Like many musicians/bands who write original music one of the biggest challenges is getting your music well recorded without breaking the bank.
If you’ve ever gone into a professional recording studio then you would have easily found that to record a good demo it can cost you anywhere from a couple of hundred to a thousand dollars per song. Keep in mind I said a good demo. By good demo I mean something that is shoppable and won’t have people cringing because of a rough mix or frequencies that fatigue a listeners ears.
I’ve been into four professional studios with various bands. Sure it was fun. But, as we were always on our own dime it was always a little rushed, as you pay by the hour or for blocks of time.
Unfortunately the recording studio is where most songs really get a good polish. So, going into a recording studio where you have limited time, before the song has been kicked around a lot can really ruin the end result.
I’ve often thought to myself that if we saved our recording money we would be able to buy some of our own recording equipment and maybe do just as well.
This is what leads most acts to think about going down the road of the home recording studio.
Fortunately the technology for home recording just keeps getting cheaper and cheaper. I bought a korg dx 16 when it first came out for around 3k. Korg now has a better all in one recorder for only about 2k.
What you can do with home studios is almost as good as what you can get out of professional studio. I say almost because there are some factors besides the actual recording equipment which can make or break your end result. Namely:
- The room acoustics. If you are micing amps and drums or vocal if the acoustics are bad or things are getting picked up by the mic it can make for a really bad recording. That said I have no problems with the guitars and drums as we go straight in with pods and electric drums. Set up right you can’t tell it’s not an amp or acoustic drum.
- A good microphone for vocals. You don’t need a 2k mic. I use my performance microphone sennheiser e945 and it sounds great. Sure it doesn’t sound as good as a 2k mike but we are talking demos here.
- Knowledge. Recording isn’t as simple as plugging in and hitting record. You need a process or a flow chart. For instance, with a band you usually lay down a scratch track first with the whole band, the drums and work your way up to the lead vocal. I suggest to ask to sit in and observe at a recording studio to see just how it is done. At the very least buy some books on recording, mixing and mastering.
- Knowledge of mixing. Mixing a song, once you know what you are doing is easy. If you don’t know what you are doing it can be very frustrating. You have to consider the over all level of the song, level of the tracks, pan, and if any instrument frequencies need to cut of boosted to sit in the mix right. Again, buy some good mixing books.
- Knowledge of mastering. Mastering is a kind of tricky. You can have a really good mix on your recorder, but without it being mastered right it will still sound not right compared to commercial music. Mastering is best done by a third party in in my opinion.
- Good ears. When you record and mix and master you need a good ears. Are you deaf in some areas because of listening to too much loud music? Then you should have someone else mix/ master.
- Perspective. You can have all the right intentions, but some people just have better perspective and ears when it comes to mixing music. I myself let my guitarist do the final mix on our music because I always like her mixes better than mine. If you ever listen to a bad mix you can usually pick out which member of the band did it because that players instrument always too loud. So, if you can’t mix from the outlook of what is best for the song and not just your instrument then you probably shouldn’t be the one mixing.
- Bad performances. No matter how good you are at recording if your band is not up to snuff in one way or another the recording will suffer. The most notable is drummers fluctuate in their timekeeping. Everything is built up from the timing. So, if that is off don’t go any further. Get that drummer playing to a click or something. Bad timing will ruin a whole song. Off key singing can be fixed with pitch shifters and instruments can be eq’d to sound better, but the general performance has to be really on for the recording to be hot.
- Monitors. When you mix and listen back you can’t mix on computer speakers. You need a decent set of flat response monitors. On a side note this is why mastering is important. Mastering makes a track sound good across different listening venues. If you just mix a track chances are that it will sound good on say your stereo, but not on your boom box.
If this hasn’t swayed you from your choice to start your own home studio then the next question is what are my choices? Well, you have one of three routes to choose from.
- The traditional route of buying all the huge mixing boards and rack components and computer software and sound-treating a space to make it into a recording studio. This is very expensive and unless you are rich or also trying to start it as a business it’s not really a good way to go.
- The home computer route. Turn your MAC or PC into a virtual recording studio. You can choose from several different recording programs. They are usually a few hundred dollars just for the program. If you didn’t buy the complete version then you will have to buy plug-ins for extras. And you will still need an interface in-between the computer and your instrument. The interface could just be a sound card or it could be it’s own mixing console. In my experiments with home studios I tried the computer route. I gave it up because I didn’t like the fact of having to deal with software issues like latency and drivers. You also still have to buy monitors and an interface. So, it is not like buying a program instantly turns your computer into a recording studio. A computer based recording studio would have many software based advantages such as being able to use software to cut and paste parts of a song and looking at tracks visually and being able to edit them that way.
- The all in one digital recorder. This is the route I went. I’ve found it to be the easiest. Everything is all in one package and I know it works. I don’t have to install programs or worry about plugging in rack modules. All I have to plug in is the monitors and the instruments. The one I bought was the korg dx 16. A big reason I bought it was that it had a quick-start manual which had me laying down tracks in a matter of minutes of having it out of the box . This considerably helped me with the learning curve. I can record, mix and master all on this one console. Though I still have mastering done by a professional. It has on-board effects and compressors/ preamps. I would recommend this as the easiest route. I have two friends in bands that have gone this route and get good demos done. One of them even gave up a bunch of separate equipment for his all in one recorder.
Once you’ve bought whatever equipment you are going to buy your biggest obstacle is going to the learning curve. If you’ve been in recording studio a few times or read up on the subject it shouldn’t be to bad.
However do not expect recorded demo’s to sound as good as commercial music on the radio. Those recordings are done in very expensive studios usually with lot of equipment and professionally trained sound engineers.
You may get your home recording project to sound great with some work and careful recording mixing and mastering, but you will have to work at it. It’s not as simple as just laying down the track and being done. So, if you are the type of person who just wants to play and doesn’t have the patience to sit in front of a pair of monitors and mix one song for hours,then you should probably not waste your money on home recording equipment.
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