Home Recording's Dirty Little Secret

[misterbill]

I expected I could reasonably equal the quality of commercial recordings-since that is what they told me when I bought my Korg D8. Or was it sometime in the two and a half years of saving money to buy it that they told me that.


I should be happy, and I do love to listen to my CD, and I am not being sarcastic when I say that I have learned not to take my CD out of my CD player and play anything produced by Curb Records.

When I was a kid(I am 56)I used to try to do overdubs with a hand held tape deck and a mic to a reel to reel. My D8 is a far cry from that, and as I said I should probably be very happy.

I used my neighbors powered mixer and his condensor mic for most of my recordings- but since I have bought an Alesis mixer, a Blue Baby Bottle, a presonus tube pre and a comp 16 compressor.

If I put reverb on the vocals on track 3, I cannot put chorus on track 2 for the guitar-so I have to record everything wet. My CD burner is in a sound recorder program on my computer, which may be my weakest link(plus the computer is now dead)

I would like to upgrade, but then my D8 will be the weakest link-kind of a catch 22.

The worst part of it is I didn't do this to start a hobby-I was trying to improve our life by doing something with my music. But nevertheless it is a really great hobby-I have already learned a couple of things just from reading this post. Glad to be here!
First Post
misterbill

 

[M1Fanatic]

I had no illusions of studio quality recordings when I started in this hobby almost 30 years ago. A Portastudio cannot compete with 2" tape and a professional engineer and gear.

My recordings have gotten better and so has my equipment, but it's still not up to professional 2" standards.

Though they may not be of that quality, I have aquired an immense amount of knowledge by just doing it. The journey has been as rewarding as the fruits of the labor.

 

[TheChikenMaster]

I felt that I could record just as well and even believed my stuff was on that level until I recorded more and saw that the stuff I did previously sucked. The more I got into it the more I realized I didn't know. But I do believe one can accomplish the same results in a home studio but it will take more time. Like removing a cork from a bottle you can either use a really expensive one and have it out in two motions or use a cheap one which you will have to do a lot of twisting.

 

[MMensch]

With me, it's like half the time, I'm sort of tormented by the fact that whatever I do, I'm unlikely to ever end up sounding like the average commercial release, let alone the really brilliant stuff. But I find some solace in the fact that there is lots of music that I like which is technically on the level of what I can sort of do and that it really doesn't matter - I rarely find myself noticing production faults. Again, not every part of me believes that, otherwise I wouldn't have spent €5000 on gear over the years. But I've never put my faith into gear, i.e. I was aware from day one that if I don't make the difference with my songwriting, no amount of gear in my bedroom, or paid "real" studio time for that matter, is going to help.

 

[Lance135]

The most revealing thing...

The most revealing thing that home recording has taught me is that it's not the gear that gets in my way of making great recordings - it's me.

Let's face facts:

Professional recordings are made by people that nothing all day long but make recordings.

From the songwriters, composers and arrangers, to the singers and musicians, to the recording engineers and producers, the mixing engineers, and finally, the mastering engineers, everyone is the very best at what they do - and they have the very best equipment money can buy.

Though technology has bridged the "equipment gap", it is very hard to bridge the "expertise gap", as we all have other jobs or school or aren't motivated to get better.

Of course, this doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make our stuff the very best it can be. It means we have to really work hard and really try!

 

[TommieKing]

Old but funny!

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 pushing 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.

This is an old thread but boy it's funny and true! Ya just can't beat that 2 inch tape, well engineered mixing desk, top of the line REAL microphones, patch bays, outboard gear and engineer mixing wits that's responsible for the best music this planet has ever heard! It amazes me how clever the marketing is to make people think they can just buy some software and now they have a hit song!

Wonderful quote!

 

[MMensch]

Wonderful quote!

But a very fallacious interpretation. It's obvious that Glen sees the problem in the empty promises that are selling the gear, phyisical or otherwise, not the gear itself.

 

[M1Fanatic]

The line that the advertising hype leaves out is, "...after you learn to use all of this übercool gear..."

 

[MMensch]

The line that the advertising hype leaves out is, "...after you learn to use all of this übercool gear..."

Exactly, and they don't leave it out by accident, either - most people hate doing stuff they're not good or making too slow of a progress at, and they want to believe that a piece of gear is the solution for making music to become fun again. God knows I still catch myself poring over sythesiser or effect unit reviews and fantasising what I could do with this or that ... fortunately, over the years, I've come to understand that I've got great gear and that there is very little equipment that would really make a difference, but a juicy review can still get me going.

 

[LDS]

Anyone want to collaborate on my new videogame project?

Recording Engineer Hero.

You get a big fancy control surface with lots of sliders and knobs, and have to twiddle them as colored lines representing tracks of music come at you on the screen...

 

[clivus]

I believe that real artistry has alot more to do with the 'indians' and not with the 'arrows'.

 

[lieasleep]

I believe that real artistry has alot more to do with the 'indians' and not with the 'arrows'.

I agree. Lo-fi musicians really prove it too. When I listen to Guided by Voices, all I can think of is how they made such awesome tunes using a shitty four track in a garage or basement. Old cliche, but if you don't have the foundation, you can't build a house.

For my setup, I chose to do everything to cassette first just for that raw, analog sound. I will listen the Neutral Milk Hotel early demos and say, how do I get THAT sound?

If you embrace or disregard amateur-ness, and really focus on the music, the recordings will sound great. No matter what

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

But a very fallacious interpretation. It's obvious that Glen sees the problem in the empty promises that are selling the gear, phyisical or otherwise, not the gear itself.

You can't blame the gear any more than you can blame the car for an inexperienced driver or the gun for someone who hasn't learned to shoot it properly.

The problem is not the cheap condenser or the DAW software, it's the belief of the buyer because of wishful desire on their part that they can actually get twenty thousand dollars worth of performance for four hundred dollars worth of gear, and that they can do so without having to develop their own skills because of the inflated claims on the part of the seller.

The truth is, Mmench, the gear available to the average home recordist was on balance no better thirty yeas ago than it is now. Yes, a decent multitrack analog tape deck or stereo mastering deck had a sound you just don't get from digital these days, but you know how much that stuff cost - especially when you adjust for inflation? Even an entry level Teac 3340s - which was still only four track - cost US$850 dollars back then, which was the inflation-adjusted equivalent of about US$2500 in 2009. Four tracks of recording for $2500, and that's not including microphones or preamps.

Not only could a lot of home recordists not afford that back then, but you just didn't have the selection of inexpensive mics of halfway-decent quality that you have today. Sure there were some, but not as many as now. If you wanted a decent condenser or ribbon mic, usually you had to pay for the good stuff. There was no MXL or Rode or the like back then.

And do I even need to mention the fact that there was no digital editing or mixing for the home recordist back then? No plug-ins, free or otherwise. If you were lucky, you had a 1/3 or 2/3rd octave graphic EQ, a cheap spring reverb that usually sounded cheap, and maybe an external dbx or Dolby tape NR unit if you were even luckier, and usually that was about it as far as outboard analog processing, unless you were born with a silver spoon sticking out of your ass. Parametric EQ and even compression were available, but expensive and rare to find in home recording setups. No nearfield monitors except for the brand-spanking new at the time Yamaha NS10, and those too were quite expensive; you were pretty much forced to use home stereo speakers no matter what. You want a real-time analyzer? It was likely a low resolution 12-LED-band 1U unit that cost about $800-$1000 and that's *before* inflation.

So let's not hear that the problem these days is the gear; in so many respects the gear is so much more capable and available to the home recordist than it has ever been. The problem IME is more often than not the inflated expectations of the user and the belief that the new digital technologies will do all the work for them without them having to learn or practice anything.

G.

 

[NewAgeMuttLange]

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.

Exactly.. Between the Buried and Me record in a basement 25 minutes from my house.. So called "Commercial Studios" are going down in numbers due to the equipment available to your average joe home recording artist..

Besides a Commericial Studio is technically only a studio that is considered a business.

 

[Chibi Nappa]

Here are the real dirty little secrets:

Most people focus so hard on the gear that they don't even know what the skill is supposed to be.

You see the posts all the time. "Will a new preamp help my sound?" "Should I get a new interface?" etc. I don't know why recording has this equipment confusion when other skilled professions don't. Nobody who is just starting out in baseball would ever ask "will this awesome high-tech composite bat make me hit any better against CC Sabathia?". No. It is obvious that your own skill level holds you back so far that the "Super Bat" won't do a damn thing. Will it make one of the starters on the Red Sox hit any better against CC Sabathia? Yeah. That's why it's banned and the Sox have to make due with the old lumber. But the point is you have to be a pro hitter. Everybody understands that.

This is exactly what audio is. We are not just passive bystanders serving only to plug in the equipment and hit record. We have to swing the microphone's metaphorical bat at the sound's metaphorical pitch. And it is just as hard.

The best mic and preamp in the world won't do a darn thing if you whiff.

And you can do amazing things with really cheap stuff these days. So no, your gear is not the problem.



Well-meaning members constantly answer questions without understanding the problem.

To all of you: Please hold answers until you understand the problem. This stuff can be so overwhelming that most newbies don't even know what to ask, and when they do ask something it is often founded on assumptions that are dead wrong. If we answer questions at face value, our (entirely correct) answers can send them in a useless direction and leave them worse off than before. Metaphorical example:

Newbie- Guys, I'm being totally soaked with water from a faucet above me. I want to catch all of that water. What is the best way of doing this efficiently?

Guy one- Well, we really need to know the nature of the faucet above you. How big is it? How fast does the water come out? But I'll take a guess and say you should get some buckets and hold them over your head.

Guy two- No, buckets run the risk of splashing and wasting anything that spills on the ground. You should make a suit out of towels and stand under the faucet. That way if anything does spill, you can just roll on it and soak it up.

*cue two entire pages on the merrits of buckets and towels*

Guy three- What are you trying to do with this water?

Newbie- Well, I need to fill my swimming pool. So I went to the hardware store and got some plumbing pipes to install a faucet over the sofa in my living room since that is where I usually sit. Then I figured I'd carry the water out to the pool, but instead it's just getting all over me.

Guy four- You could just build the plumbing so the faucet hangs over the pool...

 

[NewAgeMuttLange]

funniest metaphorical example ever.

-Paul

EDIT: Okay.. maybe not EVER but most definately of the year so far....

 

[borducks]

didn't really care back then

when i started we didn't have any illusions about pro quality at home. They had the 2" 24 tracks at 30ips, and we had the 4 track cassette deck at 3.5ips or maybe a nice TEAC reel machine if we had $$$.

it was nice, though because it made us work on songs and plan out arrangements (for all that bouncing without undo's!) and realize that it's all about the music and performances.

it's wonderful to be using much of the same gear as the pros these days. it gives me room to grow, but sometimes I spend more time tweaking than writing and recording. gotta remember to step back.

 

[borducks]

same as it ever was

Exactly, and they don't leave it out by accident, either - most people hate doing stuff they're not good or making too slow of a progress at, and they want to believe that a piece of gear is the solution for making music to become fun again. God knows I still catch myself poring over sythesiser or effect unit reviews and fantasising what I could do with this or that ... fortunately, over the years, I've come to understand that I've got great gear and that there is very little equipment that would really make a difference, but a juicy review can still get me going.

too true. as a guitar player I get the GAS bad but find more and more that the next great secret tone weapon I'm about to drop $$$ for is already sitting in my basement.

 

[yesdog]

I am a drummer, I was using a behringer XENYX1222 mixer and mixcraft software on my P.C. I mainly got the mixer and cheap software to record my practices. Which is a great tool to use to improve your playing. I then got a case of G.A.S. Now I have a macbook pro, Digital Performer 6 , Zoom R16,
And samson mics. Now I still record my practicing and do drum tracks for my Brothers Studio. I think the technology is incredible. I will get a song with a click and no drums, make several passes of said song, The tracks are (naked)
no mixing per say. I will send the file on a bulk mail server, The studio uses the same software. They open it and can do any mixing they want. I think thats pretty cool. Along with a little side work, I still mainly use my recording gear as a tool to improve my playing. As far as mixing and all that goes I am learning as I go. I am a musician first, I don't need to waist hours of my time that could go to good quality practicing. Some of the effect plug ins are cool.
But I think you need the real stuff not simulated effects. I will leave that to the pros. Any way thats my opinion of home recording from a musicians point of view.

 

[Sisprum Vish]

I was never one to listen to the radio or care about what's going on so much in the mainstream... that actually happened AFTER I got into producing music. I never really appreciated the art of good production before that. So at the end of it all, I think I'm trying to mimic my personal favorite artist's production styles and techniques (like people who use the same gear that I do), not so much artists that have top name producers working with them in some huge studio in California I will never get to see with my own eyes.