money down the drain

monkeylove17

New member
I am not sure if this is the right place to post this, but it looked like the best one. My band spent $2200 on the recording i am posting. Since then, I have decided to do home recording (less money). I wanted to know if it is possible to get the sound quality from this recording in a home studio. Both songs were recorded at the same time and place, so try both of them

http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/158/the_avalon_project.html

let me know what you think about the actual songs too, not just the recording.

Thanks
 
If that was my band I think I'd go for the home recording route. But you didn't get burned really. The stuff sounds pretty nicely recorded. It's just that half of my band were physics students that were interested in recording so, while we didn't have the uptown equipment, we had the know-how.

Today's recording environment allows alot more people to get involved in recording it themselves because the price of all the required stuff has dropped considerably since 1976.

Can you get that level of quality with $2K worth of stuff?
It's gonna be tight. I'd say no if you have zipola to start. I'd say yes if you already have the front end. Like my first self-done Honda tune-up, I bought all the tools and the parts for less than what they charged at the dealership for one tune-up and got it tweaked tighter than they ever would bother to do at the dealership.

It's your stuff.
Nobody will care about it more than you will.
Unless you can afford to pay them to care that much....
 
nice song, by the way. Very warm , and the vocals were nice.
Have you got any radio airplay yet?

THat sounded like the engineer producer knew what he was doing, and had a lot of experience.

But, I would not spend another $2200 recording another two songs. I'd rather get my own stuff. Here's why.

You can always go back and change stuff to make it better. You can do remixes and different mixes. You don't have to take crap from anybody trying to hurry you up and stuff.

I think you'll be able to do a very good job with 4g's, since you already have your instruments, but I doubt that you'll get to this exact level. After time though, you guys will have the experience and be able to do the stuff.
 
I think that it depends on what your goals are, both short and longer term, and how much time and brainpower you are willing to focus on home recording.

Your songs sound really good. The engineering is obviously professional. You want to get a record contract with a big label, right? And be commercial rock stars and sell millions of CDs to screaming teenage girls? (I'm not putting it down; it's a great ambition.) Your stuff is a lot like and just as good as those groups.

My point is this: nothing that you do on your own nickel in a professional studio is going to be what makes you rich and famous -- what (I assume) you want to do with what you're recording now is get a really good agent and good exposure and a contract. So you probably want to be able to record as much stuff as possible to send around. And although you want the quality to be excellent, it doesn't have to be perfect yet. So home recording makes a lot of sense at this point, and you can spend a few thousand and get an infinite number of songs out of it.

BUT, the quality will not be what you want unless you teach yourselves how to be semi-professional engineers. I'm an amateur, but I know enough to know that it takes a great deal of time and focus to choose the right equipment, learn how it works, learn how to mix, learn how to listen, etc. And this is time and effort that you may prefer to spend on the music. So the quality of the equipment (which it seems to me is definitely there) is just one consideration.

Good luck!
 
This is the part where I usually get slapped around for my opinions, but I think you could do better the DIY route. Granted I only listened to the stream, but you've got a very pop mix in these. Particularly onefreelap. Sure, the engineer might have been a pro, but these recordings have too much studio polish, if that makes any sense. Does the fact that I dig similar music qualify me to day that this mix is probably not what you were after?

Still, it is a lot of work to get good recordings at home. Your other option would be to look for another engineer. This guy wants to turn you into the backstreet boys.

By the way, I like the tunes. Good stuff!
 
studio Polish??

hi lazyboy,

what does studio polish mean? Is is that all tube sound, or the quality of the reverbs or the punch of the mix?

I would like to know how to get some studio polish in my work.
 
yeh, the recording sounded a little off from what i hoped for, but believe me, he is much better than the first guy who recorded us. I think the songs sound a little on the sissy side. The weird thing about it is that the guy who recorded us usually does death metal.
 
Where'd you guys record that, at MorrisSound? I hate that studio. Most of the guys that worked there, (it might have changed) IMO were over-paid assholes. They spent zero time mixing after tracking and turned out a lot of "same" sounding stuff.

They recorded a lot of deathmetal at that studio. Death recorded all there stuff there as did a lot of others.

Another studio in Tampa with some great guys were at Audiolab... they were real personable and really listened to what you wanted.

Anyway, nice recordings, pretty ok songs. Get out of Tampa, there is no good market for original music there anymore, go to Orlando and beyond.
 
johnboy,
how did you know we recorded at MorrisSound? We tried Audio Lab. Yes, there were much more friendly, but we sounded like we were playing in a cave. And about Tampa being a horrible scene, I've noticed. We haven't been able to get any shows in Orlando. Nobody returns phone calls. Do you know of anywhere we could play? Thanks
 
Yeah, very nice recordings...but they should have been, ya know......and unless you have a good friend or one of the members of the band that is capable of some serious engineering work, it would be kinda difficult to get that good clean polished (I like polish, BTW, I think of it as a craft) from home units....sure it can be done, but it depends on whether or not you have somebody to commit to the sound and actually do it with the home stuff....

On the other hand, though, as mentioned above, you can get a lot more demos of pretty decent quality out "there" by doing it yourself, if you have the time to learn as you go.....record companies for the most part like the "polished sound", but there are folks that have gotten deals as well as sold their own stuff without going the pro route....AND their recordings sound really good....

So it depends on you, your pocketbook, and your time, which way to go......good luck either way, y'all have a great sound....gibs
 
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