Down and dirty recording is relatively easy and can achieve a plethora of goals, certainly including wide public distribution. Learning & understanding the physics behind audio (& acoustics) is another matter. Music Biz and recording industry is as much fashion as physics. An apprenticeship approach will likely expose one to as much hokum as immutable first principles. But that can quite easily translate to faster economic success. Point? Primarily that even definition of 'experience' can be as challenging as gaining it. Considering the toll that being in the industry (mus) can extract I've been doing this for a fairly long time. I only got into the technical side of recording based on an ambivalence, that bordered on disgust and rage, towards institutions and individuals available (to me) as I got started. Even after clients began to pay me to record & mix I spent at least a decade not merely reinventing the wheel (my ambivalence was such that almost everything to which I'd been exposed, with regard to music, audio, acoustics, had to be challenged) but unlearning a lot of magical thinking. Stuff I wanted to believe simply because I wanted to believe it but was not ultimately supported by the physics. And the simple truth is physics will always trump fashion. (which does not mean that something based on momentary fashion supported by questionable physics will not sell 7 million copies)
The underlying principles might remain consistent but the technology that supports the practice has evolved relatively rapidly during the past 100 yr. (essentially the life span of recording). Specific bits of technology were explored, introduced frequently to off set specific problems with relatively specific situations. Recordings that were obviously superior, in terms of audio not performance, to typical live shows only emerged about half way through that recording history. The direct to disc (or cylinder) that was all that was available at the turn of the 20th century simply did not support recording percussion the way we think of it today. Musicians that learned from recordings didn't hear percussion and percussion use as a time keeping rhythm instrument was skewed by fashion. Dog house base shared some of the same limitations and was frequently ignored as a harmonic and rhythmic lynch pin. Banjo, briefly in recordings 100 yr. history, became the defining rhythmic voice in pop music. The guitar as it existed at the time was not perceived to have projection necessary for live pop ensemble work. And at the time recording was still driven by live performance. For what ever reason (fashion filtered by physics) guitar design was tinkered with, dreadnought styles, steel strings, resonators, magnetic pickups, solid bodies. In the late 30's as Charlie Christian was experimenting with electronics so guitar could compete with piano and brass it is unlikely that anyone envisioned what was going to evolve for guitar. Existing technology tends to limit what we can achieve, we modify tech to address those limitations, the new tech suggests aesthetic goals not possible before. Individuals working in the industry express different levels of experience along the arc of evolving tech and fluctuating fashion. And discourse will frequently employ the same word but mean very, very different things, individual to individual. Even today there is no 'professionally' defined lexicon. (my somewhat educated guess is that what I mean by 'mastering' differs significantly from perhaps 95% of individuals currently using the word. The difference is significant enough that there is almost no way to bridge the gap)
Frequently on forums such as this/these myself, as well as other posters, use the word experience not suggest a specific cannon of knowledge but an approach. By and large we know that as you are getting started that you don't know, you can't target a specific result from a specific technique. But referencing 'experience' not only keeps posts shorter (then this one) but provides a bit of encouragement . . . it is not access to a mystical cannon that determines results, but patience and hard work. Even after years of experience (some people will acquire the skill set quicker then others . . . reduction in cost of tech has not improved the undemocratic distribution of raw talent) selecting which of a half dozen competing (and superficially similar) strategies that will focus accurately on a specific goal can remain challenging. At entry level even defining a specific goal can be a bitch. Lack of experience might mean that one can not distinguish among A, B, C and/or M. In terms of economic return the need to quickly and clearly define who the actual client might be and how the accuracy of this issue will limit technical choices is something lost, and nearly completely unrecognizable by 20 something novices (and not just 20somethings). At the other end of the arc a lot of young practitioners, short on experience have challenged experiential norms. The results of the challenges have in turned introduced ideas that became new standardized norms. Recording 'experience' remains in flux.
Within certain limits a novice has never been in a better position to learn by doing. Not only is the price point (in terms not only of $ but time) lower then it has ever been (my first pro studio not only required a partner, but required, from me, a $10k investment for just the 4 track tape platform). Software tools provide very specific and targeted control over nearly all relevant parameters. While one might start and even eventually default to emulation's of iconic gear typically a dynamics processor bundled with a typical DAW gives one a chance to experiment with all the parameters that can specifically influence audio dynamics. Initially the wealth of variables can be confusing but all it takes is time to modify a parameter until you hear a change, then you drop that 'change' back into the mix and see how that might effect it. While the variables of typical pop (or metal or blues) mix are not infinite but because the variables are dependent it typically means determining the exact results, in advance is intractable. Metaphorically this means one is always in motion, flux, aiming at a moving target.
For all the misinformation that inhabits these forums there are, nearly always, nuggets of useful info. It is of course difficult to distinguish what is merely fashionable from what will remain useful in 5 or 10 yr. And unfortunately at least a slight majority of people with personalities that lean towards audio production are not merely prone to magical thinking but have blindly wishful expectations. Again, unfortunately, with regard to home recording, the most important element, frequently the most expensive element is the one over which one has the least control: creating a functional venue for mixing. If you can not hear accurately the ability to gain experience in private is severely restricted. Under no, currently available, circumstances, is pumping 86 dB (spl @ 2 ft.) into a 10'X 10'X 7' room going to produce a functional environment for mixing. Not saying one can not track and mix in a typical suburban bedroom. But that environment is going to introduce artifacts into the recording process from which one can not gain experience to deal with effectively. Ultimately, to gain experience that translates into reality, one has to work in a venue that does not mask and distort what one can hear. That is a lesson that it took me more then a couple of years to learn. Simply being in commercial studios with relatively good listening environments, due largely to personality conflicts, early in my music/performance career did not reinforce the lesson.
No matter what one has at home you need to work at some point in an acoustically sound environment otherwise the experience one gains is going to be flawed, crippled, challenged. And it will not translate from environment to environment, from fashion to fashion. Unfortunately it is a reality I can't stress too strongly. Unfortunately, as with everything to do with audio production there is more then one way to approach this issue. The approach that is individually most successful will be dependent on the specific individual. For a number (at least a handful) of years I actually recommended Nashville's Belmont University music biz program/major as a pathway to all sorts of music industry careers. It was not an approach suitable for everyone, nor was the curriculum ever something about which I was wildly enthusiastic. But at the very least it tended to be a relatively decent reality check and more then a handful of commercial studios, at the time (roughly a decade ago) used students regularly as unpaid interns. A major reason I promoted the program was (not even due to my use of unpaid interns) because in 2001 Belmont acquired the Ocean Way recording facility. While I had never been satisfied, and remained somewhat vocal about my disenchantment, with control room monitoring decisions of the studio when it was a commercial facility, it was educationally a fairly unique resource. To which, in my limited experience (though never as a student) students had appropriate hands on access. All paths towards experience are compromise. No matter what one feels about mid 50's Sun Studio product it was and is not an appropriate venue for the average novice to gain experience with mixing. For different reasons it would also be impossible for me to recommend the late 60's early 70's Record Plant environment as appropriate for novices. And for even different reasons, again with limited experience, I have found specialty recording schools to be largely useless in providing translatable experience for real world environments. (and doesn't mean that some individual out there making 100's of 1000's of $s more per year than I am didn't emerge from one of those schools . . . merely in my experience they to not represent a good cost/benefit gamble)
recap: if learning at home select individual tools (dynamics, EQ, time ('verb, etc.) based, etc.) that provide the broadest range of control of parameters. (doesn't mean you have to ignore emulation's that are based on pre-set subsets, or fx blends of subsets. . . valve emulation's will nearly always involve emulation of specific distortion plus parameters that actually influence the specific class (compression EQ, etc.) but the better emulation's will introduce elements that are not, necessarily, a function of the audio element theoretically being addressed. Sorting artifacts based on older technical limitations from the audio element being addressed can be confusing . . . but spending time with 'clean' tools can be beneficial). Manipulate those parameters until you hear the influence. Back the parameter off until you don't. listen to the changes in a number of different environments trying to discover conditions that contribute to acoustically neutral transparency.
Nor do you have to wait for some arbitrarily fashionable level of experience to attempt to work on other's projects. Nothing reinforces 'experience' more then other people's responses (does not mean they are right and you are wrong . . . (or vice versa) merely that anything that pulls you out of a subjective shell can be valuable. Generally (very generally) speaking recording is something meant for public distribution. Even if the basis for the critique is rejected it can remain valuable. And if you ever reach a point where you stop experimenting, listening skeptically to your own work, think you are finally 'experienced' it is probably time to get out of the game.
good luck
