An argument for the 'real' studio

[rwc]

I agree that it doesn't really matter where you record. Are you conveying what you wanted to convey through the songs? Then you've succeeded. Motown was a dirt floor basement!

motown had pultecs, u47s, 67s, km84s, km86s, and consoles with more headroom than the modern day SSL, and the best musicians in the world, in amazing rooms.

while i get your point, don't make it sound like they were working with an mbox and a samson usb mic!

[roscoenyc]

I agree that it doesn't really matter where you record. Are you conveying what you wanted to convey through the songs? Then you've succeeded. Motown was a dirt floor basement!

motown had pultecs, u47s, 67s, km84s, km86s, and consoles with more headroom than the modern day SSL, and the best musicians in the world, in amazing rooms.

And fantastic songs. With out a great song the best you can hope for is great sounds. And the greatest sounds won't necessarily yield a great record.

[losthighway]

That studio you talk about could be a great facility for you to freelance in AND engineer your own recordings. If you are competent as an engineer, rent the studio- not their engineer. Then you save the $$$ not having to buy all the great mics you'd like to be recording with.

There is the over-exaggerated I could make a good record with six sm57's argument. But more realistically: A lot of people on here could make amazing sounding records with a dozen mics, all well below the thousand dollar mark. Records that SOUND amazing.

[tateeskew]

personally, it's always been about the process for me. i can see how a whole industry is trying to figure out ways to stay alive in an old business model, but for me, it's about giving everyone that wants the opportunity to make an album, that opportunity.

$400 a day, 10 bucks an hour, one mic, fourty mics, tape machine, DAW, realistic mic preamps, chandler preamps, million dollar designed studio, garage, dirt floor barn...it doesn't matter. sure, one way may produce a more clear recording showing higher fidelity, one method may create a dirty recording, one a more hiss-filled recording, but in the end it's always about the creative process and the ability to let whoever wants to engage in that process, do so.

i got out of the commercial recording business because of all of the "you gotta do shit this way" or "you gotta have this gear or we can't work". a paradigm i cared not to work in. that doesn't necessarily make me right or the other people wrong, but i think it's quite simple...as long as there are people that want to make records in big, custom designed studios, they'll stay open.

just record and finish the process so you can begin again.

[losthighway]

Nicely done sir.

[rwc]

i got out of the commercial recording business because of all of the "you gotta do shit this way" or "you gotta have this gear or we can't work". a paradigm i cared not to work in. that doesn't necessarily make me right or the other people wrong, but i think it's quite simple...as long as there are people that want to make records in big, custom designed studios, they'll stay open.

this is actually why i left a certain facility and my lifelong goal atm is to put together a place with the quality of the big places and none of the social oddities and frathouse issues that some big places have.

the next few months are exciting for me since i have a possibiity of making this come true.

[b3groover]

I agree that it doesn't really matter where you record. Are you conveying what you wanted to convey through the songs? Then you've succeeded. Motown was a dirt floor basement!

motown had pultecs, u47s, 67s, km84s, km86s, and consoles with more headroom than the modern day SSL, and the best musicians in the world, in amazing rooms.

Eventually they did... And for a long time they did not have amazing rooms, they had a pretty shitty sounding room, all things considered.

What they did have is great talent and songwriting.

The point is to do what you have to do to get your music "on tape". The democritization of technology doesn't mean everyone is going to make a good record, just like the fact that even though most anybody can afford a guitar won't make them a good musician.

But my dad always talked about how blessed I am to have the technology available these days that I do. And if you stop and think about it, it is amazing.

[joelpatterson]

It's beyond amazing, it's... it's... revolutionary!

It's like a bottleneck has been broken. I learned that the Antony and the Johnson's hit "Hope There's Someone" was recorded with a Groove Tubes GT 55 mic through the pre's of a MOTU 828, straight into a computer with Digital Performer.

If that doesn't prove that anybody can do anything these days ...?

Except that Antony is a certifiably phenomenal genius who has the self-confidence to exploit his talents and has lived his life so that his genius is free to flourish. That's not 'anybody.' So-- 'anybody' is still stuck doing the thing they did before technology littered the place with dirt cheap, top quality gear. But serious people-- it's like they drained the aquarium, you don't need a deep sea diving bell no more.

You need a quiet, nice sounding room somewhere. You don't need a 'real' studio."

[DrummerMan]

"you don't need a 'real' studio"

"you need a 'real' studio"


I think/hope we're all old enough, and have been through this type of conversation enough times, to know that neither of these statements are absolutely true. While one situation may work for me in one instance, I think it'd be funny to then feel like I need to justify the path I've taken by telling other people that that's what they need/don't need to do. There are advantages and disadvantages to both and it's up to each person to decide which combination of environments will give more pros to outweigh the cons.

I mean, all we need is to eat and breath, and the desire to procreate is usually mixed in there too. After that, everything is gray area, up for grabs, and is about what your personal priorities are, and what compromises you're willing to make to achieve those priorities.

[joelpatterson]

Pros and cons. I think you just hit on a deeply philosophical pun, there.

[GoatKnuckles]

There are pretty valid arguements made for both sides of this.

There is definetly a signifigant amount of materialism and ridiculousness going on in the gear department, most of the items in a studio setup perform simple processes and many people (inluding myself at times) tend to overemphasize there importance. A microphone most simply picks up sound, a pre simply increases a mics input. There are certainly differences in quality depending upon your budget but really where does it end.

My girlfriend just spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $500.00 on a purse. To me this seems ridiculous but the more I think about it I can't really fault her for it. I spent about that much on my Sputnik tube mic. my mic picks up sounds I record into it, secondarily it looks cool and makes me happy. Her purse carries all her shit, looks nice and makes her happy.

The biggest factors in all of this though are money and time. I'm a solo musician and multi instrumentalist and I recently completed recording my first record entirely by myself. It sounds pretty good, I was going for a Ryan Adams type of production style and what I got was basically a lower budget version of that, doing my record at home by myself on nobody's dime gave me time to do things like work out mandolin parts, or see what a lapsteel through a delay pedal would sound like and take the time to double all my vocals to almost Elliott Smith like perfection. On some tracks the acoustic guitar I recorded with my C1000 or sputnik doesn't sound as beautiful as I think it should, it certainly would have probably sounded better in a treated room with a pair of KM84's into a Fearn into Apogee converters or whatever...but for the amount it would probably cost me to go to one of the big guys and record it I basically built myself a competent home studio that I have forever now to record whatever strikes me and spend as much time as I need....also seeing as I do this for my own enjoyment and have no real plans of trying to shop my record or be some kind of rockstar, having my own setup makes me happier. I would love to go record some of my songs at electric ladyland but I couldn't justify spending that kind of money on whats basically a vanity recording.

[ubertar]

Pros and cons. I think you just hit on a deeply philosophical pun, there.

Oh fuck, that's pure genius.

[ubertar]

My girlfriend just spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $500.00 on a purse.

Are you dating Sarah Palin?

[signorMars]

I'm not sure the article really applies to the home studio, if we're talking about home studios who ostensibly purchased this gear to produce music which they plan to release. In this case, the gear is not a really a consumer good, but a capital investment. The recording gear can provide a means to produce a sellable product, so it's not really just a consumer purchase, really. Of course, not everyone who purchases recording gear is going to use it to make a sellable record, so there could be some loss to the gear manufacturers there, but i find it hard to believe that these individuals will then flock to "real" studios en masse. the biggest effect the current economic situation seems to be having on the market is that the weakness of the dollar means it's less expensive for many overseas artists to fly to the US to make a record than to do it in their own country. It's also apparently pushing a lot of work out of NY and LA, since land value and rent there can establish fairly high studio rates. Apparently the Austin studios are killing right now.

[thieves]

Would you make the same argument about buying a hammer, or a miter box, or a ladder, or paint brushes? I think your idea has more to do with intent than anything else. For instance, we cleaned out our garage yesterday and I moved a bike rack over about three feet, using my own ladder and screw-shooter. Should I have sold those tools and hired a contractor to do the work? How is that cost effective?
How about this: I'm currently working on a remix for submission as part of a remix contest. The prize is a modded keyboard, not cash. If I didn't have the ability to work on this at home on my own, I'd be underwater on this project already. And this isn't a completely ITB remix. I've bounced audio through external processors and added a few tracks of sax and melodica.
We'd all like to pretend that none of us have ever spent a dime on gear that wasn't 100% covered by our current billable hours. But we all know that isn't true. But does that make everyone here crassly materialistic? Considering the stupid crap that I see "the civilians" buying, I think the answer is probably not.

i think i'm about to enter the same remix contest...