Bob,
I tend to agree with you that money helps buy some mighty fine equipment, and the better the input chain, the better the final sound is going to be.

Let's consider a couple of other points. Winning a Grammy, or selling half a million copies of your song/album for all intents and purposes are the same thing in this context.

1. Who are you selling to? If you're selling to a Rap/Hip Hop/Techno audience, I would assume that you could lay down most of the tracks right on the computer from using loops and synths, and then add vocals from an isolation booth, or maybe you want to capture some sort of ambient background, so you wouldn't even necessarily need the vocal booth.

2. Live album. If you were doing a Live rock band, as Bob Harvey has done with his band, he's recorded it live into PowerTracks, and then done the mixing at home. You don't need too much more than what you already have for that. So, it is possible that you could record, and then master in your home studio, for a Live album.

3. Solo piano. You might pick up a system like this one: http://www.helpinstill.com/ that will allow you to 'mic' a piano with no acoustic background noise (think of a guitar pickup for a piano). You should be able to do that with a piano, a halfway decent A/D converter and a laptop. Again, mastering in your bedroom.

4. Pop tunes, I doubt very much.

5. Orchestral music, you might be able to get away with something like GPO, if you were trying to do background sounds, but not as orchestral music.

I think the technology is fast approaching the time when you *can* produce something at home, but it largely depends on WHAT you are trying to record, and what audience you're trying to hit.

Gary

I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!