@smithers, your posts since you landed on the scene have been a breath of fresh air. They're nearly always enjoyable to read and often they'll draw people in to reveal their thoughts and experiences on various matters. And so when people do draw on those thoughts, sometimes, disagreement is to be expected.
We have a good and mixed crowd here at the moment. People express themselves in different ways. As you get to know folk better, you'll get used to their ways and realize that they're not getting at you negatively and personally in the way they might sometimes express their variance of opinion. For example ecc83. He has vast electronic experience and by his own admission, doesn't do much recording ~ yet he weighs in with lots of interesting and valuable stuff. I can remember over the years how some people {fortunately no longer here} have given him an unnecessarily hard time and he's learned how to hold himself on a forum like this and still remain a gent.
Or Rob, who is very forthright and opinionated and is confident in what he shares, yet who is also a treasure trove of information that goes a long way towards helping people reach their own conclusions, whether in the direction he has posited or otherwise.
Or mjbphotos who knows what he wants and, if you listen to some of his music, knows how to apply what he wants to make it work effectively for him. Whether one agrees with a specific point of his or not, that alone makes him worth listening to.
Or Talisman who has a lot of experience in playing and recording but is never too proud to pick up new things, while being steadfast in what he knows and will share.
There are quite a few others too.
I'm nearly always cognisant of the fact that most of the advantages that exist in communication on video, telephone and eyeball-to-eyeball don't exist here. All we have are printed words to communicate the things that vocal and body language and all the other cues do for us in "normal" everyday life. It can be hard, trying to read a person just through their words. I slip up in that from time to time. We all do.
You have no need to apologize. We're just a group of people that possibly wouldn't choose to hang together much were it not for our chosen passion/interest. But through that interest, we are in the same boat and we get sort of get to know each other.
I think of it like this; many of us are not exactly young anymore. Lots of us have wives/partners/friends/kids/colleagues that have been part of our lives for a long time, that haven't got a clue of the depth of knowledge and interest that we have in home recording, yet people we "meet" on this forum do {if they're listening and not blocking !}. But it can take a while to get used to the full range of a person's "whys and wherefores."
I think this is crucial. Of course, it works both ways.
For me, when it comes to recording in general and home recording in particular, there is rarely a universal route to anything. If one looks at the history of recording sound, there have been all kinds of methods to achieve the same result and sheer logic alone tells me they all have a place, even if some are no longer in common usage. They worked at one stage so it's not like finding easier, more "effective" ways renders the old ways no longer applicable. For example, if someone lives in a castle or a very large house and they want to rig up mics in high stairwells to record the drums, vocals, double bass and acoustic guitars, and they are happy to do that and they like the result and it isn't impeding the songs, then they should do that, even if it takes them 4 times as long as someone with VSTis and plug ins.
Personally, I could care less about the headaches you get in making your music. That's on you ! They make for a good story to tell.
Something I have always valued about being on a forum where there are so many different people with a variety of different ways of doing things is that I can see that pretty much every way is valid ~ although not necessarily at every point in time.
Counter-advice is useful. I don't take it personally anymore, even if it's meant that way. One day that counter-advice might make one of my recordings that much more interesting and effective.
This really stood out to me. I'd never really thought about it before in such a codified way, but the reality is that the market {both new and 2nd-hand} ensures that there is rarely budget equality between the various areas.
I've been building my arsenal of weaponry since, I suppose, 1986. The item that is my longest serving that I currently have would be my congas which I've had since the end of summer 1990, bought from a neighbourhood criminal {he insisted they were his}, and my 6-string electro-acoustic guitar which was bought for me in early September 1990. The guitar was £100 and the congas were, IIRC, £80. The congas were certainly a bargain.
When I started buying stuff for my mythical studio, I personally didn't think in terms of a budget. I just thought in terms of what I needed or wanted and looked at the items and decided whether I was ready to pay what the prices were or not. I was sort of buying on the fly. "Oh, I could use such and such. Let me see if I can find one."
These were pre~internet days.
I remember that when I went from 4 to 8-track portastudio in late 1992, I went for the Tascam 488 {MK1} which was £1070 ~ an
insane fortune for me at the time. I had to take out a loan for it that I didn't pay off till early 1996 ! In 1991, I bought a double bass for £350 and later that year, I bought a mandolin with a pick-up {I
still use that mandolin and the pick-up !}....for £78.
In '93, I bought a piano from some old geezer that lived on the 2nd floor of some converted house for £90 and a Hammond organ from some store that sold them 2nd-hand for £350 and the following year, I bought a Fender Rhodes for £170 and the day before that, my 6-string electric guitar {a Peavey Reactor} for £155. And when I wanted to try out various pedals and effects, I'd pop down to shops like Rockstop or Turnkey in central London or some of the local ones and buy there, or even the instrument exchanges in Kentish Town and Notting Hill gate.
Happy days !
I could go on and bore everyone to sleep
with how VSTis have been incorporated into my studio and my move to digital standalones, but my point is that Rob's point here is an important one here. The market determines the prices and these are determined by what one desires to use.
One of the most wonderful departments in HR.com is the analogue forum. Although I no longer record in that medium {and I loved it while I did and support it forever}, its very presence ensures that there will be people that step outside the current "norm" of digital. And there are always overlaps between the two.
In terms of mics and software, I think that's a progressive thing. The mics I started off with {a couple of AKGs}, I swapped/was swindled out of {by a clever pro singer !} for a couple of shitty Shures.....but I learned through experience that I needed something "better." Many of us learn as we go. We listen to what other people are using, consider how that compares with what we have, and proceed from there.
I get that, but one should keep in mind that not everyone has the personal experience of the person offering the comment. I sometimes joke about mjbphoto's disdain for digital standalones because it genuinely makes me laugh. I disagree with him about them but I bear in mind that he has left them behind and gone onto something that he considers superior. I love them and still use them. It isn't a matter of who is wrong or right because wrong and right don't come into it. There is plenty of room in our world for variance of opinion. If I didn't like hearing opposing ideas, or to put it a better way,
different ways, I don't think I'd hang around anyone online that was likely to proffer something that isn't where I'm at. I don't mind echo chambers sometimes, they have their value, but one doesn't learn as much being in one, neither does one learn how to counter opposing points.