Home recordings vs Studio Recordings?

FruitarGeek

In your experience is it easily possible for an artist to record all the relevent materials at home which his little studio, and then mixed elsewhere?

Now of course I know the answer to this is yes, but allow me to ellaborate more, and change the artist to lets say . . a band 8)

So, its assumed all bands want the most professional of quality for their music, competing with the ranks of international artists. But to reduce costs, and possible over-production on the Mixing engineer's behalf, such a band will:

1) Record drums at a pro studio (as drums are always hard to get right)
2) Record guitar's and bass either (a) DI into a USB Audio interface and use Guitar Rig to get some cool sounds or (b) record straight from amp using SM57 and possibly using Guitar Rig again to get that sound
3) Record vocals at home using a Rode, or SM57 - Or if that is going to be a problem, go to a pro studio
4) All midi info at home with great plugins

Effectivly, is it possible to have minimal studio time, and still get an international sounding recording, provided we give all the Raw wav. files to the Engineer for mixing, or am I being to optimistic?

majestikc

I'd say it's possible if you approach it the way you listed, although if the guitars are going to be re-amped they might as well be done in the "pro" studio as well, so basically all midi stuff can be done elsewhere, and bass, if you're going with ampsims then it's pretty much up to you to get the sound YOU want out of it and not really leave that up to the mixing guy.

Definitely drums in a good studio, or v-drums with slate/superior/abbey road/bfd

It's also important to define what you think is a "pro" result for the genre of music you're doing, to me it would be something like Nickelback/Mutt Lange/New Alice In Chains for heavy rock type of stuff, but to you that might sound like turd.

ruvann

This is just in my thoughts and experience with muso's recording stuff themselves...
It's entirely possible to make international quality recordings with minimal equipment at home but I'd say it more depends on WHO does the recording and not the equipment.
It's even possible to get a usuable drum sound at home, although it's probably not gonna happen by using a Shure 7 piece drum mic kit. ?

Yes it's not at all impossible to learn but it doesn't happen overnight.
Also, it probably depends on what exactly it is that's being recorded.

Musicians tend to keep their "muso" hat on when recording instead of learning the ropes of the "engineer" hat.
If that does happen, I'd say for commercial release it's quite a big maybe leaning more towards no.

I, same as probably most others who ventured into recording, was a musician long before I started with recording, and musicians do have A LOT of bad habits when it comes to recording ? haha I know I did and had to really learn to do things in a different way otherwise the music suffers.
Musos tend to cut corners in order to get to the finish line and engineers take time to prepare for the corners ? hehe
That's what I used to do, and also what I see pretty much all of my muso friends do when they record their own stuff.
It took me a while to get rid of the musician hat and make the "engineer" hat fit.

For example I've had some people record things themselves and want to bring me the dry guitar tracks to reamp but there are so many problems that's if it was my choice I would've scrapped everything and start over. The instruments are often recorded way too hot, it's badly edited, etc.
It's probably usable but it definitely didn't sound professional.
Things were copied and pasted around to fix mistakes, the endings of an instrument's part were cut away too short so it sounded "edited" and very unnatural, sort of like cutting away a crash cymbal's while it still rings.
Some mistakes were overlooked and since it's a single wave file the option for fixing mistakes are much more limited and there aren't any overdubs or punch-ins to "comp" from and try salvage a part.

Same goes for vocals. Thing's get chopped off too early or too late.

The midi stuff can actually become difficult depending on what instrument is triggered.
Take drums for example.
It's 110% possible to put Superior Drummer on a commercial release and many artists have done it without anyone even noticing it, but a person needs to work quite hard to make it sound like a real drummer. There's nothing as bad as the machine gun effect haha
Even Whitney Houston had Superior Drummer on a track that made the top 10 last year or about 2 years ago.
Nobody freaked out and cried foul for not using "real drums". ?

I've had quite a couple of drummers ask me what drumkit I used in my songs and how/where I recorded it. ?
Also, no one freaked out when Meshuggah used "fake" drums on more than one album. hehe

So if the instrument needs to sound realistic, a lot of care must be taken to make it sound that way. Many musos don't want to spend that amount of time on making something sound good so they just highlight all the midi notes and make it the same velocity.
On any instrument be it drums, piano, strings, and even synth, this will sound like crap...
I've even seen some "pro" studios do this. >☹ Funny thing is, it's one of the most popular studios in PTA. WTF ???

If they have the entire session file to give to the mixing engineer, it does improve the chances, but it's still not all in the safe zone.

I think a big part, and I'd say almost the biggest part comes down to the production.
The tracking/mixing engineer often these days doubles as the role of the producer as well, and when musos record stuff they tend to record the material exactly the way it's played live.
One guitar on the left, one guitar one the right. Old Carcass recordings were done like that. Even if there's a guitar solo or any lead part, it stays there on the right/left, instead of the lead moving to the center and the rhythm part gets doubled to the other side.
Musos don't make use of the fact that it's called multitrack recording for a reason.

By no means is this a definite NO, it will just require some research and practice before being able to fully compete with international stuff, but it IS possible with some work.
Again, it's not the equipment used, but rather WHO uses the equipment.

majestikc

You have to: Write and arrange an amazing song (arranging is a very important almost dead art)
Have Great Musicians playing great sounding instruments
Have those instruments vibrating in an amazing sounding room/venue/space
Have a recording engineer with great equipment and know-how capture those vibrations in the best possible most complimentary way.

THEN the mixing guy can do his job, which, to be fair, is not going to be all that difficult or require a whole lot seeing as though everything will already sound amazing.

The music, how and where and with what it's played and how it's captured is about 80%, the mixing about 15% and the mastering about......ABOUT 5% (and that's being generous, mixing 19% and mastering 1% more like it).

I.E: Don't leave it up to the mixing guy as he can't work miracles..........even if he has Waves's plugins.

Seeing as how most modern "international quality" albums' sound sucks, I still feel it can be done, if the music is good no one will care either way, no one hated a great song because the snare drum sucked......and if it does suck.....just replace it.

ruvann

majestikc wrote: I.E: Don't leave it up to the mixing guy as he can't work miracles..........even if he has Waves's plugins.

? ? hahahaha I like this part :applause:

FruitarGeek

Yea, I hear what you saying, but lets make the situation simpler.

If I record my guitar parts at home, using an average audio interface as opposed to going to a 'pro' studio where they will mic it up and use whatever audio interface they use, will the results be the same/similiar?

ruvann

Adrian Rogowski wrote: Yea, I hear what you saying, but lets make the situation simpler.

If I record my guitar parts at home, using an average audio interface as opposed to going to a 'pro' studio where they will mic it up and use whatever audio interface they use, will the results be the same/similiar?

Yeah, sure. Sending them good quality and well recorded dry tracks of the guitar will work just as well.
Many pro bands do this actually. Track at one studio, and send it someone that reamps the guitars, etc..
If I'm not mistaken, As I Lay Dying recorded their "An Ocean Between Us" album with Adam D doing the tracking, and they sent all the dry guitar tracks to Andy Sneap and he reamped the guitars.

I read an article some time ago about reamping and if it yields the same results and one thing they talked about is how guitarist's might play differently through different amps.
This will by no means be the same for all guitarists but for some it is a problem. The tube purists will absolutely hate having to track through a POD ? and they will probably play differently cause the "amp" responds differently to what they than when playing through their beloved tube amp ?

About two weeks ago I heard watched a Youtube video of a guy testing a guitar multi-effects iPhone/iPad app and IMHO his high gain tone was better than any South African "pro" studio's high gain tone that I've ever heard.
Again, it's less about what equipment is used and more about how it's used and mixed later.
So it's just some things to think about, if whatever you're tracking through is not ideal but doesn't bug you or you don't let it affect your playing, then there's nothing stopping you from getting pro results ?

Maybe just find out from whoever you want to send it to for re-amping, what format would work best for them. If you feel a bit unsure about doing the editing and pocketing and that kind of stuff, then it might be better to arrange with the guy doing the re-amping/mixing, to give him the entire ProTools, Cubase or whatever session file and he can work with it.

Also just make sure to have all the stuff that's recorded, at the same sample rate. Less hassle and time wasted having to convert stuff to different sample rates, etc.

ruvann

Might not be your thing but it's just amazing to see what good results a person can get with so little.

Bob-Dubery

As a general rule I think it can be done, though it may involve some compromises - both for the performer and for the listener.

And cost it out! Richard Thompson has done some experimenting in recent years. He did one album literally in his garage. OK... not a band, mostly him (he overdubbed bass, accordion, some vocal parts and electric guitar) and a percussionist. This was done with decent mics but the recording went onto an Apple Mac. He did the vocals, the guitars, everything and then sent the raw recordings for mastering, mixing etc. That was one of his best selling albums of recent years. More recently he decided to bypass the formal recording phase completely and go on the road and record the new material with his band on that tour. He said these are interesting ways to work, but you don't necessarily save a lot of money.

Another thing that, with respect, he has going for him, especially in terms of working in the garage, is a nearly 50 year career over which he's learned a thing or two about working in a studio.

There's a young artist in the UK, Kate Walsh (not the US TV star). She got signed when she was in her teens, recorded an album which ultimately she didn't like and the record company didn't like. They agreed to part ways (with the record company retaining the recordings). With no deal she hooked up with a technically minded friend and recorded an album in his front room. Those recordings were made available via i-Tunes and she ended up with one of i-Tunes best sellers in 2006. This lead to a physical release of the album on her own label and again it sold well.

So it can be a viable way of working. People can have success with a more hands on, DIY approach.

majestikc

The thing with re-amping is this, if you're going to record the d.i guitars yourself and then take them to a studio, you might as well just go record at the studio, the only benefit of doing it yourself would be if you needed a lot of time to get the tracks recorded properly, but if you can get your guitar tracks in a take or two then you might as well just go do it at the studio, the studio guy that will re-amp it will still have to mic up a cabinet and choose the head and move the mic around and play through your recorded tracks anyway.

Hi gain sounds are the hardest to get, with sims or the real deal, if the guitar sound you're after is clean or overdriven or whatever then you can get something very convincing:

Here's a couple I like for that:

Vintage Amp Room
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Kuassa Creme
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Mo-Facta

There is no real answer to this question as there are many records that have been made on both sides of the spectrum that sound great.

The biggest obstacle to overcome in home recording is noise (both from the outside and in) and the room. When I say "the room" I mean it's dimensions, diffusion, sound proofing, etc. What I can tell you about guitars is that often a lot of volume is required to get certain authentic sounds and this can prove troublesome in a room that, 1. isn't acoustically treated, and 2. is rife with nodes and standing waves. As soon as the amp excites that particular part of the spectrum (usually in the low end) it will seep into the recording and there's not much you can do about it.

All that being said, an iso-box can be built that can help a lot, especially if you're close miking, which is what 90% of guitar recording is about.

But as always - and this has already been said - it's not the equipment as much as who's driving it. Home recording has it's limitations but as long as you've made sure your monitoring environment is at least as true as it can be, you'll at least have a "sonic microscope" to make critical decisions about what you're recording. That's a good starting point in my book.

Cheers ?