The potential ability of amateurs

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MCI2424 said:
I'd come and hang out, but the last studio guy to offer got sick of me around the third year.

Kept nagging me about "Rent" and "Living" expenses. What a jerk.
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I agree; the "studio guy" sounds like a real jerk. Hell, cleaning out our septic system everyday would easily cover your "Rent" and "Living" expenses.
 
pathdoc said:
Hey Glen,
Your points are well made. I'm glad you take the time to post here. Most of us here can only dream about being in the industy and are at least somewhat jeolous. :o I do believe the ability to produce a good recording is in the mind and not in the equipment.
Maybe yourself or another pro could offer a chance for home recording folks like myself, a chance to spend a few days in a real studio. I know I learn alot faster with hands on experience. You could get a few days of free labor and who knows, you could probably charge people just to be there.
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First off, thanks a bunch Harvey for offering your wing to him, that was very kind and generous of you :).

Second, pathdoc, just so you understand my position, I am an independent engineer that has worked in everything from big coal-burning studios to live location sound recording onto portable DAT, but I myself currently have only a modest home project studio no different from what the majority of people here use have. I do audio and video production out of what used to be the master bedoroom of this house with equipment that cost me less than what I paid for my car. I still work in other studios when called upon as a contract engineer, and will rent out studio time when the project calls for more than what I can do at home - usually the tracking part of the production, as I am set up mostly for the post work (mixing, editing, graphic design, premastering, etc.) at my home studio.

So in many inportant respects I am no different than anyone else here. That's a big part of why I hang out here ant not PSW or Gearslutz, because - unlike in the past - I now do most of my work at home, and I see independent recording from small project studios in the home as the future of much media production (not just music or audio, BTW.)

Is there a difference in quality between a Neumann/GML/AMS signal chain from a Big Boy studio and an AudioTechnica/ART/MOTU signal chain from a home project studio? Of corse there is; there's a real difference and a real reason why the former costs so much more than the later. But that does not mean that a pro-sounding production cannot be made from the later. Hell, there's a lot of pro recordings made on the former that sound like crap because the engineer or producer was in the wrong line of work.

The only thing holding back any indie production from coming out sounding great/pro when done at home in a relatively decent environment (it doesn't have to be perfect, but something reasonably workable) on relatively decent gear is knowledge, patience and practice.

And I think that starts with the musicians themselves. One doesn't have to be Steve Vai or Steve Gadd. But at least preparing before recording by practicing one's ass off is the #1 thing one can do to get a pro-sounding recording, IMHO. So many are in such a rush to hit the record button, thinking tha the gear will mask or correct or otherwise take care of things because it would be just so much easier that way. Problem is, it doesn't work that way, as hads been repeated in this thread a few times.

The best way to make a great sounding recording is to not hit the record button......yet. :)

G.
 
pathdoc said:
Hey Glen,
Your points are well made. I'm glad you take the time to post here. Most of us here can only dream about being in the industy and are at least somewhat jeolous. :o ..... Maybe yourself or another pro could offer a chance for home recording folks like myself, a chance to spend a few days in a real studio.
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Maybe the two of you could go visit one together. :D

.
 
boingoman said:
I wonder, if given the choice of recording in a garage in 2007 with an Alesis HD24, a Ghost, and $20,000 of mics, or Abbey Road in 1975, with a full staff of highly qualified people and absolutely killer gear, if Pink Floyd would have chosen to record "Wish You Were Here" in the garage because it was easier to edit.
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Na, but they might record on a house boat on the Thames.

.
 
chessrock said:
Na, but they might record on a house boat on the Thames.

.
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:p

You mean this one?

http://www.neptunepinkfloyd.co.uk/gallery/v/DavidGilmourPhotos/AstoriaHouseboatRecordingStudio/aad.jpg.html

I really should have replied to the post that started this thought, which was by fishkarma. He basically said "Most of us have gear that blows away anything they had in the '70s. They didn't even have COMPOOTERS those poor stoneage bastards. And yet those early recordings are great."

Most of us, in fact, don't and never will have gear that good. An iMac, a Firebox, 97 plugins and 800 tracks are not the same as even David Gilmour's houseboat. Not to mention top-line studios of the '70s. I agree with all the points that have been made, but let's keep a little perspective.

It's just the age thing, probably. The 1970s were "early recordings"? The '70s weren't even early for Pink Floyd. Thomas Edison recording Walt Whitman on tinfoil in 1890 is an "early recording". Pink Floyd recording "Wish You Were Here" at Abbey Road in 1975 is not. :)
 
MCI2424 said:
20 years ago I was a pro and nobody paid "thousands" for a 24 track 2" and a Neve board.
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I know someone who charges about $700 a day (including engineer) who has a neve and a 2".
 
if i had any kind of success beyond what i have now and i had the $$$ i certainly wouldn't do my next project myself, you bet i'd be in a commercial studio.

at that point i'd have something to loose which i obviously don't now. ;)
 
I mostly agreed with alot of what Glen said skimming through all of this, mostly the part about hiding behind the "home" part of studio, really, with the right space, a home studio is just a studio that happens to be in a home, if anything its a damn lucky thing to be able to have your business (if this is more than a hobbie to you) in your home, and nothing to be ashamed of or hide behind.
I mean, a "home" studio cuts out one MAJOR factor in running a sucessfull studio, RENT. If your only fighting to pay your homes mortgage or monthy rent and not your studios on top of that, you already several thousand dollars a month ahead of the average studio owner, not to mention half the utility bills.

thats how i look at it, not a hobbie spot in the basement, but a live/work space.
 
pathdoc said:
I think the one point that no one really gets is that this forum is called HomeRecording.com. This forum should be a place for people who wish to record in their homes to come together and learn. There are pros here who we respect and I'm glad they are here. I just don't like the repeated suggestion that somehow we're idiots for even wanting to record in our home studios. The snobbery(sp?) gets old.
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yeah, no kidding., I could work in big studios, but honestly I like the environment of recording at home much better... You can create your own creative space that inspires you, nobody with major egos and attitudes to deal with, and allows you to be more creative, since you can work on it whenever your ideas hit you, instead of forcing yourself to create in a very narrow expensive slot of time. I'll ususally track drums in an actual studio to get the sound of a nice room, but other than that, it's almost not worth it. There are plenty of people who are doing stuff out of their homes that sounds just as good as some greatly recorded stuff. It won't sound like the latest top 40 band, but really what's the point in that, unless you just want to be one walking advert for the rest of your life. It's really just a case of people feeling threatened, since there is a change that has been going on, leading away from big studios and more toward small studios and home studios. So, they try to spread the nonsense that the only way someone can be professional is if they do their work at a place with a bitchin coffee machine and leather couches everywhere. SSLs are wicked, but how nessisary are they for 90% of the music out there. That's why they almost went under last year.
 
Nameless said:
Here's another angle.

Take the pro musicians, and put them into the small bedroom studio with decent budget gear and room treatment, and common sense and well-around knowledge of recording and mixing (basic mic placement, mixing, etc, all stuff everyone knows here).

Then take the amateur musicians (with their budget instruments), take away the room treatment, and put them into the studio with professional engineers.

What do you think the results would be?
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I'll take the good musicians all day everyday. Put 1972 Led Zeppelin in a laundromat and tape it with a camcorder, and it would be better than every record released last year.
 
TerraMortim said:
You should market a tumbleweed ice cream. If we can have garlic ice cream we could do the same with tumbleweeds weeds and cream, yum! Now, that's dessert!
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Pardon me, did you say tumbleweeds weeds and cream?

Tumbleweeds weeds and cream, tumbleweeds weeds and cream, I'm a little lad who loves tumbleweeds weeds and cream ...
 
Why am I reminded of that old song "Twigs and Seeds" (which I can't find a copy of anywhere to save my skin :( )

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Why am I reminded of that old song "Twigs and Seeds" (which I can't find a copy of anywhere to save my skin :( )

G.
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By Jesse Winchester?
 
masteringhouse said:
By Jesse Winchester?
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I can't even remember the artist. Had a feel to it somewhere between John Prine and Arlo Guthrie if I remember it right. It used to be a regular part of the rotation on Triad Radio and WXRT here back when FM was king and they both were part-time stations sharing frequencies with farm reports and Hispanic programming :D. (Playlists that would include Pachabel's Kanon, Long John Baldry, Hawkwind, Coleman Hawkins, and Pink Floyd all in one set. Man, those were the days.)

Anyway, there was this one song, "Twigs and Seeds", that the DJ'd play every time he was having his own private war against glaucoma there in the station. For some reason your riff on Tumbleweeds and Cream flashed me on that old song.

I haven't heard that song since FM radio started using taped commercials, and have been unable to track it down anywhere (not that I've spent a million hours looking, mind you.) Does what I describe sound like the Jesse Winchester tune you mention? If so, I have a fresh lead to follow... :).

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Had a feel to it somewhere between John Prine and Arlo Guthrie if I remember it right.
G.
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That sounds like a good description of Jesse Winchester.
 
Hmmm....1977. A little late for Triad radio I think, but definitely in the heyday of XRT. My freshman year at college. No wonder I didn't remember his name. I don't remember much of that year at all :eek: .

OK, onto iTunes to see if they have it. I've been collecting all the hard-to-find cuts from my formative years, and this was just about the last one I had yet to track down. I'd never have expected a lead to pop up out of nowhere on this forum.

Thanks for the leads & "connection(s)", Harvey and Tom ;) Much appreciated :).

G.

P.S. Tom, whatever that guy has been burning, I think it was more Snoop Dog grade than Willie Nelson grade. Yikes. :D
 
TerraMortim said:
ever tried the verb plugins artsacoustic or reverence? YUM! Both, very contrasting sounds, both very yummy, and in my opinion the best sounding algorithmic verbs (love those impulse response ones the most ususally lol)
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Nope cant say i have thanks for the recommendation

also to anyone saying the stuff they had back then rocked:
Some of it did and some of it didn't just like nowadays the studios probably did have better stuff than homes but comparing everything nowadays there is a lot lower noise floor. that said all i was saying is that we can still get a decent signal chain today which can sound pro its just a lack of engineer that knows what their doing most of the time. which is just an opinion, which makes all points i made null.... sorry!
 
MCI2424 said:
20 years ago I was a pro and nobody paid "thousands" for a 24 track 2" and a Neve board.
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in past currency or present?
ie i was talking about the coversion of what it was say $200 being say = to $1000 today or whatever!!! you get my point even if my estimations off by miles
 
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