Junkiest maybe, but I am willing to put in effort and as much time as I can. So, I think the "easiest, most halfassed" part of your criticism is unfair.
As for cutting back somewhere else, that once was easier to do back when I was single and had no kids. I don't know if you're the sole breadwinner for your family, but if you are then you know that any money you're able to save has about 10 other things in front of it before it gets to go to your fun little hobby.
I get your point, but I also understand (and agree with) Greg's frustration. You are asking, essentially, "How do I get a good mix without doing any of the things necessary to get a good mix?" The answer is, "You can't."
You can get a cheap Radio Shack dynamic mike, a bargain basement ADC, a pair of earbuds that the airlines give out in coach, and a no-name Android tablet and record, mix and master music. And there is nothing you can do that will make it sound great. While it's true that an experienced,
professional engineer will produce better output on such a rig than an amateur who knows little or nothing about recording will in a high-end
studio, the fact remains that, to achieve high-quality, fully-spectrum, dimensional sound, you have to have gear that meets a minimum set of specifications. If you don't, you won't.
It's been explained to you, in some detail, why mixing with headphones or in your car is a bad idea, i.e. it
won't work. A system that will work won't break the bank, but it does require some investment. If you really don't care what your music sounds like, then go ahead and get a pair of headphones and mix away to your heart's content. Your friends and family may like your music, but no one is going to mistake the final product for anything that remotely approaches professional quality. If that's good enough for you, I recommend these:
Amazon.com: Panasonic RP-HTF600-S Stereo Over-ear Headphones: Electronics. I bought a few of them for vocalists to use when I was doing a location recording with multiple performers. For $30, they sound pretty nice. However, I would not, under any circumstances, use them for mixing.
The simple fact is that, if you want to produce anything that sounds reasonably good (and I'd suggest you listen to
the tracks of some of the people in this thread who have given you advice to hear what can be achieved with a home setup), you're going to have to buy a couple of monitor speakers. I started mixing with a $300 set of Shure headphones -- these sound great and are considered entry-level audiophile cans. And I couldn't get a decently-balanced mix to save my life. It was only after I bought a pair of KRK Rokit8 near-filed monitors (cost approx. $600) that I was able to turn out a half-way decent mix. There are cheaper near-fields than the Rokit8s, and they may work fine for you but, again, there is a minimum set of specs that any system must meet to turn out high-quality audio.
By the way, there's a great thread here on HR called something like "Home Recording's Dirty Little Secret," which I suggest that you read. The bottom line of the thread is that, though you can do some amazing work in a home
studio, there's
a reason why professional
studios, staffed by professional engineers, will always put out technically and acoustically better product.
gawd, it sounded horrible.....
