Do you really need expensive stuff?

[noisedude]

I think it's great that Harvey's done this.

But with all due respect, some of you really need to get out. ....there's been a lot of guys ... doing some really excellent work using tools / components that aren't financially burdening.

Maybe it's BECAUSE some of us were out that we missed those threads?

 

[chessrock]

Maybe it's BECAUSE some of us were out that we missed those threads?

You mean physically ... or mentally?



.

 

[chestwick91]

Actually, i believe you had great work on that track...i think you got some good results out of everything, but man i hate guitar direct out of a modeling source...i can call it everytime...thats just me, i love micing an amp
always have, always will

 

[noisedude]

You mean physically ... or mentally?



.

Maybe both, I can't remember.

 

[Harvey Gerst]

Actually, i believe you had great work on that track...i think you got some good results out of everything, but man i hate guitar direct out of a modeling source...i can call it everytime...thats just me, i love micing an amp - always have, always will

Well, I would've if they wanted it. This is part of our amp collection:

 

[Obi-Wan zenabI]

Digging the bass in the scratch mix, excepting one of the fills.

Also, I have that little fender amp in my classroom-- I bought it for the kids to play guitar afterschool. It kills! I have a blast rocking out on it with them.

 

[MCI2424]

Yes, that's true, but it really has nothing to do with this discussion. The original question was "Do you really need expensive equipment (to make a usable recording)?" From there, we get into a semantics war; how much is "good enough"?

I've been around U47s and 2" machines most of my life and they're great, if they're working properly. And yes, I love the sound of U47's and U67's, but can you make a decent recording without them, just using less expensive stuff? I believe the answer is yes, but it is harder.

You hafta maybe work harder and work smarter, but it can be done. A lot of people here are just starting out, with minimal equipment and often, minimal knowledge. Before we start recommending that everybody should rush out and buy expensive equipment, why not help people learn how to get the best results out of what they already own?

That was the original purpose of this thread. No expensive mics, no outboard preamps, no expensive comps, eq's, or reverbs were used. Is the final product "good enough"? Not for a major label release, but probably good enough for many indie labels. Certainly good enough to get gigs, to sell, and maybe attract some label interest.

In all my years of visiting people's home studios to help them get a better sound, there was not a single instance where equipment was at fault.

It was always the instrument quality, room, monitors and wrong signal chains that get them. You don't need expensive equipment to make a great recording but you do need great sounding instruments and correct rooms to give a pleasing sound. This is why there are so many varying opinions on a single mic, for instance. Why do you think that each person can argue over the same mic, that it is bright, muddy, boomy etc. ?


The problem with close to 100% of home studios is the room sound and lousy monitoring environments.

I am sure I can make a good recording using 100% Behringer equipment in the right room with good sounding instruments and good musicians.

Now, about expensive equipment:

in 30 years of recording, the cheaper stuff simply will not outlast good equipment. Just to compare, every single component (with the exception of a half dozen worn out tape decks) I have since I began buying in 1979 is still working. I have had 1 or 2 failures in all my gear.

Expensive stuff has not only the benefit of sounding better, but it is reliable and will stand up to years of use.

I guess that is the bottom line.

 

[zbert]

Expensive stuff has not only the benefit of sounding better, but it is reliable and will stand up to years of use.

I guess that is the bottom line.

That might have be true years ago but now with the bottom line being profit some of the "expensive" stuff is just repackaged Chinese junk. Case in point when it was discovered that the Telefuken M16 was nothing but an Apex 460.

 

[kojdogg]

That might have be true years ago but now with the bottom line being profit some of the "expensive" stuff is just repackaged Chinese junk. Case in point when it was discovered that the Telefuken M16 was nothing but an Apex 460.

yeah there's a lot of examples of this kind of thing, though few to the extent of the telefunken m16 (mk I) example.
a lot of companies use chinese manfactured bodies and/or capsules in their mid-high range mics. peluso uses some chinese-manufactured components (but diaphragms the capsules and makes power supplies in his shop), as does pearlman (dave pearlman uses peluso capsules and power supplies). charter oak and mojave audio use chinese capsules (though with higher quality control standards than the less expensive companies). if you look at some of these mics, they tend to have the same/very similar cases and/or power supplies with maybe a different badge logo attached.
a lot of this is justified with the quality control rationalization that the components are manufactured very cheaply but with less emphasis on quality control-- particularly with capsules. the higher end companies using these components invest in quality control and reject a percentage of the parts due to imperfections out of their tolerance ranges, which are ostensibly much stricter than the original manufacturer. i guess this means that if you buy a mic from a typical inexpensive company, you have a chance to get one with a really good mic capsule, or a really bad one, or one somewhere in between, whereas with the higher end company using capsules manufactured in the same factory with the same design, there is theoretically little chance of you getting a marginal to very poor one. the higher end companies will use typically use much higher end capacitors, transformers and other components in their mics, but may use the exact same capsule, body, grille, power supply, etc. as the cheaper ones.

 

[tkingen]

In all my years of visiting people's home studios to help them get a better sound, there was not a single instance where equipment was at fault.

It was always the instrument quality, room, monitors and wrong signal chains that get them. You don't need expensive equipment to make a great recording but you do need great sounding instruments and correct rooms to give a pleasing sound. This is why there are so many varying opinions on a single mic, for instance. Why do you think that each person can argue over the same mic, that it is bright, muddy, boomy etc. ?


The problem with close to 100% of home studios is the room sound and lousy monitoring environments.

I am sure I can make a good recording using 100% Behringer equipment in the right room with good sounding instruments and good musicians.

Now, about expensive equipment:

in 30 years of recording, the cheaper stuff simply will not outlast good equipment. Just to compare, every single component (with the exception of a half dozen worn out tape decks) I have since I began buying in 1979 is still working. I have had 1 or 2 failures in all my gear.

Expensive stuff has not only the benefit of sounding better, but it is reliable and will stand up to years of use.

I guess that is the bottom line.

Excellent post, and thanks for your points about room sound and lousy monitoring environment.

About the reliablity of better gear - in the home hobby studio that may not be as much of a consideration. The homey may run electricity through his gear a few hours a week (or month). The professional may be running his gear 12 hrs a day with his livelihood dependent on glitch free operation. In that scenario the professional would be more concerned with top notch build quality than the hobbiest.

 

[CoolCat]

Actually, i believe you had great work on that track...i think you got some good results out of everything, but man i hate guitar direct out of a modeling source...i can call it everytime...thats just me, i love micing an amp
always have, always will

Well, I would've if they wanted it. This is part of our amp collection:

I think the speaker is 50% of the amp sound too...let alone everyone talkin about rooms and other things of course.
I mean most anyone can hear a peavy amp and play it thru celestions, fender, behringer speakers and it sounds completely different.

and the direct "good or bad" issue, i went thru that and can see both preferences or positives... there's just too many frkn great,.. hell outstanding!! DI recordings posted around here using DI. Mic'd amps, is a no brainer obviously, no question its numero uno.

its possibly the preferred personal preference, pertaining to a persons perception of performance per playback, probably.

its either there or its whacked.

 

[the cool one]

So this is what a professional recording sounds like. Thanks Harvey.

 

[Emusic]

For example on "Rejoice", I added reverb in the computer to the "shouts" track, but it no longer sat well with the other tracks.

Sounded very clear and separated.

Question: Why didn´t it sit well? Because of Latency in the computer?

Great post.

 

[Harvey Gerst]

Sounded very clear and separated.

Question: Why didn't it sit well? Because of Latency in the computer?

Great post.

I don't think it was latency. Soloed, the track had a nice reverby sound, like she was shouting in a large room; not too large, just right to my ear.

But, when I brought up all the other vocals, it sounded like she was way off by herself - too far away from the rest of the group. Way too much reverb, bit I was now committed to it.

I had to delete the processed track, re-import it from the hard drive, and start processing the vocal all over again.

 

[Obi-Wan zenabI]

Interesting how reverb affects percieved "distance" from the listener.

I should spend more time experimenting with stereo placement in conjunction with depth of reverb on different tracks to improve the "space" in my recordings.

But this gets back to the expensive gear topic-- is the stock "Reverb B" in my Cubase LE really going to let me do that effectively?

 

[Harvey Gerst]

But this gets back to the expensive gear topic-- is the stock "Reverb B" in my Cubase LE really going to let me do that effectively?

Probably, yes, but you're just gonna hafta dink around with it till ya get it right. And often, it will turn out to be way less effect is needed than you originally think is correct.

 

[Harvey Gerst]

About the reliability of better gear - in the home hobby studio that may not be as much of a consideration. The homey may run electricity through his gear a few hours a week (or month). The professional may be running his gear 12 hrs a day with his livelihood dependent on glitch free operation. In that scenario the professional would be more concerned with top notch build quality than the hobbiest.

Yes, this is one of the major points of difference between home recording equipment and the pro studio stuff; most of the pro studio stuff is built like a battleship. It's designed to work night and day if need be - with consistent performance. Not necessarily the "best" performance, but with "consistent" performance.

Case in point; when somebody spilled a beer in our Topaz, we replaced the mixer with a Tascam DM24 digital mixer till we could get the Topaz fixed. Everybody agreed that the Tascam had an amazing, clean sound, automation that should make mixes a breeze, and tons of built in useful effects..

But, every time we tried to use the DM24 for a session, the recall wouldn't work, or it locked up and froze. After about a week of "I think it's working now", and then freezing up, and canceling sessions, I said, "Enough!!!". We paid for a rush repair of the Topaz and I told Alex, "Get that POS DM24 outta here - permanently!".

 

[eeb]

yes this is my BIGGEST PROBLEM I wish i had enough to buy really amazing gear but it's not in the cards.. but half of a session is me troubleshooting why this program isn't working.. why this plugin isn't working correctly.. going through cheaper choards to find the one that's buzzing.. an error here a few thousand swears there.. the guys in my band had to stop me once from throwing my computer out the window once (i lost a whole session from a glitch) It takes alot for me to get that pissed too. I'm sure i'd have alot less issues if i ponied up the money for a state of the art computer and some better gear.

 

[eeb]

p.s. harvey you've inspired me to take alot more time on getting the sound I want right away.. hehe part of me wants to retrack some of the songs my band's been working on... but they'd kill me!! hahaha

 

[Harvey Gerst]

p.s. harvey you've inspired me to take alot more time on getting the sound I want right away.. hehe part of me wants to retrack some of the songs my band's been working on... but they'd kill me!! hahaha

Yes, they'll kill you if you just make the tracks different, but they won't kill you if you make the tracks better.