What do real engineers think about home recording.

  • Thread starter Thread starter tjohnston
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Re: Re: Yes thats true

acorec said:
Lately, I have never heard a "pro" recording that blows me away. Today's recordings are possibly the worst recordings in history. 2000s recordings are done in a day and spewed out to the buying public. The new recordings take away any argument about home vs pro. Home recordings have people who care about the outcome. The pros are that, pros. Recording is their job. Some love it and care, most get as excited as you when you talk about your job.

Let me tell you one thing. If you haven't heard any records that blow you away, you should stay away from the popular music market. Popular music is based on a marketing engine, based on marketing strategies, and the whole mess...

But there's a WHOLE WORLD of professionals doing about their thing. I know labels that bring out LOADS of records that only freaks listen too. The musicians on these records are professionals that have studied years to just be able to play that. They know the sound of their instruments, just as the composers that wrote that music. Their hearing is trained day in day out. Think they won't be able to find out a good engineer?

Then, the next point. I'm studying music at the moment. I'm an electronics engineer, I can make alot more money in informatics as in the music bizz. ALL the kids at school practice HOURS a day, and just a few of them will end up being famous enough to make a living just playing concerts and recording. The same goes for engineers. The guys that get lucky and can live because they have their name made are just a minority. The rest has to work their asses, doing the best they can or they'll loose their job to the next guy.

Studios are about money. They have to make sure they survive just as any other business. The guys working IN those studios have to deliver good work, or another guy will come in and take over.

Now, what's the difference between homereccers? Well, the musicians I know from school are practicing hours each day, with a decend schedule. They can outplay ANY unschooled musician I know. I can hear you saying that you know this trained classical guy that ain't worth shit playing blues/pop/... blahblah. That's because the trained dude IS NOT A BLUES/POP/... PLAYER. Why? Because this guy isn't all about money, this guy's passion is playing what he likes to play, and that's what he's good at. If he wanted to play blues, he'd be just as passionate about that, and deliver a mighty fine job at it too.

Professionals spend ALL their time on their job. Homereccers few hours a week. That's a MAJOR difference, and you'll hear that.

I'm a homereccer. I got quite some livemixing experience/engineering knowledge up to the point that a PA-company offered to hire me. I deliver a better job recording demo's than the local budget studio, from what I hear. My friends take me into a rather big studio because they trust me on their mixes. Well, I know a kid in the bizz. 2 Years ago he did one mix at a show I mixed the other bands; my mix was better. Last year, we met again at another gig. My band sounded ok. His band was the BEST mix I heard the whole frigging year.

What's the difference between that guy and me? That he had a rack with a 20 000 $ voicechannel in it? That doesn't make his mix. The guy has experience. And ALOT of it.

And after the show, I congratulated him with his mix. And he told me a few tricks he used, and what gear was in his rack.

As for looking down... Think I enjoy discussing musictheory with kids that hardly know how to read notes? It's not discussion at that point, it me teaching the kid. The same goes for professional engineers. If you can proof that you are very knowledgable, and worth discussing with, they'd be glad to discuss stuff. But teaching is pretty boring at times, I like to teach, but in my spare time, there's more fun stuff to do. I DO have respect for any player, but there's a difference in knowledge, I don't expect them to know everything, but you cannot deny the difference in background, and you can't expect me to act as if you're at the same level.
 
Thank you for your reply Harvey. Reading other posts you have made in other threads, I figured you were of the mind that it all comes down to the skills of the engineer. I am not sure what you meant about me having a 'defensive mindset' or what opinions I have that cannot be swayed, and I am sorry for any misunderstanding, as I think we are in agreement.
It sounds like you already have a very defensive mind set, so I doubt that anything I could say or examples I could show you will sway you from your opinions
On the contrary, I am anxious for you to cite examples and very interested in what you and others have to say. I came here to have the sound I am getting evaluated and to learn and do whatever it takes, taking all the opinions here into consideration, to fix whatever may be 'homey' or 'garagey' sounding about my recordings, if anything.


The statement I was referring to that caused me to resurface this thread was originally posted by Tjohnston:
I never heard a home recording that blew me away. Everything I have ever heard has been so cheap sounding. It is always obvious that it was recorded at home. Surf through some mp3.com stuff and you will see what I mean.

So I say, ok, the thing I want most with my recordings is for people not to listen to them and say "that sounds like some guy recorded it in his home". I want to insure that before I go releasing CD's for myself or recording other people. So I was asking for tjohnston and others to point out what it is that they hear that is tell-tale of a home recording by citing specific examples. However, now we come to the argument of what is a home recording. We see that Harvey does not consider the songs that I suggested for this experiment to even be home recordings. I am anxious to listen to those Beatle recordings that were mentioned, but for it to be truly instructive, I need people to point out what is present in them but lacking in the greatest of home recordings. Of course, if we define a home recording just as one that does not sound professional because it was done by a poor engineer, then the whole experiment is void and worthless. How are other people here defining home recording? Which category does everyone else consider the songs I mentioned to fit into?


From the other end, that is, as opposed to pointing out what is better in pro recordings as I have suggested in the post above, I think that the comments of Harvey and all the pros here on my work would be quite instructive. If there is something that I am doing that dooms something I have done to the 'not to be taken seriously' bin, I will re-record or remix whatever until we can prevent that. So far I have posted one clip for comment on these boards and the thread can be found <a href = "http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=83960">here</a>: Let us start there and I can post more clips as needed in the future as comments come back. Thanks to everyone.
 
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