations and if what they think they're going to get is even realistic. If I don't drill down and identify what the client thinks they want, I'm probably going to miss the mark. They won't be satisfied but will continue to tell me it's all on me to deliver (and that I should have known what they wanted).

Time & Materials vs. Fixed Bid (Project)
85% of all fixed bid projects go over budget. This is for a variety of reasons, but in large-part because of misalignment in scope. The client expects to "get what they're paying for", but the provider can't get the client to put a stake in the ground and once over budget the provider can easily rush work in an attempt to get it complete and stop the bleeding. Time and Materials is truly the best way to go, unless you are certain you can give the client what they want within scope, cost, and time (and you can make a good margin doing so). The better way to go is to pick one of those three to be the stake in the ground, and recognize there will be a bit of flexibility on the other two. Make them commit to the scope (mixing, tuning, aligning, number of iterations you'll provide, etc.), the total dollars they're willing to spend, or how much time you'll put into the work/due date. Without one of those firmly in place your chances of success (or not losing a lot of dollars) are near impossible. In my experience a fixed bid is almost an open invitation to be nickel'd and dime'd.

Statement of Work
Even if just a simple email exchange and acknowledgement, you'll benefit from documenting the time, cost, and scope you've gleaned from up-front conversations...and have them agree in writing. That way you can easily identify and call out where time, dollars, and scope are pushing the boundaries, and immediately put the ball in their court to decide if they want to do a change order. Doesn't mean you can't do a few extra things for them if you wish. Just be aware that once you start down that path it's a slippery slope and they'll continue asking for/expecting more.

Consulting
It's important to remember you're not just delivering an outcome, but people are coming to you because you have knowledge and expertise they don't have. Embrace the role of being a consultant rather than just being a delivery service. Consultants evaluate client requirements and give advice both initially and during the project. Part of being a consultant is applying your best practices (your established workflow, your use of tools, your ears, your understanding of effort required) to let the client know what CAN be done as well as what CANNOT be done. Really back to setting expectations. Good consultants don't tell the clients what they want to hear, they tell the clients what they need to hear. You are actually doing them (and yourself) a great service by letting them know when they're asking for the unrealistic, whether that be (again) cost, time, or scope. You can still offer reasonable/less costly alternatives based on your expertise. If they walk after you let them know what to expect, then you didn't want that job anyway.

Cutting Ties/Turning Down Business
As much as we all like the work and want to help our clients, sometimes it is evident from the beginning or during the project that things are not going to work. It could be those expectations you uncover at the beginning, they're inablity to comprehend or hold their end of the agreement, or sometimes a particular client attitude or approach that you just know in your gut is going to end up being a problem. Regardless of the issue, do your best to not go down the path of starting or continuing to try to make things work when it's obvious they won't. It may just be best for both you and the client to part ways. We typically don't "fire" clients, but have done so, especially when they are looking to take as much advantage of us as they can (and in rare cases when they are such jerks that it's not worth the emotional capital). There is truth in the phrase "There are some clients you can't afford to do business with."

And as others have said, clear and regular communication is key to all of this.

Love me some Buk. Now there’s a guy I’d never send anything with fake instruments. Lol

Maybe you shoulda just smashed it with Waves L2 and sent it back to him?  That used to be "professional" for home recording.  

but seriously, I've had to walk away from a few too - only a few, but it always feels weird because I kept wondering if there was some way... but there never was.

I never, ever take on anything without hearing what they have first. Always hear the songs. Always. 

If they won't / can't / whatever share rough mixes of the songs and their opinions about what's right & wrong? 

Instant red-flag and bounce out. See-ya go find someone else. 

Don't know how anyone could ply a living in this business without hearing the material first. 

Probably feel like 75-80% of any gig... hired for mixing... front to back production... doesn't really matter the vast majority of effort goes into aligning expectations. Not only what the artist expects from me, but what I can expect from the artist. 

I have to have that conversation real early in the process. So early, in fact, its called "screening the clients" with the idea of punting the trouble makers before they get entrenched. I find if we're only having that conversation once things are rolling..? Moneys changed hands and now someone (or both of us) are somewhere between kinda and really unhappy? There's probably not a good way out. 

So yeah, lemme hear the songs first. If the group wanted to sound like the Smashing Pumpkins but the music has the tone of a pulverized zucchini we're gonna talk it about before I take a dime, let alone get anything loaded into the DAW.  

I do wind up saying "no" to a fair amount of stuff, but I also haven't lived through even half of the whack scenarios some have described here... probably because I screen everyone.