Home Recording's Dirty Little Secret

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What were your home recording expectations vs commercial high end studio recordings?

  • I was not expecting from the get go I could make high end commercial studio recordings.

    Votes: 529 40.1%

  • I had not considered the question of home recording quality vs commercial quality when I started.

    Votes: 287 21.8%

  • I expected I could reasonably equal the quality of commercial recordings.

    Votes: 502 38.1%
  • Total voters
    1,318
I believe my modest home equipment can be used to produce a record that sounds as good as a commercial record made in a high-end studio.

I do not believe I have the skills to achieve those results with the equipment I have (nor any other equipment) yet.
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I love this! I feel the same way, only I would need gear... (see GAS)
 
lastdays said:
I love this! I feel the same way, only I would need gear... (see GAS)
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I felt it was important to have a real compressor, parametric eq, and reverb, even though I can create as many as I want on the fly in Reaper. I grew up during the consumer electronics revolution of the 80s, when everything had dedicated single-function knobs and switches.

My biggest peeve about electronics today is the crappy membrane keypads on microwave ovens that I can never seem to figure out how to operate. It was so much easier to just close the door and twist the spring-loaded timer knob. And texting on a cell phone is just horrid. But I digress.

I'll admit it's not rational, but I don't feel like I'm getting the "real" hands-on studio experience from a DAW. I've seen some boutique control surfaces that address the issue somewhat elegantly, but they're very expensive and are specifically designed for a certain DAW. Moreover, since I decided to start collecting vintage Casio keyboards last year, it seemed obvious to get some standalone recording gear that would complement the "real" experience that Casio created with their endlessly inventive user interface designs.
 
Twinhit said:
Seems kinda strange.... SSG recommended turd softener when we are talking turd polish.

That's kinda like asking what's the best car wax and some wise guy comes along and suggests fabric softener.

I think we'll just skip it. No tellin' what'll happen when the Colace'd turd hits the buffer.
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"turn turds into cinderblocks as hard as a mix smashed to a 0dB crest factor" -

SS, that almost sounds like a sales pitch.
 
As far as gear goes, I just stumble around in the dark until I find something that doesn't work.
 
Twinhit said:
SS, that almost sounds like a sales pitch.
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Believe me, it's not even something I'd try to sell to my worst enemies. Especially at the price that the drug that causes it costs: Try $450 a month to experience anal labor pains every time you need to pass a cinder block. :(

G.
 
help, read through some of the comments want to set up a good sound recording just for my daughter to sing in her room,got a sm58 what else do i need , want it to have good sound ,she has windows vista 2gb laptop,sound not good ,needs boosting, she has downloaded audacity, basically need advice on wat to buy but i dont want to spend £100,s
 
I can honestly say the reason I got into Home Recording was that it is cheaper than a studio.
I like writing songs and I don't know how to do sheet music.
I used to have a Fostex 4-Track which was great but I needed a means of getting more tracks.
It is convenient, there is no time limit, no pressure, but above all else it is a lot of fun.

YouTube - Goodbye (To You My Friend)
 
It has taken us 15 years to learn/equip and produce release quality songs, huge task, never ending, frustrating, expensive, baffling, but really rewarding experience.

The recording hardware is only 25% of the 'dirty little secret' the other 75% is divided 70% sweat and 5% talent.

We now can record anything we want to release standard, the trouble now is writing stuff you want to release, lol.
 
I wanted to record mainly to make money at first, but then I got hooked on it and I forgot about all my previous aspirations haha!
 
Jeez if you were knocking out " The Hit Parade" Recordings from day 1; excuse me but wtf would be the point? I have enjoyed the learning process and as I have took the time to learn, am enjoying my mixdowns just as much as the bignames! I wish I could be subjective enough to master my stuff but its better to pass it on anyway. LESS IS MORE and More and more plugins make things poor ;)
 
HAHA Yeah it seems like all the geeky side of learning" which frequencys does what, How to wire up all that stuff, midi mayhem but mainly sound"
That you kinda lose that inspiration you once had! I go out now and spend my whole nights whining about how the engineer or dj has to much Highs or whatever.
 
I did set out to create recordings that sounded as good as commercial stuff and was quickly crushed like a redknecks empty beercan.

After wiping the tears from my eyes I decided to just create a mix that sounded how I wanted it to and I like to think I achieved that.

Then again.. I'm an idiot....
 
I did set out to create recordings that sounded as good as commercial stuff and was quickly crushed like a redknecks empty beercan.

After wiping the tears from my eyes I decided to just create a mix that sounded how I wanted it to and I like to think I achieved that.

Then again.. I'm an idiot....
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I am too ;)
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I think perhaps the biggest "A-HA" moment in my early experience was the day (and I still remember it) I first learned about the "parametric sweep" technique for notching out honker frequencies. I still think that is the most valuable and most often used technique in my quivver, and it yields immediate and immediately noticable results. Hardly a track goes by where I don't give it at least a cursory sweep just to see what's up.

G.
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I am reading thru this monster post and ran accross this tip. My engineer used this on vocals quite a bit. I was going to ask about this in my eq rules of thumb thread but I chickened out after a being yelled at by dad. My question to you G (dad) is this, would you do this technique even on keyboards or triggered samples?

As far as my take on the post, I want to get as close to the pro sound in my genre as possible with my HR gear.
 
Saltine said:
I am reading thru this monster post and ran accross this tip. My engineer used this on vocals quite a bit. I was going to ask about this in my eq rules of thumb thread but I chickened out after a being yelled at by dad. My question to you G (dad) is this, would you do this technique even on keyboards or triggered samples?

As far as my take on the post, I want to get as close to the pro sound in my genre as possible with my HR gear.
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First of all, let me just say you're lucky that I even saw this post and within an hour of your posting it. I haven't visited this ancient thread in weeks, and have no idea what made me look just now. Especially when I got stuff to get done today before football starts... ;)

But here I am, so here I go: I personally find that electronic keys and samples rarely need or benefit from it. It's not impossible, but it's usually unnecessary IMHO. Sweeping for me is most useful mostly in refining "real life" (so to speak) tracks, especially acoustic or miked tracks where real-life instrument resonances, mic/preamp colorations, or room acoustics want to be tamed.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
First of all, let me just say you're lucky that I even saw this post and within an hour of your posting it. I haven't visited this ancient thread in weeks, and have no idea what made me look just now. Especially when I got stuff to get done today before football starts... ;)

But here I am, so here I go: I personally find that electronic keys and samples rarely need or benefit from it. It's not impossible, but it's usually unnecessary IMHO. Sweeping for me is most useful mostly in refining "real life" (so to speak) tracks, especially acoustic or miked tracks where real-life instrument resonances, mic/preamp colorations, or room acoustics want to be tamed.

G.
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Thanks, hope the games are as good as yesterdays!
 
I got into home recording to get my ideas down, and to help me actually monitor how well I'm doing on my instruments. I soon discovered that things were not as simple as I thought. I wanted more. I wanted to get better at it. I can make a good quality recording that can hang with other recordings in its genre. Still there is that "je ne sais quoi" about the professionally done recordings. But I'm learning what that is. I'll never get there, but I have a good concept about sonic space and how to create a zone for each instrument as well as get that huge bigger than life sound using multitracking, multiple takes and layering them, but it all depends upon the genre. Parametric sweep? you bet.
 
I've mixed some tunes of ours with regular "big name" folks on the ipod, and never has anyone ever said, "Gee, this song sounds like yit compared to the last one".

I think you can get pretty damned good with the gear thats out there today, at least as far as the vast majority of the masses ears are concerned.
 
I voted
"I expected I could reasonably equal the quality of commercial recordings."
Taken with the grain of salt. I suppose it depends on what level of commercial recording. I expect to clearly hear the song as it's played in person, but I also expect to hear my cat in the background on track 4.

Mixing options and range of what you can do with it after you've recorded has been the biggest let down for me compared to what was said "on the box".
 
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