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
dream1up said:
personally, I use my macbook mic and garageband.

i'm actually too scared to do anything else. i keep wishing I had better feedback from my music, but it's going nowhere right now, so I'm just saving til I get a good audience before I jump into home studio recordings.
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Here's a dirty little secret I am not too proud of.....I use Pro Tools....I know my way around it pretty darn good (Plug ins, automation, inserts, sends, I/Os, assigning busses and sending out different mixes to my clients) and am learning new stuff everyday but I can't understand or do anything with Garage Band....please don't tell anybody! I guarantee if you can do Garage Band you can understand and learn Pro Tools , Sonar, Cubase or any of the others if you have a little help. I think you could get that help here.
 
Seafroggys said:
What most home recorders have nowadays is better recording technology than what was availble in the 60s and 70s.

I read somewhere that the recording technology used to record Sgt. Pepper's would cost around $400....minus the room, mics, etc.

I mean, I have a Firestudio, and look how many great albums were recorded on an 8 track tape? Abbey Road, Tommy, etc. etc. the list goes on. Granted my records will sound nowhere near as good as those albums for the obvious reasons, but still. It is a hopeful thought.
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my head spins when i listen to sgt peppers and wonder at just how the hell they managed it. recording won't be any less of an art these days, the bar has just been gradually raised with advances in technology, but all the same...mind boggling! it'd be quite a challenge to replicate the processes i'd imagine.
 
Knowledge is more practical than expensive gear, always.

I recently upgraded to an Apogee Ensemble, and a Presonus ADL 600 as my front end. I must say the quality of my recordings has improved, but more so I know the reason they are improving is because my technique and knowledge of what I'm using and HOW i'm using it is improving. I have been impressed with recordings done entirely with SM57's and a Sony digital recorder!
 
I am surprised at the sound I have gotten at home. And I keep getting better. It seems that I can make a lot of progress without spending more on gear. If I just deal with the gear sitting between the chair and the keyboard.

:D
 
A really good player, really good instrument, great sounding amp with a 57 mic anywhere near it, you cannot screw it up.

Same for any singer or musician. Big Talent = Big Sound

You can put a dress on a pig , but it is still a pig.

Same goes for turd polishing.
 
I started back in 81 useing my dads tascam 8 track reel to reel...do any of you remember those..it had those pain in the ass dbx boxes you had to run through:mad:
Anyway..my recordings sounded nothing like I thought they would, hard to describe..as far as I can remember it always sounded like there was a towel over the speakers...
Now I get great recordings..but I have also learned alot since then.
If you have great gear and no clue..you recordings will suck!!
If you have just OK gear and have learned and practiced..your recordings will rock!!

PS..If you are a music stealer(sampler)..if you have a crapy sounding record you are stealing from it will muddy up you mix!!!
 
LightningStruck said:
A really good player, really good instrument, great sounding amp with a 57 mic anywhere near it, you cannot screw it up.

Same for any singer or musician. Big Talent = Big Sound

You can put a dress on a pig , but it is still a pig.

Same goes for turd polishing.
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+1..that is all true!!
 
I think that if I want to rival the big studio sound, I need to rival the big studio dedication. That doesn't necessarily mean spending all the money on gear, but for the money I DON'T spend shopping for gear, I do need to invest time in learning and working on the craft.

In short, if I want to sound like a studio without buying an auto-tuner, I'll need to manually tune each note, either on the performance side or on the production side. If I want my cheap drum kit to sound like an expensive studio kit, I'll need to spend time making sure that it's tuned perfectly. If I don't spend TIME to counter the MONEY that I'm saving, I can't reasonably expect to equal a studio sound.

That having been said, I've heard a lot of small studio recordings which don't sound any better than the recordings that I don't put a ton of time into. I don't see any real use in going to a mom and pop studio to discover that they've got the same gear I do!

I once paid a guy to record my band. He came in with a laptop and a bunch of outboard gear. Everything he had was approximately equal to what I had in my home studio- same recording program, roughly equal computer, equal mics, better audio interface, but I had better mic pres. His productions were about the same quality as mine. Why did I hire him rather than simply doing it myself? I didn't want to sit through 30 takes with my drummer, that's why! I showed up for my 4 or 5 takes, and then went back home. :-)
 
Personally, many of my favorite artists' recordings don't sound perfect, but the songs are strong enough that I've often grown to love even the imperfections. So I never really set out for that "studio perfect" sound. For years I actually resisted building a PC to record with because I knew my inner perfectionist would be unleashed by it, and would wreck any spontaneity. I stuck with my 4-track and DTRS until I got used to working within limitations.

Nowadays, I'm happy with the (still very imperfect) results I can get when recording songs my band can do one track at a time. But for songs where recording to a click would kill the feel of a song, we're out of luck... I think that's been the most significant unpleasant surprise I've experienced after getting into home recording.

Also, the fact that I don't have the equipment, proper room, or patience to mic up a drum kit to my satisfaction bothers me. (Only recently would I say I have the know-how.)
 
as my favorite recordings are from the 60s and 70s I didn't expect my recordings to sound like them when I started cuz I didn't have a reel to reel...I got better though. with portastudios, i know they aren't the best solution but many people make them worse than they are just because they don't know how to handle them ;) external phantom power and some nice condenser help a lot...
 
For recording voices and instruments using microphones, I would agree that the commercial studios have the upper hand. But if I'm recording a keyboard via MIDI what difference does the room make?

Or if I plug my guitar pre-amp directly into the board, why can't a home recording sound the same as a doing it in a commercial studio? To me I would expect it to be the same.
 
I don't expect to get commercial quality especially because I'm only 13. I plan on using mostly software instead of having all the machinery (or whatever people have in their studios).

I don't know if anyone knows or has ever played RA2 but the music in that game is awesome. I would like to try to match that quality and that type of music. But, that's probably extremely hard.
 
I'm seventeen and new to this world and I can tell you I expect to suck failure for the duration of my future as a "sound engineer". I know that I'll never get a good sounding recording, or even be pleased with something I make. But I just enjoy do this all and I'm gonna get as far as I can before I'm suckin donuts from the garbage. I know the success rate in recording/engineering is horrible but well see where my future leads. (I already know it will lead to a gutter, but I'll lie to myself until I get there :D)

-Barrett
 
Well, I'll tell ya!
I knew that the old analogue 4 track stuff I did in the 80s and 90s couldn't rival pro studio work and even when I bought my digital gear three years ago I wasn't expecting to get it to sound pro. Lately I've been downloading tracks from the legal sites and I don't know if it's the DRM they encode on those, but the stuff I record on my cheap gear sounds better than what I've been downloading. I'm talking 80s Huey Lewis & The News, for example. I swear my stuff sounds better and cleaner than the downloaded tracks.
jb:eek:
 
On day one, I'm sure none of us were really expecting to be a Major Stuidio.

Yet we all remember that very first time we recorded something (I hope), and listened back on our creation. That was EXCITING! It didn't matter that it sounded like a dog farting in a tin can, WE MADE IT.

Since then, its always thrilling to get a new piece of equipment, some new instruments, try some new techniques, and each time we get a little better (or a little more frustrated before getting better).

The point is, some people might very well be able to achieve that commercial sound...while others scoff at the very thought of the commercial sound. The goal--and probably why most of us are addicted--is to get better each time, and to make our music sound a little clearer, a little more powerful, etc.

However we get there doesn't matter (analog, digital). I would offer that its the THRILL OF THE CHASE that keeps us going!
 
I never expected that much. I started recording jams, with a nice little microphone.

First recordings were on and old Teac Tape Deck in my dads garage. And well, the sound of it was horrible. :p Still have some tapes but the machine is broken.

Bought better equipment to make recordings with friends. Mostly jams with endless improvisation. When I heard those a while ago the only word I could think of was sexual frustration. :p:confused:

Then I started making rap music, wich was in a sense not rap music but more of an excuse write a melody for chorus (most of it was meant to be cynical making fun of real rap music). Afer experimenting with tracks I composed on a computer in combination with a keyboard and good vst instruments I was confident enough to start recording songs I write on the piano. :D A friend of mine joins me on the guitar.

We've been working on a few songs for quite some time and I think they sound good enough (our first song had it's share of airplay on a local radio station:o, the DJ is deaf though ;)). It's not like an A label record, but it sounds nice.

I tend to compose songs in keys that don't fit my voice so I love the fact you can transpose things you just played with the push of a button.

The kind of perfection in comercial releases is hard to achieve. But in the end it's the ideas that shine.:)

I remember the first song I recorded on a PC. It was somone playing guitar with me singing gibberish about an ex girfriend. We thought it sounded wonderfull (it didn't ;))

I also remember disvovering all kinds of techniques and overusing them (still do I guess) but that's the fun of home recording. :)
 
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Time is money

I spent $300.00 back in 02 to get three songs recorded, it sounded better than the two geto blasters and mic mixer that I used to use back in the 80`s thats for sure, but, it taught me a lesson as well, when I walked out of that studio and played the finished cd in my truck I kept thinking (if I only had done that) or (AWW I wish I had added this here)... you all know what I mean on that point, having a home studio with bare bones wont get that studio professional sound until you put in the time and know your gear, plus find the gear, be it hardware or software, and again learn to use that gear as well, then if your good at what you play and know how to get it down, will it start to come out sounding professional?
Hey the white stripes sound like shit, yet they get radio play? why is that? I had to throw that in there....

the 300 dollar lesson was cheap compared to some peoples expenses at the same lesson. For me buying a 1500.00 dollar computer with everything in the box was worth it, and, I am learning every day, will it ever come out sounding professional? one can only hope,
for now...
 
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