what makes a pro recording sound so much better than a home recording??

[dcptnsdcvd]

the subject explains it all.
is it mics?
is it amazing mixing and extraordinary engeneering?
are the pros using mics and recording devices that we just don;t have access to? they got some secret?
why do big name bands like pantera, creed, or any other bands on a major record label sound so good and everyone's home recordings don;t come close?
is it possible for me to make a recording in my own studio thats just as good as , say, creed's albums? (i hate creed as a band, but they got endowed with awesome sound on their albums.)

i am hoping for the experts in this BBS to come out and comment on this. i think every member of homerecording.com would like to know how to make a recording that could very well sell on the shelfs and play on the radio in their own studio, without having to go to abbey road or some other $100,000-per-record studio.

Mike...

 

[Atwork]

I'll chip in before the experts get here. It's a combination of gear, expertise and experience, with expertise and experience being, arguably, the more important. Great mics and great mic pres are frequently cited as being of prime importance. The Neumann U87 mic is often mentioned. This costs about £1500 - way more than my entire recording rig. Top range digital recording gear with good convertors also seem to make a big difference. Recording in a good room is also often mentioned.

But the short answer is dosh and experience, IMHO.

 

[chessrock]

How to get a professional sound worthy of a major-label . . .

Record good musicians with good-sounding instruments in a good-sounding room with good mics through good cables through good preamps. Record that on to a good medium with a skilled and knowlegeable Engineer at the helms.

Sorry for the plageurism. Can't remember who I'm quoting on that one.

All of these things tend to be on the expensive side . . . particularly the good-sounding room, although the really good instruments can sometimes be had for $1000 or so if you know where to look, and the price of decent mics keeps dropping.


Here's a few more: Use good amps that have been properly maintained, with tubes properly changed if necessary, be wary of grounding and/or power issues that may cause hum and unwanted noise. Listen and audition different guitar/instrument and amp combinations obsessively untill you find the best possible combination. It must not only sound outstanding to your ears, but must also fit the style of song and fit well in context with the rest of the instruments/voices.

Make sure the engineer is listening on good monitors in an optimal playback environment. Make sure your accoustic treatment in the playback environment is also tip-top.

Pay particular attention to the vocalists. Their voices must be finely-tuned and warmed up like a finely-tuned machine. Make sure to have plenty of hot tea with lemon on hand . . . a vaporizer . . . and plenty of good drugs. Just kidding. If worse comes to worse, have a reputable vocal teacher/coach on call to assist in warm-ups, etc.

Be wary of headphone mixes -- everone needs to be comfortable with what they are hearing.

Make sure that strings are changed but slightly broken in. At all times, and without exception.

Change all drum heads, and make sure they're properly tuned. If you don't know how to tune them, then find someone who does. Some recording sessions have a drum technician on-hand full time to make sure drum heads are properly maintained, even going so far as to change snare heads after each take. That one might be hard to pull off in a home studio.

Create an atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable and inspired to deliver their best performance.

Lastyly, be sure to have plenty of hookers availble and lots of good drugs.

 

[Light]

TIME. A typical major label record takes months to track, and can frequently take just as long to mix. And I am talking about taking months of 12 hour days, not just months of tinkering around from time to time. The major difference between most home recordings and most major label recordings (I am talking here about pop music) is time. Yes, the gear in a major label studio is much more expensive, and it does sound better. Yes, the engineers on most of those records have years of experience doing this. Yes, the players are the best damn players you have ever heard. The rooms are designed acoustically, and the consoles cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the real difference is time.

Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[Track Rat]

Gear and a great room deffinately has some bearing on the end product but IMHO, the bottom line is skill. Great musicians and a skilled engineer can get amazing results vs mediocre musicians and a sloutch engineer in the finest facility in the world. A couple of years ago, a guy here named John Sayers, definately a pro engineer, made a point by doing a tune with sound fonts and used a computer mic to track vocals and an acoustic guitar and tracked into a computer. It kicked ass sonicly. There are plenty of folks right here making great sounding recordings with minmal equipment in basements and bedrooms and they do it by using their ears and criticly listening to what they're doing and when it doesn't work, they drop back and punt and keep at it till it does.

 

[Seanmorse79]

Well put. I had never heard that story about John Sayers - that's very cool to hear. Any idea where I could go to hear it (and/or read about it)?

 

[Track Rat]

John Boy! You out there listening?

 

[Son of Mixerman]

Johns been hanging out over at prosoundweb in Brad Blackwoods forum helping me with mastering room designs.

I think the big factor that separates the pro from the amatuer is TALENT. Talent in all aspects of the record being made. The songs writers, musicians, engineers for both tracking and or mixing. The equipment is excluded from being talented though Lets not forget the producers and the Mastering engineers need to be apart of that pie. From my perspective there were alot of recordings done on 3 track machines and simple 8 channel 2 buss consoles. Lots of home made devices were included in the signal chain so it wasn't like they were crystal clear. Without talent you will never achieve the same level of sonic quality regardless of the equipment. I do think time can play apart in the equation, but usually a talented band with its act together can track an entire album in week, mix it in a week and have it mastered in 3 days. This wouldn't include bands that write in the studio. My 2 cents.

SoMm

 

[Light]

Talent is a non-issue. Anyone who thinks talent matters is just trying to get out of working hard. SKILL is an issue, but talent can easily be squandered. Skill is hard work, but it is worth the time. The best players in the world may or may not be talented. They are all skilled. Some people are born with talent, and they are lucky. Others are not born with talent, but are dedicated. Dedication and disciple will beat out talent any day. If you want to become one of the best in the world, you need to practice your guitar until your fingers bleed, until your drum sticks give you slivers, until your trumpet has made your mouth look like you've been punched in the mouth. Skill can be earned, and has value. Talent is luck of the draw, and doesn’t matter at all. I know many talented people who have fallen by the wayside because after they got to the extent of their talent, they did not know how to practice. Disciple matters, not talent.

Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[chessrock]

Talent is a non-issue. Anyone who thinks talent matters is just trying to get out of working hard. SKILL is an issue, but talent can easily be squandered.

Very well-put. Perhaps more important than either talent or skill is technique. Although I'm sure technique fits in there somewhere with skill, since it is something that has to be practiced and refined over time.

Solid technique can make an Oktava sound like a Neumann, an Audio Buddy sound like a Focusrite, and a basement like a world-class studio. Certainly, it makes dynamic processing all but unnecessary.

 

[Son of Mixerman]

Talent is a non-issue. Anyone who thinks talent matters is just trying to get out of working hard.

Are you saying that talented people don't work hard, that they have no discipline or dedication?

Underrating talent and its importance to making a successful record is exactly why people don't make it spite their hard work and dedication. How many people have you known that struggled for decades trying to get their break into the big time. Sleeping 3 to 4 hrs a night. I used to working a studio after my other 10 hr a day job was done, and we recorded musicians who did the same. Rehearsing 3 hrs a night every night there wasn't a gig. I saw friends work just as hard as the next band only to see one walk away empty handed when the other sealed a deal. It was talent that separated the 2 and nothing else. There are exceptions but talent is the rule.

A talented engineer can do way more with mediocre equipment than a mediocre engineer with high end equipment. As it was put to me once by Glenn Meadows and I think its universally true "You either have it or you don't"
I agree that lots of people squander their talent, but it doesn't mean they are any less talented.

Skill is too similar to talent, you can refine a skill, or develop a skill I suppose, but not everybody has skill do they? Joe Chicarelli said he is a failed bass player, yet his production and engineering skills/talent are exceptional. And he works very hard at what he does. Same goes for Mixerman.
A tone deaf person could spend 24/7 listening to music and will never make a good mix. If your ears don't work, you are SOL or should I say SOT


SoMm

 

[chessrock]

Are you saying that talented people don't work hard, that they have no discipline or dedication?

I think what he meant was that there is a distinction between someone with natural ability, and someone who has disciplined and refined his natural abilities in to skill and technique. Not to say that the two are mutually exclusive.

I've known people with loads of talent that didn't have the kind of discipline to work hard at refining their craft and to be their very best when it counts.

 

[The Green Hornet]

Yo All:

Isn't it nice when one of us gets a tune down and mixed and it is darn close to a professional rendering? Yeah, brother, that's very nice.

I'm sure that lots of talent on this site have done "good stuff" with their rigs.

Green Hornet

 

[darrin_h2000]

Its the shoes, since I got my air jordans My recordings dont suck, and my vertical leap has improved somewhat.


Its really a combination of technique and equipment. technique alone will only get you so far. The signal chain used by the big boys always seems to be the Neuman,neve pre combo more often than not. and to sound like them requires you to get that gear.

 

[chessparov]

Great thread guys.

We'll have various opinions slated here due to our different perspectives.
This question to me seems analogus to talented actors who audition for
TV and movie work. Ever seen someone get a part who didn't deserve it?
Happens every day...

There are two elements to the topic here.
One is where the solo artist or band has a commercial "sound".
The other is the support team like the producer, engineer, etc.,
who try to put that "sound" on a recording.

Has anyone NOT read Mixerman's "diary" over at www.prosoundweb.com ?
(required reading!)

Chris

 

[CyanJaguar]

there is one thing that separates the big boys from homereccers. You can find said thing in all pro studios.

Its called:
YAMAHA NS10MS MONITORS

You cant mix correctly what you cant hear correctly.

 

[wes480]

good thread.

first off...the original question:

"i think every member of homerecording.com would like to know how to make a recording that could very well sell on the shelfs and play on the radio in their own studio, "

I think the line as far as what can sell recording wise has been blurred significantly. The real factor is did a major label get behind it and push it - that determines the shelf sales. Look at the White Stripes new record...gotta be getting close to gold or even platinum by now i would think. And they are the big "thing" etc. That album sound really shitty, lets just say it. It has a cool factor. Things can sell on shelves without sounding "pristine" and things are going more that way.

Personally I say fuck what's on the shelves at best buy. Can your album that you recorded in your studio sell, period? If it's good, then the answer is yes, yes, yes.

everyone has really touched on things like room/gear. Personally I am thinking that room has a lot more to do with it than gear does. At least in terms of getting a "good" sound - that major label signal chain is certainly something.

As far as talent/skill. Man, it's all talent....there are some guys and gals that can just fucking sing. They just have "it" - maybe a combination of looks...and "skill" etc. and they can just get it done. They have 10,000 times higher chance of getting somewhere in the biz than just someone who works hard at it..

i think all of the people in audio engineering schools right now are example to that. I am in college, not for recording, but I know a ton of the majors in the program. And honestly, I wouldn't let many of them touch a mix of mine. Just becuase they have some "book knowledge" and are into it...etc, doesn't mean they have what it takes. Who knows...it's half art, half science, half voodoo right.....the art and voodoo are the hard parts for a lot of the people that "just want to do it".

by the way - this was my 1000th post, i do believe. hehe.

 

[ruebarb]

although.....

I dare say you can have some fairly crappy tracking conditions....Wilco did their latest album in their practice/business loft.

But when it came time to MIX>>>they went to the pros in the pro studios..

I think that might be half of it right there....just knowing how to mix...balance your frequencies...etc, etc.

RB

 

[wes480]

indeed.

 

[Sennheiser]

I've been playing and practicing piano and guitar for almost as long as I was old enough to climb on the bench or hold the guitar.

As much as I practice and play I will never be as good as most. It's not because of a lack of talent. I feel that I've just reached my physical and mental limit as far as technical ability is concerned. Yeah, it sounds OK, and non-players think I'm some kind of pro, but anyone who has been playing as long as I have knows that for that amount of time I should be much better on my axes.

I think that I have a fair set of ears and have had all kinds of music training. I also feel that I have the technical ability to record and produce a decent mix. At least for the equipment that I use. I've never had any formal engineering training, just a lot of reading and doing and question asking. For some reason, this end of music comes much easier for me, almost naturally. I feel much more confident and capable on the technical side of music. Would this be called talent?

I've never recorded or produced anything earth-shattering, but I've heard plenty of crappier mixes, even from the pro's, to know that I'm heading down the right road to a good production. One of these days I will produce something worthy of mastering.

I can't say the same about ever being able to play Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" I know that will NEVER happen.

Where does all this fit in?