I certainly hope that wasn't pointed at me.
I already said that I didn't mean anything here to be personal, that I'm only responding to you and jn because you happen to be the ones representing what I have found to be a pervasive general misunderstanding amongst what seem to be a majority of newbs.
I know that many will think that what I am saying sounds awfully harsh. I guess I'm just not as good as a should be at sugarcoating the truth when the truth is hard to swallow.
What's wrong with a hobbyist trying to make money with his songs??
Absolutely nothing. But you do realize that if you're trying to make money with your stuff, that it is by it's very definition no longer a hobby, right? And if I do have a narrow opinion (maybe I do, I'm not sure), that opinion is that if one wants to make money doing something that they should try to do it right, take their time, research the field and the competition and all that, and realize just what it takes. This is true regardless of whether we're talking about recording music or any other field from architecture to zoology.
I just find it extremely interesting that if someone who is not a carpenter, but wants to build a deck by themselves doesn't just go out and buy a bunch of wood and nails and start slapping stuff together, and then call on Norm Abrams to fix it for them when it comes out looking like a pile of wood and nails, or that someone who has never run a business or cooked a meal for 80 people in their lives never goes out and just buys a restaurant, and then calls Gordon Ramsey to bail them out only after they are $200,000 in debt with no customers (oh wait, that second one happens twice every Thursday night on Kitchen Nightmares
). Instead, they seem to understand that building a struture or running a restaruant requires study, detailed plans, techniques and skills, and sweat equity to do it right.
Yet there is the pervasive attitude that anyone who knows nothing about audio engineering can go out and spend a couple of thousand dollars on some entry-level gear, ask a question or two from some strangers on an Internet forum, and turn out a CD that sounds like it's been done by seasoned pros with big budgets, and if they fall short, all they have to do is give it to a mastering engineer to make everything all better again. And then they take it personally and get pissed when the real pros (or even someone much lower like me) tells them that this line of endeavor is no different than the rest; to do it right is just not that easy.
It just doesn't make any sense to me, and that's a totally honest reaction on my part. I feel I am justified to ask the simple question of just where this belief actually comes from, and why everyone seems to think - or is it that they just want to believe? - that this is any different from any other profession.
Is there something wrong with a person coming to "HOMERECORDING.COM" to learn how to do a better job at recording his tunes in his home?? That's what this forum is all about.
Yes it is what this forum is all about, and no one has done more here in the past few years to help the newb than I have (hell, I have been blamed and almost chased off this place more than once by others who complained that I was being TOO helpful to the newbs.) I have built an entire website - at my own cost and in my own free time - dedicated specifically an solely to helping folks like you. So let's drop this pretense of my being smug, or snobbish, or unhelpful, or any of that crap, shall we?
Farview reads me right; the thrust of what I am saying is that one cannot have their cake and eat it too. The thing is, Chili, people don't come on here and ask how they can sound better - well, OK, some do; but the majority come on here and ask how they can make their mixes sound professional. They want to throw their recordings into the middle of a playlist of their favorite platinum-selling MP3s and not be able to tell the difference. When someone comes along as says something like, "well, if you want to sound like a pro, you have to work like a pro", the almost immediate response from 99% of them is, "hey, this is only home recording, give me a break."
The only way to response to that is to ask, OK which is it? Are you a hobbyist just making a home recording, or are you a musical entrepreneur trying to make a professional recording yourself? Because the two are NOT the same thing and require entirely different attitudes, styles and skill levels.
If you've had enough of the home recordist claiming to be in it just for a hobby... and then asking how to make their recording more professional... then you're at the wrong website.
And if you're tired of folks with the experience and knowledge giving you answers you don't want to hear, then you should stop asking questions.
Do you mean to tell me I can't put out a quality cd because I recorded it in my house??
No, I never said that, and I never even came close to saying that. What I'm saying is that one needs the skills, the knowledge and the technique to do it, and that none of those come from buying a trunk full of gear, but only come after lots of preparation, practice and hard work.
I know at least three people on this site who put out professional sounding cd's as a hobby. Rami, DavidK and Tim Lawler. I know David and Tim made money from their home recorded CD because I bought theirs. I'm pretty sure Rami made money too. None of those guys are professional recording engineers.
I'm familiar with all three of these folks, and with their work and with their contributions to this forum. I have the greatest respect for all three of them. I don't know if you could call David K a "hobbyist" now that he has actually signed with Sony/BMI (if I remember correctly), but he was still unsigned when I got here, and what he had done with his stuff is absolutely incredible. I remember when he first asked me to give one of his tracks a listen and he told me that it was thre result of mixing together some 104 or so hand-cranked tracks, I was floored. He did a spectacular job.
And Rami and Tim have both done solid, high-quality work as well, and are IMHO valued contributors to this forum. They may not be "professionals" in the classic sense, but they are professionals in their work ethic and the way they have approached their tasks. The reason they sound so good is because they do things right and they do things well and because early on they actually listened to folks who went down the path before them, even if what they said was not what they would have always liked to hear.
Even if you weren't specifically referring to me, you're statement fits my scenario. There's no need to attack me.
Chili, lighten up my friend, there was no attack, there is no attack, and there will not be an attack. I legitimately did not understand your way of looking at it, and found to to be representative of a million other perfectly fine people who I have no personal beef with either. Am I supposed to keep quiet and not ask questions and describe why I'm asking the questions simply because I'm afraid I might hurt someone's feelings? I explained a couple of times that I did not wish anyone to take it personally, I don't know hat else I should do; if my word is not enough for you, then there's nothing more I can do about that.
You do know that it does me absolutely no good to take this stance, right? All it does is get you and jn and mandrum and others of similar feelings pissed at me and make me far more enemies than it does friends. Yet here I am. Not because I'm a masochist, not because I'm self-destructive, not because I like picking fights or arguing. But because I feel it's a subject worth looking at a bit closer, and am willing (unlike so many others, apparently) to burn some political and social capital to do so. Is that a bad thing?
G.
I haven't really figured out for myself how to tweak mixes to make the mastering easier, I'm just not to that point yet, I don't have the experience to know to "take it ez on guitar in this freq range" or "make sure you compress the drums such a way" or whatever.. If I tracked a vox track that sounded like it came thru a telephone, I wouldn't bother trying to mix it, I'd re-track it. Similarly, I don't have that many (if any) final mixes I feel are good enough to start figuring out the mastering process. 