Here's my hang up, though...

It's two components: money and mental attitude.

It's no easier to demo a tune on a 4 track cassette versus my AkaiDPS24.

It no easier if my only mic is a 58 or a U87.

No easier to twist little plastic "input trim" knob on a Mackie 1604 or the big heavy Great River knob that feels like a vault knob.

The more I think about this...this goes back to being a musical thing and NOT a sonics thing. It comes down to the isolation of people tracking everything themselves (people were cheaper than studio time before-know what I mean?)...and the need to find the "perfect take".

What about the sonics takes a long time? The mix. OK. You got me there. I can throw out a demo mix in 20min that will get the point across--where I might spend a day or two laboring over small details...because I can. It's free, right?

Maybe it's the experimentation...? Which mic is perfect for...X? Why? So, you do your experiements...now you use micX and preY on your acoustic guitar, placed about so...same with your voice. Here's my two fave places to stick a mic on a guitar cab...

You get what consistently works, and you just do...

Now, I personally think bringing a computer into the equation is asking for different kinds of trouble, but...that falls under the category of find what consistently works.

I think the purposes are different and can easily run akimbo and at cross purposes. My goal as a song writer is to work quickly and efficiently and prolifically. I write better when I do. And to merely WRITE THE SONG. The goal of the engineer is to record it in the best possible light - with super high fidelity or lowfi. This means experiments with mics, placements, eq, compression both at the recording and the mixing stage. It takes time. Time tends to drain creative resources when that's not your purpose - as a songwriter waiting for the engineer; as an engineer waiting for the songwriter to come up with a verse. When they're the same person it could spell disaster. You'd have to be super efficient to make it work properly. We're talking about musicians aren't we??? Not generally the most efficient people on the planet as a rule.

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Originally posted by Popmann:

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I never really spent a whole lot of time writing until I got a DAW that sounded a million times better than some shitty cassette player or ADAT...

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Umm...maybe this is the obvious question, but...why on earth did you buy a DAW if you'd never spent much time writing?

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Ummm...I think the answer should be pretty obvious...

any writing that was done back in the 70's/80's (before multitrack sequencing became easily and cheaply available), was done with the band fleshing out a rough idea that you may or may not have honked out on your cassette player at home...

enter the computer sequencing/DAW era....take a decent computer and a GMidi synth module and keyboard and you can flesh out the ideas yourself..

I quess what I should have said was "I never spent a whole lot of time writing Alone"
until DAW's came around...

When I was young I was a pretty profific songwriter. I was a touring musician etc before I got into recording and luckily since then I have had the oportunity to be a pretty prolific producer, but as a composer and songwriter the most prolific times in the last 14 years were when I first put a 4 track cassette based studio together and then about 3 years ago when I decided to go to Offfice Depot and get a micro cassette and start using that is my main writing tool.

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I quess what I should have said was "I never spent a whole lot of time writing Alone"
until DAW's came around...

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Ok. Got it. Foreign to me, but I get where you're coming from. I guess for me, I learned to play guitar so I could write the accompanying music to my melodies/lyrics.

Well for me this whole thing is a hobby...MUSIC.
I am now 37 and have been playing since the age of 10. I have always been interested in all aspects of music. Live sound, mixers, amps,mics, chords, connections, performing, recording, etc...I am playing (live) now more than ever in my life. I basically turned some of my live gear into recording stuff. I probably have less invested in recording gear than a lot of people spend on a pair of "high end" speaker cables. I don't get time to record or work on that type of stuff because of my gigging and that is fine with me. I mainly want to have a little bit of gear so that I can record some stuff (my bands) before I get too old. This way I can play it for the grand kids a few years down the road. I have absolutely no intention of hiring myself out as a "studio" One of my latest bands has a few originals we are working on. We have some down time from gigging (6 weeks) and we hope to record the stuff at my house. It won't be stuff to send to a record label or radio station, just stuff for our own enjoyment. Whenever I go to a music store and check out gear, I am drawn to the drum area. I still get a charge out of checking stuff out just like when I was 12...If I had to choose between playing live and recording, I would pick playing live. Even though we play to a handful of nobody's and we just do it because we love it. Maybe when I get old, my priorities will change...I don't know.....Any part of the music is still cool for me..But I like looking out and see people enjoying us giving them a good groove.....

Willy

I've been awol for awhile but this is a great topic to jump into.

Me personally, I've done the home studio thing for almost 20 years now. It's the greatest thing I've done for my music.

I have the advantage of playing all the instruments. I don't really think I've gotten too bogged down in the studio madness that you mention, because i try to keep it in perspective. The studio is no more valuable to me than my guitar or amp. It's another tool. I refuse to sink thousands into my guitars, and ditto for the home studio thing.

I get enough to get what I want out of it - a Strat works just as well as a Les Paul or PRS and costs a lot less. Sure, argue the points of a finely crafted guitar and stuff, but in the end, in the bar, on the record, the tone of your guitar is only 1/10 of the equation.

Ditto with the studio. If I sink tons into the studio, I'm distracted from the songs. But if I have a crappy studio, I'm focused more on trying to improve the sound of the demos - it's just what I do. So I get something that gets me what I need.

I recently upgraded to a 16-track Zoom recorder. I still refuse to waste time learning about DAWs, probably for the main reason you cite, it's a tar baby.

I'm not so obsessed with the new toys. I'm more obsessed with getting great sounds with very little. Mic placement, room sounds, eq technique, crap like that is SOOO much more important to me than a $1000 microphone or even a mic PRE.

I continue to come back to the fact that the drums on Brown Sugar were recorded with THREE mics, and with the drums on Al Green's big hits, (Let's Stay Together, Love and Happiness, etc) it was only ONE mic!

(if you're interested, here's the article about Brown Sugar; http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording/bruce_borgeson/shoals3/sugar.shtml)

SO. If those bastards can RELEASE a classic record that was done with a single, well-placed mic on the drums, then, by God, I can get by with a 16-track and 4 mics.

It's the SONG man, not the SOUND.

...it's not just the song--it's the combination song/performance/instruments...with a touch of production, IMO.

I think the biggest advice here would be IF you're going to have a "more than demo" studio...don't track it all yourself, and draw a line in the sand when the system is "done". When something dies, or you're horribly unhappy with a given sound, shop...until then, dig in and make some music.

(and) Physician heal thy self.

Well I was going post an addendum. Musician/engineer Hats:

Songwriting, performing, production, instrumental proficiency, vocal proficiency, lyric proficiency, business, teaching, organizationall skills, technical know-how around the studio (mics, techniques, gear knowledge), basic music theory knowledge to help musical problem solving, patience, determination, ability to focus on a given task to completion (and ability to sit still and listen for prolonged time periods without spacing out), great ears, problem solving skills, . . .

And perhaps most importantly, and this applies to both musician and engineer:

THE ABILITY TO MAKE A QUICK DECISION WITH CONFIDENCE

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Originally posted by beau:
It's the SONG man, not the SOUND.

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Bartender, give that man a BEER!!

Think about many of the classics that we grew up on - well, some of us grew up up on. The latest TapeOp was talking with one of the vets of recording and pointed a bit of wisdom that I have to periodically remind myself about - it's not so much about what you're recording on, but what you're recording. The early Elvis tunes, the great old Motown stuff, hell even the early hard rock, was recorded with gear that, functionally, didn't come close to the capability we have in our rooms today. But that music still stands the test of time. When was Elvis' first hit - 1950 something? Everyone on the freakin planet knows who Elvis Presley is in 2005. Think anyone's gonna remember who [insert current disposable pop star du jour here] is in 50 years? The Stones, Al Green, Jimmy, that music will be remembered. And it was, in most cases, recorded on gear that pales in comparison to what we're using today.

That's it. I'm selling off the Radar, the Ghost, my outboard, and all my mics but a few 57's and digging out my old Tascam 464 Portastudio!!!

Good lord. What am I saying?????

pssssssst! ** hey BUD how much aforrr your console' ?? ...

Excellent point!

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Originally posted by captain54:

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Originally posted by Ronan Chris Murphy:
I get asked a lot by songwriters what gear they should buy and I tell them a 4 track cassette or an old ADAT with a Mackie 1202 and what ever you do, do not get a DAW. I am obviously a terrible businessman because I have a business that makes money from teaching musicians how to make better recordings at home but I have seen home studio wreck a lot of peoples careers. For the most part if you are a performing songwriter that puts a fancy studio in your home, if that does not stop your career dead in its tracks you are the exception and not the rule..

I'm not quite following the logic here....

If you have a nice DAW setup at home that should inspire you write and work on material..

plus you can easily transport your sessions back and forth for collaboration purposes...

I never really spent a whole lot of time writing until I got a DAW that sounded a million times better than some shitty cassette player or ADAT...

you can get a laptop and an MBox and write songs round the clock...it takes about a half an hour to setup, at most...that's a DAW, right?

I think the problem is people go to Banjo Mart and buy the wrong gear for what they need and spend months trying to get it to work...

quote:

Originally posted by 24-bit:

I'm not quite following the logic here....

If you have a nice DAW setup at home that should inspire you write and work on material..

That is if you don't have to constantly trouble shoot it because of crashes, conflicts, mysterious pops and clicks. If it doesn't require all your time, energy and cash to keep it updated and sounding as good as you imagine it could if you just get another mic and preamp, and of course a little bit more RAM, oh, and a second harddrive. If you don't realize that you really should rebuild your room because the acoustics could be way better and your quality will increase significantly with just a little more acoustic treatment. Oh, and then of course your little recording rig will actually be good enough to take in some outside work, just a little, you know, to cover some expenses. Damn now I gotta spend more time working on my mic placement techniques, and I really should get a new Kick mic if I'm gonna be recording other people's stuff.......etc, etc, etc.

Wow - great topic. Very applicable to where I am currently. Purchased a basic DAW 2 years ago thinking I'll do it all myself. Very disappointed to find out I needed more than 001 and a $100 mic (which for all I knew was expensive and state of the art) to make "professional" sounding recordings.

Messed around with it and even got a few paying gigs just because I had gear. Continued to write but didn't play out because of health problems as well as thinking I needed to put the ultimate record together first (on my own that is).

Fast forward two years later and I'm pretty much in the same place. Yikey. My goal now is to get 2 channels of high quality gear to track guitar and vox and that's it. No mixing, drums, synth, keys, mastering, editing, nothing. I'll take it to a big studio for that. And rather than spending all my time perfecting my studio chops before attempting to put a whole project together, I'll work with an experienced producer/engineer that I'd work with anyway.

Bottom line - instead of paying a studio a few thousand to record my guitar and vox in, I'm buying one. I'll walk away having gear that I can continue to use for future projects, other people's projects, and creative ideas.

uh...I think...

jmisner

I agree with Vox on this one. It should be better, but setting up a studio (especially on a budget) isn't as easy as a lot of people imagine.

I know I've had to reprogram my paradigm on how easy it is to build a home studio every 3 months for the last 7 years.

Shiiii, I thought I would be done 6 years and 11 months ago... 30k and my youth have been wasted and I'm now "sure" I'll be done a month from now... Yeah, right.

...But it sounded so easy in the brocure?

I really think most project studio owners just wanting to record their own stuff would be better off both financially and production-wise in the long run by just going to another studio... And maybe even hiring musicians to play.

That said, I think project studio owners that just love studios but can't get a job in one that will pay the bills have a valid point in building studios... And so do all the rich folk that can slam down 50k+ in one pass and build a quality working studio right away.

Songwriters are better off with a pencil and paper, IMHO... A little tape recorder is a plus, but not even a necessity. Shiiii, I wrote songs 5 years ago that I never wrote down or recorded that I could sit down and play right now without a hitch... Every writer will have his/her own "best way to write". For instance, lyrics like "I am the Walrus" would probably be easiest to just scat into a tape recorder and then assemble your favorites, and techno/electro probably has to be written on a computer... I would also assume hip hop would be easier to write for some with a DAW pumping a beat as they "spit".

And those aren't respected genres around here, but I assume many classical composers LOVE working with sample libraries instead of a piano and a piece of paper!

And there are also folks like me that write more experimental rock songs mostly. I'm an OK guitarist, but I can't play rhythm and hold down a counterpuntal melody at the same time, nor can I invite a band over to play since I don't know anyone around here... And really that is part of writing a rock song... I load up the rhythm guitar in the DAW, loop it and write harmonies and counterpoint. It kind of expands the level of songs I can write rather than being restricted by my level of playing/singing.

There are just too many variables involved to really make the claim that home studios are bad for everyones writing process.

I think it really only holds true for a few genres. They happen to be some of the biggest genres amongst us... And I don't even think it holds true for all the musicians in those catagories.

And there are more artists getting more done than ever. 3 chord pop songs don't cut it anymore. Even Britney Spears songs are more complex pieces than I've ever written. And there are literally hundreds of thousands of acts with record deals. What was there in 1963? 4-500 maybe?

I think we should be thanking home/project studios for pushing music to another plataeu... Not damning it for killing music.

-Dusty

It occurred to me this week that perhaps one of the biggest mistakes a lot of home recordists are making is constantly thinking that the next piece of gear is going to "solve everything" rather than being really creative with what you've got and squeezing every bit of potential out of it.

Example: I've been pretty bummed with my main vocal mic for awhile (SP C1). After a lot of research I decided on my next mic (a MXL V69ME, incidentally).

So okay, there's still the lag between that decision and me saving up the money to get it.

I was tempted to just not record anything in the meantime, figuring I'd be kicking myself for recording with the inferior mic, when I'll have a better one - for my voice - soon... (Dusty, does this sound familiar?)

But I couldn't stay away from recording, so I started doing some wild experimenting and found that if I sing *across* the C1, with it turned at nearly a 90 degree angle from me, facing straight into the corner of the room... it sounded a zillion times better! Like a whole new mic.

All of a sudden I'm reconsidering whether I want to plunk down a few more hundred for a mic, when I could use it to get a better amp, or upgrade my pickups, or... etc. etc.

I feel like I've learned a valuable lesson here. I've been re-evaluating all my gear, taking a look at pieces I'd kinda written off as things I'd "outgrown".

In the process, I discovered that my old ART Tube MP - while being a pretty crappy vocal pre - actually sounds really cool for certain tunes as a bass DI.

One of my shitty old acoustic guitars is great for slide when I use really heavy strings and tune it down to open C...

etc. etc.

Chris

quote:

Originally posted by bandini:

I was tempted to just not record anything in the meantime, figuring I'd be kicking myself for recording with the inferior mic, when I'll have a better one - for my voice - soon... (Dusty, does this sound familiar?)

Chris

Not recently... I haven't been recording because my studio has been completly dismanteled for upgrades... It wasn't because the lack of sonics.

-Dusty

quote:

Originally posted by dusty:

I really think most project studio owners just wanting to record their own stuff would be better off both financially and production-wise in the long run by just going to another studio... And maybe even hiring musicians to play.

Where you get in trouble with all of this is when you try to think that you will be able to put together a home studio that can get "just as good" results as a high end professional studio..

that's when you get on the money/gear train that never ends and you never get anything done...

I've tried to get my system stable with all the right gear within my budget, and have tried to treat my room the best I can...it's not anywhere near high end, but hey, I sure as hell have learned a few things in the process....

you don't have to spend an incredible amount of money to put together a stable, solid, songwriting/composing DAW....

get a copy of ACID, some loop libraries, a few inexpensive virtual synths (Crystal is free), even a used Roland 1080 on ebay, a midi controller, a decent mic and a decent pre and you have many, many more colors on your pallette to work from then if you were sitting there with your guitar and staring at a pencil and paper..

I have a recorder (a Tascam 388. Stop sniggering). I have mics.

The only pieces of gear I want now are people.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Willy D:
Maybe when I get old, my priorities will change...I don't know.....Any part of the music is still cool
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Got good news for ya Willy, keep picking and you ain't gonna get old.
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I could make a case that my gardening gets in the way of my songwriting, or camping in the mountains this summer or watching the Daytona 500 tomorrow. It's all just time allocation. If you're driven to write songs, that's what you'll do. The only pitfall I see is deluding yourself into thinking with a couple of grand worth of gear your gonna produce a pro level recording.
I dug Gandalfs line "all we have to to is to decide what to do with the time that is given us"

Darius