Home Recording's Dirty Little Secret

What were your home recording expectations vs commercial high end studio recordings?

  • I was not expecting from the get go I could make high end commercial studio recordings.

    Votes: 529 40.1%

  • I had not considered the question of home recording quality vs commercial quality when I started.

    Votes: 287 21.8%

  • I expected I could reasonably equal the quality of commercial recordings.

    Votes: 502 38.1%
  • Total voters
    1,318
B

Bob's Mods

New member
Lets have a show of hands....how many of you got interested in home recording thinking you'd be able to make home recordings that would sound similar to the recordings of your favorite commercial artists....and were sadly dissapointed after spending much money, time and effort in an attempt to do so? This is directed at the average home recordist of moderate means....not the guys who have decked out home studios.
 
almost everyone, they just wont admit it

I personally thought I could rival commercial recordings because so many of them seemed really really simple, or just bad sounding even. I mean, if you were 15, and listening to jimi hendrix or led zeppelin something...of course you would think you could copy THAT sound. It didn't seem that hard at the time. The balances on that stuff can be way off sometimes...there are mistakes...hiss....poorly tuned instruments.... I guess I just thought it would be easy.
 
I picked option 2, only because I never really was listening that closely back then, I was just listening if you know what I mean. Now.....I listen TOO much and know I will never acheive that.
 
I know I was sucked in back in the late 90's with Cakewalk Professional. That had those great demos. Wow...I can sound like that! Boy was I sold a basket of shit. They sold the dream and I bit. I kept beating myself up for a long time trying to figure out why my recordings sucked back then. They weren't truthful about exactly how their software was integrated into this professional studio the demo was recorded in....a studio that takes years of experience and lots of doe to make happen.
 
I figured that if you were creative enough and could learn to get the most out of your equipment, you could certainly equal some of the "classics" recorded in the 60's and 70's... since they were recorded on technology that would be considered less than what is available to the home recordist of today... LOL
 
I never expected starting out, but then again, back in 1979 when I started out, the manufacturers never made the kind of wild marketing promises they make now.

Nobody ever claimed back then that with a Portastudio or a 3340 you could make recordings that sounded like they were released by Telarc, and there were no cheap shit $99 condensors pretending to be U47s.

Gear was simple, you went to Allied Electronics to buy electronics parts, not Radio Shack for mass-market TVs and cell phones. Engineering actually meant engineering, and quality recording took as much talent as quality performing, and most of us knew it.

Today, OTOH, we're bombarded with ads for studios in a box that equate gear capacity with production quality - "hey you, yeah you with the booger hanging out your nose, for a thousand bucks you too can own a Shatner 2000 digital workstation tonight and be a famous rock star on meSpace tomorrow!" And in a time when people would rather spend their time faking it by pusing a few preset buttons on Guitar Hero than they would actually picking up a guitar and playing it, that bullshit marketing is eaten up faster than a box of Oreos at a pot party.

G.
 
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I'm perfectly happy with the quality of my recordings. Wouldn't hurt to take some music lessons though. But I think even with entry level gear you can get recordings that sound professional. Most of the "amateur" songs I hear don't need better gear but better instruments/musicians.

When I first started I thought I'd learn a bunch of "tricks" that pros use to make something bad sound good, but I learned that there's no such thing pretty quickly. :(
 
i knew i would need the knowledge. i thought that if i could get the knowledge then i could do as well as the commercial stuff. the knowledge is coming but slowly. it will take a lifetime. but it's something i enjoy doing so i'm not disappointed regardless of my expectations.
 
I expected to equal or better the quality of recordings I made compared to others I had paid for. I had been in several studios, spent LOTS of money, only to be dissapointed with the results. I learned that the guy who owns the gear, makes you sound the way he wants. Sure you can argue and cajole about sonic nirvana, but it's always on your dime.

My results today (read steep learning curve) are vastly better than sessions I paid for, I have less money invested, and I'm just plain smarter.
 
I admit after much fussing and learning (and fustration) plus a dose of reasonably decent software, plugins and hardware (I built my own mini version of a high end preamp) that I can now reasonably "mimic" a commercial studio. I do a good fake job. That commercial sound does make a difference but yes, your chops have to be up to the task. It don't mean a thing if it don't got that swing.
 
Coolerhead94 said:
I figured that if you were creative enough and could learn to get the most out of your equipment, you could certainly equal some of the "classics" recorded in the 60's and 70's... since they were recorded on technology that would be considered less than what is available to the home recordist of today... LOL
Click to expand...

I thought exactly just like you Coolerhead. Even with resonably decent software and hardware its not a simple task. I was thinking I could best that old technology too but there is more to the recording arts than any of us expected.
 
You know its funny, I was surfing through a number of recording forums and stumbled upon something similar to this reply in few places:

"Don't get upset because you can't sound like a commercial studio (no matter how hard you've tried) your just not a commercial studio and you'll never sound like one. Your just a spare bedroom home recordist"

Well whoop---pee---do! This is what I want to sound like! This is what I wanted from the beginning. There is a difference. Rockin tunes do sound more lively when they have a commercially recorded flare. Multi tracked home recordings on hoe hum gear with not too great software sound one dimensional and flat. Sure, you the mixing technician have something to do with it but your tools are just nothing special, you can only tweak it so much to make it live. And it ain't just mastering either. 95% of that commercial tune was done in the studio. Think about it. Those great Beatle tunes were done before mastering was the thing to do. Those were done in the studio! A great one at that. Don't think mastering is going to make your lifeless recording fly like an eagle. Its your studio and your ability and your tunes.
 
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I went with option 2 only because I when I started, I never intended to do it for money...just for fun. Fun turned to addiction. Over time, I became unsatisfied with the results, learned to listen, picked up a few skills and then realized that I could get other people to help me fund my past time.

I still don't do it for the money. I typically don't charge anything for the here-n-there solo/duet, the occassional college student putting a demo tune together. I never charge the high-schoolers. I'll tap the buget a bit harder for bigger and more time consuming projects. Especially if I know the recording is intended to make money for the artist(s).
 
Im Happy !!!! I have recorded a couple bands and I was upfront about the sound quality. They just wanted demo's to send to establishments to get gigs. And when finished the were extremely happy. They are actually selling copies of the tunes at shows.
 
Wasn't on my mind at the time. it was just about 25 years ago, and I got a synth and wanted to compose electronic music, so I needed a 4-track tape deck and a line mixer. It worked great for me. Later I added a couple of SM-57s and a few other instruments and a digital delay. But then for me creating music is not about money.

Cheers,

Otto
 
I'm actually fairly happy with my sound I achieve. Its amazing how much better my recordings sound with good musicians (with my main band) rather than mediocre unrehersed musicians (my backup band).
 
I started out thinking I could sound like a commercial recording studio. A few grand later, and a lot more knowledge i can now. Emphasis on a lot more knowledge though. Big Emphasis...
 
absolutely. There are more commercial recordings made in "home studios" these days than you would think. Maybe the drums recorded at a big studio with a good room, but pretty much everything else in a home environment. A studio is just a building with gear in it... won't give you a great sound at all unless it's the right person using it... and the best at what they do can learn to use whatever situation within a reasonable scope to get pro results.
 
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