Track In A Studio Mix At Home or Track At Home Mix In A Studio

[tashmoo]

Tracking at home and having a professional mix for you at a studio would be the best route in my opinion.

I would only track drums in the studio.

Track everything else at home.
When you mix it with a great engineer in HIS professional studio that's most likely treated and sounds great.
You'll end up with a great result.
Love to hear it when your done.

 

[Justsomeguy]

How is that worthy of a facepalm???

 

[JimmyS1969]

I think there is a need to define 'studio'. If your listening/recording environment is awful, then it should not be considered a studio. This also would apply to recording tracks at home. Unless you are just recording direct signals, that you would use in a 'studio later, the same listening/recording environment will still be the key to getting useable tracks. If it sucks, likely the outcome will have a bit of suck to it as well.

Facepalm that, and you just don't get it.....

 

[Bobbsy]

Yup. The acoustics play a huge role in how things sound. No facepalm deserved there.

My only caveat would be that, if your acoustics affect your recorded tracks then you're sunk. There's nothing you can do about it.

However, you CAN learn to compensate for room issues while you're mixing. Just as you can learn less than perfect monitors or mixing on headphones, you can learn how things need to sound in you room to sound okay elsewhere. This is far from desirable but it IS possible. And, in any case, if your first three attempts at a mix sound like rubbish elsewhere, at least you can always go back and do it again. With tracking, on the other hand, you're stuck with what you've laid down.

 

[Guitargodgt]

Ok, I can get behind the track at home thing for sure on vocals.

One thing I would consider if you do though (having heard the difference) is rent a nice mic and a nice preamp or ch strip for a week and use that. Dreamhire rents out mics and pres for a reasonable cost. Or if you already have a mic you dig just a nice ch strip.

I'm merely thinking cost vs. time vs. quality here and how to max each.

I mentioned reamping because what I have locally for studios is pretty impressive in terms of what amps they have on tap, what mics they have on tap and the incredible spaces they have.

 

[Justsomeguy]

One thing I would consider if you do though (having heard the difference) is rent a nice mic and a nice preamp or ch strip for a week and use that.

Definitely As i said, in the example i gave of our band recording, we were very lucky that we had access to some nice mics as and when we needed them and have some nice mid priced pre's between us. It does also depend wildly upon the space you have available to you at home to record in. The time Vs cost Vs performance ratio is definitely the hardest thing to try and maximise without some real forward planning and, as i said, this is another factor that pushed us towards doing vocals at home as we knew the cost and time required to get the performance we needed in a studio outweighed the quality of the recording for our needs. But all of the above really had to be taken into consideration. If our singer could perform under pressure and to the clock then all of the above would've been moot points

I mentioned reamping because what I have locally for studios is pretty impressive in terms of what amps they have on tap, what mics they have on tap and the incredible spaces they have.

The amp thing was the big thing for us. When you can hear a particular tone in your head and know you haven't got anything that sounds close to that at home it made a lot of sense to reamp them at somewhere with a room full of lovely, lovely amps that we could only dream of ever owning.

 

[stevieg11]

I'd rather record in a nice space at a pro studio, can't replace a good live room no matter what your mixing environment is!

 

[kjell159]

If it's a hobby go for home studio if you're serious, consider going to a professional studio.

 

[JimmyS1969]

It it's a serious hobby, consider becoming a professional.

 

[ShofB]

7. Find someone who hasn't heard any of the process at this point to master it. Go with a completely different studio or mastering house if possible..

A clean set of ears is very important for this stage of the process. Great advice.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

Apparently people have stopped reading the OP's actual question.

 

[grimtraveller]

I've been researching different ways to save money while still ending up with a "pro" mix using a combination or a professional studio and a home studio. I recently started looking up whether it is more beneficial to record in a studio and mix at home or do just the opposite.

On a home recording forum, it's kind of interesting how often professional studios have come up recently.
Just out of interest to Beaverbee, have you listened to any of the stuff of any of the contributors here and if so, did you consider any of it to "sound pro" or not ?
I'm not getting at you, I'm genuinely curious.

 

[tashmoo]

How is that worthy of a facepalm???

That would be me whacking myself in the head trying to mix in an untreated space.

Sorry for the misinterpretation. I completely agree with the fact that mixing in a bad sounding room is a futile experience.

 

[Steenamaroo]

That would be me whacking myself in the head trying to mix in an untreated space.

Sorry for the misinterpretation. I completely agree with the fact that mixing in a bad sounding room is a futile experience.

Haha. Just checked back on this thread and thought the same as Justsomeguy.