Selling recording gear to the clueless

  • Thread starter Thread starter jthievin
  • Start date Start date
J

jthievin

New member
Why are music stores continually selling recording equipment to song writers and performers that have no idea about what they are getting into and then promise results beyond comprehension. Recording and capturing artists performance is an art by itself. Those of us who have spent years honing our craft in large and small studios get tired of explaining that you will never be satisfied until you seek our professional help. We use quality equipment and have the skills for infinitely superior results. Much better than that little digital recorder you have tucked under your arm and got sucked into buying. You can have your project comfortably finished in a timely matter that fits your schedule for release. Spend your valuable time writing and rehearsing your material. You have to do it anyway and purchase the quality needed in this competitive market. Wasting your time trying to 'master' a doomed basement/bedroom recording is unproductive and disheartening. Garbage in, garbage out. It is certainly not in the best interest of the artist. Great song writers in the past did not need these 'toys' for great songs to develop. They spent their time creating and perfecting their art then used recording studios to aid in promoting and showcasing their material. If you are having trouble with your band in the box or you do not know the difference between a mac or PC, don't let that idiot sales person at your local music store steal your money, and tell you that this amazing little box will record all your music, easily and with great quality, instead, ask him for the name of a reputable recording studio in the area or the less expensive home studio entrepreneur for your demo and get the job done and out the door. Your time is also worth something and missed opportunities and crappy production will get you nowhere. We can do a hell of a lot better job than doing it yourself on that piece of sh** and in the end cost you a lot less! Support your local studio. You will be surprised at how much they know and the shortcuts to fit the budget.
 
Everything you say has the ring of sensibility about it. But . . . it's not the whole story.

I can go to any furniture store and buy a pretty good coffee table. But there's something neat trundling along to a hardware store, buying some timber, and building one yourself . . . even if the quality is poor (and, knowing my joinery skills, that will most definitely be the case!).

However, I may have latent joinery skills just waiting to be unleashed, and, in time, I might be able to create a piece of furniture just as well-made and just as cheap as something I can buy. And I could end up being a furniture maker myself.

In truth, it seems we are attracted by bright shiny things, and are willing to buy recording equipment that is a bit more than we can handle in our stage of development from over-enthusiastic sales people with the glitter of commission in their eyes . . . but some will master it and go on to achieve great things. Some will fail. That's life. People are allowed to make mistakes.

What I am more concerned about is the prevalent thought that learning, experience and knowledge is not necessary . . . that in this era of entitlement we somehow think we should have rewards simply because we want them. We think that technology will compensate for our lack of endeavour.
 
Yes I understand and agree with what you are saying. There are a very small group that may fit into that catagory. If you want to build good furniture, a shop class using good tools is a good start.
 
jthievin said:
Why are music stores continually selling recording equipment to song writers and performers that have no idea about what they are getting into and then promise results beyond comprehension. Recording and capturing artists performance is an art by itself. Those of us who have spent years honing our craft in large and small studios get tired of explaining that you will never be satisfied until you seek our professional help. We use quality equipment and have the skills for infinitely superior results. Much better than that little digital recorder you have tucked under your arm and got sucked into buying. You can have your project comfortably finished in a timely matter that fits your schedule for release. Spend your valuable time writing and rehearsing your material. You have to do it anyway and purchase the quality needed in this competitive market. Wasting your time trying to 'master' a doomed basement/bedroom recording is unproductive and disheartening. Garbage in, garbage out. It is certainly not in the best interest of the artist. Great song writers in the past did not need these 'toys' for great songs to develop. They spent their time creating and perfecting their art then used recording studios to aid in promoting and showcasing their material. If you are having trouble with your band in the box or you do not know the difference between a mac or PC, don't let that idiot sales person at your local music store steal your money, and tell you that this amazing little box will record all your music, easily and with great quality, instead, ask him for the name of a reputable recording studio in the area or the less expensive home studio entrepreneur for your demo and get the job done and out the door. Your time is also worth something and missed opportunities and crappy production will get you nowhere. We can do a hell of a lot better job than doing it yourself on that piece of sh** and in the end cost you a lot less! Support your local studio. You will be surprised at how much they know and the shortcuts to fit the budget.
Click to expand...


umm....you do know that this is a home-recording forum don't you?
While I agree with you about the sales strategies of music stores, do you think that every newb should just forget about it and spend his money to go to a studio and still come out unsatisfied? Are you scared of being out of a job? Take a listen to the stuff in our mp3 clinic here and then tell us we don't manage to produce quality stuff and to forget about all the work we put in our recordings. Sure in the beginning, what you do as a home-recording hobbyist sounds usually like crap, but we all gotta start somewhere. And I assure you, the strong, that is the ones who literally spend all of their free time doing this will survive.
 
Support your local studio when you've worked out the arrangements, sound, equipment and have the song down almost to perfection & can afford it once you've been convinced that thy're not hunting for a cash cow to make rancid butter.

Support you hobby when you want to make & build your own music, have no pretensions about what you do and enjoy the process of doing and learning.

Support your local music shop once they've proven to support your purchases with warranty, service, and good prices.

Studios - support your local musicians by offering cheap classes in the basics so that people can get the best from what they have and then bring it to you for improvement.

Support your self by not buying the latest and blingest until you've proven to yourself that what you have is understood and used to the max and you NEED & will be able to learn better gear.

Support your talent by working on your craft, developing it into an art and then refraining from bothering your mother with it.

I write & record songs for fun & therapy.
I use simple gear (Cakewalk Pro Audio 9.3) that I still haven't finished learning.
I put my music up for PEER REVIEW as opposed to ego stroking or conning so I'll spend more on less.

I'm slowly learning to play my instruments better - because I can hear my mistakes in my slowly improving recordings - that's incredibly satisfying to simple me.
I'd love to take a song to a studio one day - when it's arranged, sorted, performed and lauded enough.
until then I get to play & learn, listen to some brillaint stuff in the MP3 & songwriting clinics, hear some stuff that shows promise but needs help, hear some stuff that demonstrates that the people involved are struggling in a similar way to me at different stages on the time line. I get to offer criticism, comment, recommendations, praise and concern as needed and within the limited scope of my skills - that's incredibly satisfying to simple old me.
I've made contact with local & international songwriters, performers, hobbyists and recorders and even collaborated with some of them - that's incredibly satisfying to little me.
And you, jthievin, want to take that from me.
You, who was at some stage a clueless wannabe who through dabbling demonstrated desire, talent or interest enough to take on the learning and be given the chance to become a professional, are a cynic who would, if you were a baker, obviously tell all mothers not to make a birthday cake because you can do it so much better. cakes baked lovelessly, in a hurry, under pressure and chasing a buck - but so much better.
Let them eat cake I say!
 
It's post JordanD trauma syndrome.
I find myself searching for that level again, voyeuristic aren't I?
Hello RAMI.
 
OK, what part of homerecording.com didn't you get? Increasingly, there are many, many successful recording artists who have chosen to build studios of their own, and who are doing the hard work of learning tracking, mixing, and mastering. There are also, as you suggest, awful recordings being made by the clueless, by the thousands, or even millions. Get over it. The business model is changing, for better or worse. Well established businesses staffed by experienced engineers, with top flight gear, like The Hit Factory, are going belly up, and the Arctic Monkeys are raking in millions on line. Yeah, it's a lot cheaper to make quality recordings than it used to be, but it still costs a ton of money.

More importantly, what don't the people have, after they have shelled out the money? They don't have the expertise or the experience. They aren't Al Schmidt or George Martin...but some of them will be. Cheaper recording equipment has a downside, and an upside. The downside is that plenty of really good sound engineers and studios are losing their jobs and going bankrupt, while millions of awful recordings are being made by clueless would-be recording artists on a V-studio. The upside is that the cream will rise to the top, and that one in a thousand of those clueless folks will go on to become a real recording artist, or a real recording engineer. It will take years for the dust to settle, and for a new business model to be created that can survive prosumer gear and file sharing. But I'll say this to the original poster- You can't stop it, anymore than you can stop global warming, so you'd better get to work creating that new business model, so that your expertise can improve the recorded music of the future, rather than being a victim of it. And why do those salesmen make exagerated claims? For the same reason The Hit Factory was built (and went under)- money.-Richie
 
thing about homerecording is that it has put the tools for musical creation in the hands of the masses and that's a good thing for the art itself.
yes, it's true that there's a lot of absolute garbage that gets recorded.
But I've head stuff in the MP3 clinic, and other sites, that was spectacularly awesome and would never have happened without home studios because the musicians that did it would have never got into it to the point of going to a studio otherwise because it was the hobby of homerecording that led them to record in the first place.
And other stuff that wouldn't have existed otherwise because paying a studio would have meant time constraints which would have precluded whatever lengthy trial and error process they might have used to get the results they ended up with.

while I agree that a good studio is gonna be able to get better results than many of us can get out of our gear, I so often hear home done projects with really good sonics that I think, on balance, the home recording phenomena has been good for the art of creating music even if i doesn't always result in commercial quality recordings.
 
Maybe GC could sell OP some CRs ;)

The truth that hurts local studios is that recording isn't that hard. It used to be hard when you had to learn how to work (and pay for) a tape machine. All you really need to do now is record a good player in a good room with reasonable equipment (which is quite reasonable).

The advantages that real studios still have:

- good rooms. Let's say great rooms. If you don't have an excellent space, give up now, you have no competitive advantage.

- a knowledgeable engineer. What does that mean? I mean, it's pretty easy to press record on a DAW, and it doesn't take long for the mildly intelligent to figure out correct mic placement and gain staging. Heck, if everybody read the Shure micing guide and then Harvey's thread, we could close the Mic board.

So that knowledge mainly involves how to fix musicians' limitations. If you have a professional musician with a decent instrument in a good room, again, what is there for the engineer to do? Set levels, pan a bit, slight compress and polish maybe and you're done. All the mystique about "secrets" of compression and all those other tricks are a big bag of nothing in comparison with a good performance.

That's about it. 90% of the issues here are people with bad rooms or bad sounds they are trying to record. The balance of the 10% isn't that hard. Unfortunately they try to fix the 90% by spending money on the 10%, which is how Sweetwater stays in business.

Now, if you're a gigging band looking to make money, hire a studio, no question about that. If you can't capture that segment in your market, find a different business, preferably one with better return on capital.
 
Original Poster:
- if you are a pro studio then consider advertising on this forum. That may bring in some of the dollars you've lost due to the home recording boom.
- you're right about the BS shovelled by the music stores. They're trying to make a sale, make a living. They know little more than those who scan the internet for info in many cases.
- some "pro" studios are merely "home" studios so that makes it even more of an issue. Charging far less than a pro studio cuts into their business and does little for the quality.
- just think how pissed the labels are who've lost billions to illegal mp3 downloads...
 
mshilarious said:
Maybe GC could sell OP some CRs ;)

The truth that hurts local studios is that recording isn't that hard. It used to be hard when you had to learn how to work (and pay for) a tape machine. All you really need to do now is record a good player in a good room with reasonable equipment (which is quite reasonable).

The advantages that real studios still have:

- good rooms. Let's say great rooms. If you don't have an excellent space, give up now, you have no competitive advantage.

- a knowledgeable engineer. What does that mean? I mean, it's pretty easy to press record on a DAW, and it doesn't take long for the mildly intelligent to figure out correct mic placement and gain staging. Heck, if everybody read the Shure micing guide and then Harvey's thread, we could close the Mic board.

So that knowledge mainly involves how to fix musicians' limitations. If you have a professional musician with a decent instrument in a good room, again, what is there for the engineer to do? Set levels, pan a bit, slight compress and polish maybe and you're done. All the mystique about "secrets" of compression and all those other tricks are a big bag of nothing in comparison with a good performance.

That's about it. 90% of the issues here are people with bad rooms or bad sounds they are trying to record. The balance of the 10% isn't that hard. Unfortunately they try to fix the 90% by spending money on the 10%, which is how Sweetwater stays in business.

Now, if you're a gigging band looking to make money, hire a studio, no question about that. If you can't capture that segment in your market, find a different business, preferably one with better return on capital.
Click to expand...

So true. The room is probably the biggest deficiency in home studios. Most of the low end equipment can get pretty good results. It's amazing what's available now for little dough. And the software! I have one of the simpler programs on the market, and am just now scratching the surface of it's capabilities.
 
Yep I am not imagining things... It does plainly say HOME RECORDING DOT COM Hmm maybe the guys buying these contraptions get on the web to find this place to learn how to use the equipment they buy from those dealers you mentioned, that may be a little far fetched but it is a possibility:rolleyes:
 
I'm ready to sell my stove and digi 003 on ebay right Now!
I need to give my money to the people who really need it!
McDonalds and the Original poster....

I love recording, whether at home or a pro studio. Get Over it, Dog.
 
kind of started sucking for the big recording studios when LP's were made obsolete when they were replaced with CD's, MP3's and flash drives huh:p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top