Home Recording's Dirty Little Secret

[DavidK]

A few examples:
Alesis
Behringer
Kurzweil
Lexicon

They all used to make outstanding affordable gear. Now they all seem to have a “minimum acceptable” philosophy. That is, “What can we get away with?” The market is less sophisticated simply because it is so much larger.

1. Kurzweil shouldnt be on this list

2. All of those companies have ( I think?) been bought by other companies and all of them have had problems with management. I never knew Behringer to be in the same league as those others.

Those guys are struggling to survive, there is no "philosophy". Alesis has really gone from a player to "The new Behringer".

There are many more levels of product, including more levels of junk than there was when I started in recording. What I mean is if you want anything from a mic to a magic plug-in, there is one out there for you no mater how little money you have.

This isnt my experience AT ALL. You can go to Best Buy and for 50 bucks buy a program that people would have paid 50 grand for in 1986, except they werent invented. Yamaha DX7s were $1400, a lot of money in 1983. Today, a Korg X50 is $699 and makes a DX7 look like a babies toy.

Let us old folks give the kids a REAL history lesson:

Kids, back in the olde days, everything was pretty much shit! And expensive too. My friend had a Sony 2 track digital recorder and paid 3 grand. Today, its FREE. Just pop a disc into the computer you already own. Download a free copy of anything. Stuff like reaper is like 60 bucks or so. Plugins are free. Back then, portastudios sounded like crap.

My rig in 1987:
DX7, QX21 sequencer, RX17 drum machine, FB01 module, midiverb, some pedals, tape deck, Fostex 4 track cassette (nice one), etc. Price= 5 grand.

In 2008 and assuming you already own a computer, 5 grand would buy you a studio that could make my 1987 rig look like a rig Fred Flintstone could use. If you cant make a SERIOUS recording with 5 grand worth of prosumer gear, you basically suck!

 

[Eclectist]

I started home recording purely so I would remember the tunes I wrote. I enjoyed doing it so much that it became more than that.

I'm with you, man. I started just to remember what I was doing so I could break it out to my jam-group. Then, I started to include parts, I bought a full-duplex sound card, then a couple of mics, and before you know it, I'm where I'm at today. The funny thing is that if you had asked me beforehand if such behavior would help my music, I would have said 'No way. That kind of stuff just detracts from the Art' (note carefully the majuscule) Now, though, I can't think of how my aesthetic sense of music would have languished had I not started multitracking: it's changed how I listen to classical music, movie soundtracks, hell, I even found a phase problem in an NPR interview the other day.

Did I think that I was going to make the next 'White Album'? Man, it's been so long ago that doesn't even matter anymore...

 

[Beck]

I was specifically addressing affordable outboard gear. Software is another issue, and a controversial one. You can buy something like Reaper for little money, but does it do the job? That all depends on one’s standards and whether one is serious or a hobbyist.

True, all the companies, including Kurzweil, (excepting Behringer) have changed hands. They aren’t the same companies. The Early Behringer stuff made in Germany was well designed and well put together. The differences in our ages could account for you missing the good Behringer days. I’m a bit older than you, but a bit younger than Glen. Considering where we were and what type of music there’s enough spread there and things were happening so fast it’s unlikely that even between the three of us, we were aware of all that was available. So we just had to choose form what we knew.

I own one piece of excellent Behringer gear, the SNR202 Denoiser made in Germany, and still used at Lucas Arts by the way. Behringer is all made in China now.

I grew up on the early Kurzweil stuff like the K250 and I still own the K1200 Pro 76 and 1000 PX expander. After the company reorganized there was a decline in quality, save maybe the K2000. To this day, I’ve not found that Kurzweil piano sound or reliability in the new stuff, so I hold onto these treasures.

Lexicon: Even the LXP-1 (1988?) runs circles around later stuff like the MPX100/110 and the lexicon LXP-15 II (1995) blows away the MPX500 and gives the MPX1 a run for its money. The last really good budget processor was the Reflex (1995) and I can still recommend that over more recent and cheaper models.

The Alesis line has really gone down hill. The old Micro Limiter is a better comp/limiter than the 3630. In general if it says Made in USA, Alesis is decent stuff.

Whether a portastudio sounded like crap or not depended on which one you had. I was partial to the Tascam full-size units. I owned the original 144 then 244 and finally the 246, which I still have in perfect condition. Manufacturers started coming out with cheap plastic minstudios, even Tascam made some, but a lot of the Fostex, Yamaha, vestax, and Peavey portas did sound like crap.

In the late 80’s at my home studio I had the Tascam 246, Ensoniq ESQ-1, The aforementioned Kurweil, a MOOG Opus 3, a Roland TR-707 and a Roland D-110. Lots of other things like a Symetrix 522 compressor, Alesis Midiverb II, Quadraverb, Alesis Micro Limiter, Yamaha SPX-90, and a couple noise gates. The closest I got to the Yamaha FM synths was a TX81Z, which I had for a while, but I never cared for it much or the DX7.

I still have most of the old stuff, all except the original Quadraverb, which I replaced with the Q2.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to work with the Tascam 246 porta I can understand the widely differing reactions people have when they hear the word portastudio. IMO, it was the best ever made, and I could and still can get professional results with that little recorder. After the glory days, 4-track cassette multitrackers were a dime a dozen from more companies than I can remember, and most were, and sounded like toys.

Of course my studio has expanded a lot over the years, but I always made good purchases after researching everything to death. I carefully chose my equipment and kept what worked… still use it along with ProTools and whatever else works. If something sucks I don’t care if its old or new… I’m not interested.

The main difference between then and now is that manufacturers were competing for quality as well as cost. R&D was at full steam trying to keep up with the other guy. As I said earlier, we were a smaller more discriminating sub-culture basically saying, “Ok, dazzle us!” And they did.

 

[TerraMortim]

If you cant make a SERIOUS recording with 5 grand worth of prosumer gear, you basically suck!

lol......yup!

 

[TerraMortim]

I was specifically addressing affordable outboard gear. Software is another issue, and a controversial one. You can buy something like Reaper for little money, but does it do the job? That all depends on one’s standards and whether one is serious or a hobbyist.

True, all the companies, including Kurzweil, (excepting Behringer) have changed hands. They aren’t the same companies. The Early Behringer stuff made in Germany was well designed and well put together. The differences in our ages could account for you missing the good Behringer days. I’m a bit older than you, but a bit younger than Glen. Considering where we were and what type of music there’s enough spread there and things were happening so fast it’s unlikely that even between the three of us, we were aware of all that was available. So we just had to choose form what we knew.

I own one piece of excellent Behringer gear, the SNR202 Denoiser made in Germany, and still used at Lucas Arts by the way. Behringer is all made in China now.

I grew up on the early Kurzweil stuff like the K250 and I still own the K1200 Pro 76 and 1000 PX expander. After the company reorganized there was a decline in quality, save maybe the K2000. To this day, I’ve not found that Kurzweil piano sound or reliability in the new stuff, so I hold onto these treasures.

Lexicon: Even the LXP-1 (1988?) runs circles around later stuff like the MPX100/110 and the lexicon LXP-15 II (1995) blows away the MPX500 and gives the MPX1 a run for its money. The last really good budget processor was the Reflex (1995) and I can still recommend that over more recent and cheaper models.

The Alesis line has really gone down hill. The old Micro Limiter is a better comp/limiter than the 3630. In general if it says Made in USA, Alesis is decent stuff.

Whether a portastudio sounded like crap or not depended on which one you had. I was partial to the Tascam full-size units. I owned the original 144 then 244 and finally the 246, which I still have in perfect condition. Manufacturers started coming out with cheap plastic minstudios, even Tascam made some, but a lot of the Fostex, Yamaha, vestax, and Peavey portas did sound like crap.

In the late 80’s at my home studio I had the Tascam 246, Ensoniq ESQ-1, The aforementioned Kurweil, a MOOG Opus 3, a Roland TR-707 and a Roland D-110. Lots of other things like a Symetrix 522 compressor, Alesis Midiverb II, Quadraverb, Alesis Micro Limiter, Yamaha SPX-90, and a couple noise gates. The closest I got to the Yamaha FM synths was a TX81Z, which I had for a while, but I never cared for it much or the DX7.

I still have most of the old stuff, all except the original Quadraverb, which I replaced with the Q2.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to work with the Tascam 246 porta I can understand the widely differing reactions people have when they hear the word portastudio. IMO, it was the best ever made, and I could and still can get professional results with that little recorder. After the glory days, 4-track cassette multitrackers were a dime a dozen from more companies than I can remember, and most were, and sounded like toys.

Of course my studio has expanded a lot over the years, but I always made good purchases after researching everything to death. I carefully chose my equipment and kept what worked… still use it along with ProTools and whatever else works. If something sucks I don’t care if its old or new… I’m not interested.

The main difference between then and now is that manufacturers were competing for quality as well as cost. R&D was at full steam trying to keep up with the other guy. As I said earlier, we were a smaller more discriminating sub-culture basically saying, “Ok, dazzle us!” And they did.

Logic does the job very nicely for $499. All I ever need (even comes with a cd authoring program that's really good). And you can look at the countless pros who use it on a daily basis to record some TOP names.

I do however totally agree with outboard digital stuff...it's gotten a bit crap...well most outboard gear in general has gotten really bad lately.

There were a few behringer gems... I actually was recording a band once in which one member had a guitar combo amp with the behringer logo on it (didn't even know they made amps)... was actually a really nice sounding combo amp, beat the shit out of the other guys fender twin, actually (and suprisingly).

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

You can go to Best Buy and for 50 bucks buy a program that people would have paid 50 grand for in 1986

I know nobody will agree with me in this one, but I find this to be more of a problem
than a solution.

In a "Perfect World According To Glen", people should have to learn how to produce entire albums without the use of a compressor for two years before they even have access to one, and 5 years of expereince in general before they have access to plug-in software technology.

Put another way, one should learn how to be able to do a great job without all that crap before they are allowed to have access to it. Only in such a world can we guarantee raisisng a generation of HR-based engineers that actually know what they are doing.

Instead we now have a world where newbs come in thinking they need more than 2 or 3 mics on a single drum kit, that the more plug-ins you use, the better your stuff will sound, that the software will do all the work for you and sound just like the Big Boys. It's insane.

It's called "audio engineering", not "audio autopilot".

G.

 

[MCI2424]

Brings to mind another interesting question… what does a recording have to sound like to be “Pro level?” There’s always been good and bad production. I think a lot of songs, that if they weren’t done by already established groups/artists we would have thought… WTF?

Case in point (IMO) Led zeppelin “Fool in the Rain.” I remember at the time thinking if an unknown had sent that to an A&R rep at any major label it would have wound up in the trash bin. It wasn’t very well done production wise compared to classic Zepp and the off-key vocals sounded like Plant had a wood vice on his balls or something.

Imagine the reaction of Simon on American Idol to Plant’s off-key performance. I’m a big Zeppelin fan myself, but I always hated that song. Somebody liked it though because it was always playing.

As far as HR equipment quality getting better, I see it the opposite as far a out-board gear. Nearly every company I can think of has declined, mainly due to outsourcing to Asia and other cost cutting measures. Compared to the 80’s to mid 90’s we’re at a low point. The budget stuff back in the day was higher quality, but it was more costly than the low end of Today.

A few examples:
Alesis
Behringer
Kurzweil
Lexicon
Mackie

They all used to make outstanding affordable gear. Now they all seem to have a “minimum acceptable” philosophy. That is, “What can we get away with?” The market is less sophisticated simply because it is so much larger.

There are many more levels of product, including more levels of junk than there was when I started in recording. What I mean is if you want anything from a mic to a magic plug-in, there is one out there for you no mater how little money you have.

Wading through the toys to get to serious equipment is harder today then ever before, and I don’t envy anyone with little or no background trying to sort it out. Trends aren’t necessarily based on true advances in technology. It’s been this way for quite some time though, as most music magazines are product oriented, as are most music forums.

People must be careful not to adopt a manufacturer or vender perspective of what music is all about. This can happen to you by osmosis, sooner or later. To the manufacturer you are just a consumer. Whether you actually ever get around to making good music or not is of no consequence, as long as you keep buying new products, which are of course according to the manufacturer better than last year’s.

It’s natural for us to think technology is advancing simply because time is advancing… humans are wired that way.

Recording engineers who make a living off of recording and get return customers over and over again set the "pro' standard. A "pro " level recording is one that is comparable to the unwritten standards of history. 60s, 70s , 80s, and 90s recordings have many techniques and "sounds' that are similar because the engineers that were held in high esteem (at the time) were copied, or any hit recordings were copied to sell records. Whatever process that was followed in each decade was the "pro" level of recording set forth by multi-million $$$ record labels who went to the best recording studios in the world.

Now, with everyone able to record at home, the "pro" level recording is harder to pin down, but a healthy majority of commercial music is still done at fairly big time studios ending up with the production sounding similar like the old days.

Professional recording equipment is designed to be very reliable and sound great. Any studio who earns a living off of recording music has no room for equipment breakdowns at all. The Alesis, Behringers etc. of the world would be a very poor choice for them. That is just the way it is. The sound of cheaper equipment is not the only criteria for having "pro' equipment. There are so many other factors that are ignored by many such as tape machines of yesterday. The pro machines were totally maintainable, you could align the things for every session (sometimes 4 time a day) for any tape formulation in existance. The TASCAM and Fostexes were damn near impossible to align them once a day. Plus, I can take virtually any part out of my deck in less than 10 min and replace it, you can;t with the prosumer decks. This is more than invaluable to a pro studio.

 

[Beck]

Recording engineers who make a living off of recording and get return customers over and over again set the "pro' standard. A "pro " level recording is one that is comparable to the unwritten standards of history. 60s, 70s , 80s, and 90s recordings have many techniques and "sounds' that are similar because the engineers that were held in high esteem (at the time) were copied, or any hit recordings were copied to sell records. Whatever process that was followed in each decade was the "pro" level of recording set forth by multi-million $$$ record labels who went to the best recording studios in the world.

Now, with everyone able to record at home, the "pro" level recording is harder to pin down, but a healthy majority of commercial music is still done at fairly big time studios ending up with the production sounding similar like the old days.

Professional recording equipment is designed to be very reliable and sound great. Any studio who earns a living off of recording music has no room for equipment breakdowns at all. The Alesis, Behringers etc. of the world would be a very poor choice for them. That is just the way it is. The sound of cheaper equipment is not the only criteria for having "pro' equipment. There are so many other factors that are ignored by many such as tape machines of yesterday. The pro machines were totally maintainable, you could align the things for every session (sometimes 4 time a day) for any tape formulation in existance. The TASCAM and Fostexes were damn near impossible to align them once a day. Plus, I can take virtually any part out of my deck in less than 10 min and replace it, you can;t with the prosumer decks. This is more than invaluable to a pro studio.

I understand the maintenance issues with pro vs. semi-pro equipment, but we’re talking Home/project recording here. In fact, when we’ve had discussions in the analog forum over the years I’ve been pulling my hair out trying to explain that pro and semi pro don’t necessarily separate equipment sonically speaking, but rather have to do with ease of maintenance, ruggedness for a commercial environment and -10dB line level vs. +4dB. Perhaps you finally understand what I was saying… cool.

I hope no one is running a 24/7 operation with a portastudio. You don’t have to align a machine everyday for a personal studio. However, there have always been a lot of crossover products… some of which I mentioned above, that you would find in commercial and home studios.

I’m thinking more along the lines of the subjective nature of what is pro sound from the listener’s point of view Thus the example of how established bands could get away with some pretty lame stuff if you were to really tear it apart.

I have my own rules of what a good recording should sound like production wise, but there is no one way. The fact that Enya and Screamo are both out there is all we need to know. IMO, some genres make production a moot point… just hit record and run!

To elaborate a bit more on my premise, the salesman says or implies some product will “make you sound like a pro.” What is he trying to say? Who is defining “Pro” and is it so narrow?

Imagine when someone points you to an MP3 of their music. You may pick it apart because you see them as an amateur or unknown… it needs more bass; it needs less reverb; it needs a harmony in this place instead of the unison vocal part it has, etc. But that exact same MP3, if it was somebody well known… you might just leave it alone, thinking that’s just the way they decided to put it together and they know best because they’re somebody.

In a professional setting a choice will be made from several different mixes of the same song. The one the public hears may not be better or worse, just the one the band or artist all agreed upon… depending on what they were drinkin’.

 

[Beck]

I know nobody will agree with me in this one, but I find this to be more of a problem
than a solution.

In a "Perfect World According To Glen", people should have to learn how to produce entire albums without the use of a compressor for two years before they even have access to one, and 5 years of expereince in general before they have access to plug-in software technology.

Put another way, one should learn how to be able to do a great job without all that crap before they are allowed to have access to it. Only in such a world can we guarantee raisisng a generation of HR-based engineers that actually know what they are doing.

Instead we now have a world where newbs come in thinking they need more than 2 or 3 mics on a single drum kit, that the more plug-ins you use, the better your stuff will sound, that the software will do all the work for you and sound just like the Big Boys. It's insane.

It's called "audio engineering", not "audio autopilot".

G.

I agree with that.

There are two major causes of suffering in the recording world... lack of knowledge and want of quality equipment.

Or as the Ghost of Christmas Present says to Scrooge...

"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy..."

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

On the other sie of the pro-vs. am coin is, what defines "home recording"? I know quite a few folks who have in their basement or garage or addition facilities that are for all intents and purposes indistinguishable from any traditional "commercial" studio, including gear, environmental design and acoutical treatment.

This is an ever-increasing trend as the number of "big studios" (under the traditional definition) is on the decline and the number of "independent" or "project" studios is on the increase. I'm not just talking your standard DAW desk in the bedroom, I'm talking people who have large analog desks, quite respectable mic lockers, live rooms well-equipped with instruments and acoustics, etc. The era of the Internet and telecommuting has helped this along too, as the mindset of one has to commute to a commercial lease space for it to officially be called a professional or commercial "workspace" has eroded substantially.

"Home recording" used to fairly automatically mean amateur or hobbiest, with the rare exception of the professional artist with a few grammys under their belts that built their own pro-level studios at home. Now pro-level studios in the home are on their way to becoming just as numerous as the traditional leased-space studio.

G.

 

[DavidK]

I know nobody will agree with me in this one, but I find this to be more of a problem
than a solution.

In a "Perfect World According To Glen", people should have to learn how to produce entire albums without the use of a compressor for two years before they even have access to one, and 5 years of expereince in general before they have access to plug-in software technology.

.

Actually, I couldnt agree with ya more. Its the recording equal of MTV Unplugged. Fortunately. most of us oldsters DID that, we had 4 tracks of portastudio, a mic, a keyboard and a geetar. We could make SOMETHING. And we usually did it in our friends basement, because he was the cool one with the portastudio.

But I dont find the $50 software at Best Buy a "problem", some kid will get it and fool around. The same kid will get some sort of photoshop and not know how to use it. I dont consider them the target audience for this gear, but having them buy it makes the cost of this stuff uber-cheap.

The era of the Internet and telecommuting has helped this along too, as the mindset of one has to commute to a commercial lease space for it to officially be called a professional or commercial "workspace" has eroded substantially.

It has also done unthinkable things for learning this stuff. What I have picked up in this forum over the years is priceless. Especially the mp3 clinic, hearing real-world examples of guys doing this themselves, and watching them improve. Or not.

"Home recording" used to fairly automatically mean amateur or hobbiest, with the rare exception of the professional artist with a few grammys under their belts that built their own pro-level studios at home.

Paul McCartney is one of the patron Saints of HR. The album McCartney II should be a must-own for everyone interested in home recording, even if you don't particularly like it. It's Paul at home with a 16 track and some synths doing New Wave music. Most people hate it, I love it.

 

[MCI2424]

On the other sie of the pro-vs. am coin is, what defines "home recording"? I know quite a few folks who have in their basement or garage or addition facilities that are for all intents and purposes indistinguishable from any traditional "commercial" studio, including gear, environmental design and acoutical treatment.

This is an ever-increasing trend as the number of "big studios" (under the traditional definition) is on the decline and the number of "independent" or "project" studios is on the increase. I'm not just talking your standard DAW desk in the bedroom, I'm talking people who have large analog desks, quite respectable mic lockers, live rooms well-equipped with instruments and acoustics, etc. The era of the Internet and telecommuting has helped this along too, as the mindset of one has to commute to a commercial lease space for it to officially be called a professional or commercial "workspace" has eroded substantially.

"Home recording" used to fairly automatically mean amateur or hobbiest, with the rare exception of the professional artist with a few grammys under their belts that built their own pro-level studios at home. Now pro-level studios in the home are on their way to becoming just as numerous as the traditional leased-space studio.

G.

I would have to define "Home Recording" as a hobbiest enterprise. Even though many commercial pro studios exist in homes, Tom Scholtz's recordings were "Home Studio" recordings until a record company bought them. Pro studios are in the buisiness to make money, are for hire for any and all types of music and sizes of bands, and put out a quality of production on par with other, similar studios. I think that is just as true today as yesterday. This is kind'a why I am sick of these arguments over "What is a pro recording?". It is simple. A pro recording is one that sends people running here to ask "How can I get my recording to sound like the ones on the radio?" or some other commercially released product? So. in my opinion, a pro recording (and studio) is one who can create product on par with the expectations of the commercial industry. Underground, Indie and all the other factions of the industry have been, and still mainly are born from "Home Recording" and "Home Studios".

 

[MCI2424]

Actually, I couldnt agree with ya more. Its the recording equal of MTV Unplugged. Fortunately. most of us oldsters DID that, we had 4 tracks of portastudio, a mic, a keyboard and a geetar. We could make SOMETHING. And we usually did it in our friends basement, because he was the cool one with the portastudio.

But I dont find the $50 software at Best Buy a "problem", some kid will get it and fool around. The same kid will get some sort of photoshop and not know how to use it. I dont consider them the target audience for this gear, but having them buy it makes the cost of this stuff uber-cheap.



It has also done unthinkable things for learning this stuff. What I have picked up in this forum over the years is priceless. Especially the mp3 clinic, hearing real-world examples of guys doing this themselves, and watching them improve. Or not.


Paul McCartney is one of the patron Saints of HR. The album McCartney II should be a must-own for everyone interested in home recording, even if you don't particularly like it. It's Paul at home with a 16 track and some synths doing New Wave music. Most people hate it, I love it.

I believe that that album was done in his "home studio", but, his home studio is worth over a million if not more (done in a multi-mil mansion to boot)

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Pro studios are in the buisiness to make money, are for hire for any and all types of music and sizes of bands, and put out a quality of production on par with other, similar studios.

Up until the turn of the century I would have agreed with that 100%. I think the lines are getting blurrier these days. I personally know at least three people (that I can think of off the top of my head) that have pro-grade installations in their homes that use them only for their own purposes and only rarely rent out to other clients. They are not exceptions but, as disposable income goes up and price of gear goes down, are fast becoming commonplace.

Granted the personal use is for recording their own music (in one case) and working on commercial jongles (in another), and in that way, yeah you're absoluetly right, they fit the definition of "pro" - their studios are inventments meant to help them make money by making a professional-grade product. But they are for the most part *private* studios, and not meant for hire.

That would leave us with the distinction between home recording and private studios in the home. Does that mean that the line is only crossed when the ledger books go into the black? In which case, quality of service or product becomes irrelevant to the definition?

I'm not saying I have an answer. I'm just saying that the more I think about it, the more the idea of making ANY distinction whatsoever between pro and amateur, between home and commercial - because of ALL the reasons everybody gives above - is kind of a waste of time.

G.

 

[mwthompson]

In the context of this forum, I consider "home recording" to mean "hobbyist." I didn't sign up to find out which $3000 microphone was the best, I signed up to learn how I can make the best out of my modest equipment, and to learn about what other modestly priced equipment was out there to play with. I'm never going to be a rockstar, and I definitely do not want to run a commercial studio. I just want to have a good time and write some music and fool the average person into thinking I paid someone else to record it.

 

[DavidK]

I believe that that album was done in his "home studio", but, his home studio is worth over a million if not more (done in a multi-mil mansion to boot)

I have no idea what it was worth in 1979, but I am under the impression that it was not a full-fledged studio comparable to the "real" studios of the day. Even so, the gear that he did have at that time could probably be equalled with todays technology with a few grand. Yes, a 16 track Studer was ridiculously expensive in the 1970s, no doubt. But he basically did it himself with very little outside help. Sometimes it shows. But he didnt have autotune and extensive editing, just an expensive tape recorder and some primitive synths.

According to Allmusic McCartney II, he did everything, with the exception of a few backing vocals from Linda. It IS a home recording, done on stuff that the average Joe could buy with todays technology.

 

[MCI2424]

I have no idea what it was worth in 1979, but I am under the impression that it was not a full-fledged studio comparable to the "real" studios of the day. Even so, the gear that he did have at that time could probably be equalled with todays technology with a few grand. Yes, a 16 track Studer was ridiculously expensive in the 1970s, no doubt. But he basically did it himself with very little outside help. Sometimes it shows. But he didnt have autotune and extensive editing, just an expensive tape recorder and some primitive synths.

According to Allmusic McCartney II, he did everything, with the exception of a few backing vocals from Linda. It IS a home recording, done on stuff that the average Joe could buy with todays technology.

I agree. If he did it all by himself, then yeah it is a "Home Recording". I am not too familiar with this album as he lost me with the "Wings" thing. He will go down, along with Dave Gilmore, as the de-facto king of "Home Recording".

 

[DavidK]

I agree. If he did it all by himself, then yeah it is a "Home Recording". I am not too familiar with this album as he lost me with the "Wings" thing. He will go down, along with Dave Gilmore, as the de-facto king of "Home Recording".

Mike Oldfield is also one of the Patron Saints of HR, especially HOW he made his albums and how they were released. Tubular Bells was recorded in Richard Bransons home. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubular_Bells

 

[mwthompson]

But he didnt have autotune

Hell, I don't have autotune. I guess $400 wouldn't make it the most expensive part of my studio, but it will be a while before I will be able to purchase it, if I ever do. It's cheaper to just accept that I suck at singing.

I would imagine that P.M. had spent enough time with great engineers recording with the Beatles that he learned a thing or two about sound engineering. I'd like to hear his homemade stuff, but I don't think ordering a "remastered" version of McCartney II is going to give me much in the way of the original experience.

Of course, "affordable" is subjective. I need "affordable" as viewed by someone working on a state employees salary.

 

[DavidK]

Of course, "affordable" is subjective. I need "affordable" as viewed by someone working on a state employees salary.

I'm on a classical musicians salary. You are probably Bill Gates compared to me. Hold me.