PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Recording studios do we still need them

Fun short discussion of home studio versus pro studio. Both sides offer good points and that’s what I’ve done. I have a good-enough studio at home to do demos, but when it comes to laying down tracks for others I go to the real studio.

And +1 for the magazine. That, and Recording Magazine.

This is very interesting, and I actually read a similarly themed article a week or so ago about this.

Love or hate her music, but it's very impressive that Billie Eilish has had the immense success she has, given that it's literally just she and her brother making all of it out of a bedroom. And yet she's won a bunch of Grammy's and had tons of #1 singles.

I personally think with the advance of recording technology and how accessible it is, the days of big budget studios may be coming to a close. You don't need it any more - you can reach the dream in your apartment bedroom with the appropriate setup.

Yep... they are still essential.

I get the whole " but you can make radio ready recordings in your basement " argument. And yes you can.

However, paying someone who actually knows how to do it right, for professional results, is worth every dollar. You get the room that's properly set up for audio, the gear that exceeds the stuff you bought on a budget, and the person at the desk who has forgotten more than most home recording enthusiasts will ever know. Many of the big artists have home studios where they throw together their songs. But their home studio don't look like our home studios. And they can also pay for an engineer to set in on the board for the recording of the songs. We can't.

A classic example is the folks in this forum. Man, no slams or insults are intended here at all. I have heard some stuff on our showcase that I think rivals anything I've heard out of Nashville. Let me pick one person in particular. Floyd recently posted a song he wrote and recorded several years ago. His demo version of the song was really good, as is all his music. Then he mentioned that the song had been covered by a singer from Nashville on one of her projects and he kindly linked to the cover. It was recorded in a Nashville studio by folks who make a living just recording, mixing, and mastering music. There was an obvious difference between the two. In a nut shell, the Nashville recorded version was, shall we say, shinier, and clean, and full, and just sounded like a top drawer professional mix. I'm sure he would agree, and again, no slight is intended, but the average person listening would have easily picked the one that was professionally recorded.

So in summing up my point.... yes, you can do top quality, radio ready music in your bedroom or basement studio with a small amount of quality gear and by taking the time to learn what to do and how to apply it properly. And for our home demo songs and musical meanderings, and even film and TV submissions, that's perfectly fine. But, there will always be a place for the professional studios....at least for the foreseeable future.

Yep it's not impossible to do it from a bedroom studio. Look up Pompalmoose on youtube. They are very similar. They landed a national car TV commercial many years ago with essentially a bedroom production.

Inertia from six decades of recording is hard to overcome and I still like to go with what I know works. In your own home studio, you are the talent, the producer, and the engineer. Possibly also the composer and/or arranger. Definitely the janitor and tech support.

If I’m being paid as a sideman, I do all the prep at home. But then I go into the studio, and I need to forget about all the other roles beside being the hired talent, so my full concentration is on that. They might like my prepared arranging, or have me play something quite unexpected. I can’t be worried about anything but playing.

Leaving aside the obvious question of space, that is if you need to record several live instruments
at the same time you're going to need a professional facility, then any half decent computer and DAW
software will record to the same quality as any studio anywhere. As long as you can hear it, of course.
I'm always surprised at how many people pay out a load of money on a PC and software and then listen to
the playback on a pair of $25 computer speakers.

So, it all comes down to skill. You might be the best musician and songwriter ever, but unless you have
the experience and skill of a producer and engineer, then your song will sound like a demo. Imagine what
The Beatles would have turned out without George Martin and the EMI engineers.

Do we still need professional studios? Not necessarily, but we do need production and engineering skills.
wherever we find them.

I had a friend who had written some liturgical music, and wanted to record it. I put together the backing tracks (BiaB was a big part), and we recorded the vocals and mixed it down in a studio.

She didn't go to the studio just because of the "technical" skills she got from the guy who recorded and mixed the music.

On a prior gig there, he helped her use the microphone, made her comfortable in the studio, and gave her tips that brought out a better performance.

That's why she wanted to record in a studio.

This is an interesting and often debated topic. Here's my dime. (And you KNEW that I would have a strong opinion after all these years of me, right?)

A lot of points can be addressed by asking questions.

"Real" studio:
What can really be done in a "real" studio that can't be done in a properly treated basement? Does a horn player play better in a "real" studio?

Many parts played together:
Really? It's 2020. People have busy lives. You want to let your project sit dormant until you can get many people to coordinate schedules and then pay for expensive studio time when those same people can visit your basement, or record at home, at their leisure and have as many shots at a part as they need? For free. Or beer. I can't imagine anytime in 2020 that all tracks have to be done at once, and I will not even get into isolation and baffling issues. Lay down a reference track, and go forth and overdub my child. I mean, Rog, what have we done, 2 dozen songs together to some degree? And I couldn't pick you out of a police lineup.

Paying someone who actually knows how to do it right - room that's properly set up for audio, the gear that exceeds the stuff you bought on a budget, and the person at the desk who has forgotten more than most home recording enthusiasts will ever know:
Good points Herb. But riddle me this. Does that guy care where he gets paid? His house or yours? Other than mics, everything is in box now anyway. That person who has forgotten more than we know can do what he does anywhere. And for enthusiasts, face the unwelcome fact that you ain't gonna sell records anyway.

Inertia from six decades of recording is hard to overcome:
So more of that "The horse and buggy was good enough. Why should I change to a car?" The "Why DARE try to learn something new and try it a different way" thinking? When a mind stops looking to expand and take in new knowledge or techniques it starts to die. Get me started on people who whine about being bored during quarantine. Start a garden. Learn a new instrument. Learn how to cook. Write a book. Do some home repairs. Maybe make a bookcase. With Amazon and home delivery from every store in the universe, the nice man in the truck will deliver whatever you need to your door. Sit and wallow or continue to grow. Old age is not a valid excuse to refuse to keep learning. During quarantine, I wrote 6 songs. I learned 3 new software packages. I came up with a dozen new recipes. I bought a project guitar that I am refinishing. I painted a room. I swapped out 8 old electrical outlets for new ones. We are limited only by the boundaries we create for ourselves. "But I miss my frieeeeeeends". It is 2020. You have a computer. You have high speed internet. How many times during the whining times did you reach out and send them a link to a Zoom conference? I bought a new computer, learned how to use OBS, bought the necessary hardware needed to start streaming and I will soon start a Twitch channel playing with scammers. I need more tweaks on the new PC to do it, like installing a virtual computer and learning how to work with HTML better to make my fake bank so they can connect and try to scam me. I am learning more about that every day. Only lazy and stupid people can get bored.

Any music project can be done virtually. These guys did ROUNDABOUT virtually! ROUNDABOUT!! One of the most complex prog songs ever. Now to be honest, this is a bunch from Staten Island that are among the best players I have ever heard. 2 of them play with the current Blue Oyster Cult lineup.

We really don't NEED studios anymore than we NEED mail 6 days a week, or newspapers. "The way I am used to it" is far different from NEED. News is available online as it happens. That paper is a collection of things that happened yesterday. Mail is junk mail and bills. Bill pay is available online for those who don't fear technology. And if you fear using online bill pay, once again, it is 2020. Learn. Refer back to "how to use your quarantine time" above. Mastering engineers? Yep! A different animal. We need those. Not everybody can master. But you never have to even meet your mastering engineer (though we will all meet our Master someday). You FTP files back and forth until he gets it right. I don't get why it is such a giggle-inducing sense of tee-hee glee for people here to tell us about collaborations like what happens here. Many of us are computer savvy to a large degree and sending a file to get a guitar part or a bass line is second nature to the point of being subliminal. Again, 2020!!! Time to stop with the "Cuz that's how I done always done it" mentality.

One of my friends here was involved with an album a few years back where every song had "Love" somewhere in the title. The last song was Rundgren's "Love Is The Answer." He had an idea to recruit every strong vocalist he knew to sing phrases on the outro. He ended up with 22 people playing and singing on that song. None of them ever saw each other face to face. I think he told me that song ended up being 120 tracks. He ended up winning an award for the engineering on that CD.

Do we NEED studios, as in "Would music making stop without them"? Nope! One last time. It's 2020.

This shouldn’t be personal but you have made it so.

Does “the horn player” play better in a real studio. I said I do. I do not represent anyone else’s experience. And if you think I’m not highly skilled as an audio engineer or possess excellent home equipment with current technology, that would be a mistake. Plus, the amount I accomplished in music of all kinds during the pandemic so far is prodigious. The only thing I haven’t done is play the concerts that were cancelled.

There is plenty of use for home studios and professional studios, both.

So, bottom line is that you are too stubborn to let go of "how I've always done it"? Got it!

You were an educator and have been a pro for years. I would expect you to be able to play at exactly the same high level at Carnegie Hall and a sampan on the Ganges River. If you play better in a "real" studio, it's a mental thing. It may also be something to do with extroversion. I am the ultimate introvert and pretty much despise having to be around other people. Gigs are excruciating for me, having to be on a stage with 9 other people and in front of a crowd. To the point of hyperventilation sometimes. That whole "makin' the scene" thing may be energizing for you. For me it is energy sapping. I don't know you and likely will never meet you short of my car overheating on your street and my knocking on your door asking to fill a bucket with water for the radiator. I swear if I could play shows virtually I would. I actually may ask to play offstage if our band stays together after having the while summer off due to Covid. SO much air came out of the tires because of Covid I can't see me wanting to continue. But that's my mental issue to deal with.

Also, I fail to see how I "made it personal". I threw out horn player where I could have said guitar player, bass player, vocalist.... A little touchy, are we? Note I said "A horn player".

I accept your explanation it wasn’t personal.

Cheers.

This is an excellent point. The studio is often so much more than an acoustically ideal room with great recording equipment.

For me, learning more about music and how to play it better on sax, wind synth, flute, guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and vocals is something that will occupy me for the rest of my life. I don't have the time to learn to be a great recording engineer too. What EQ should I use on that voice, what mic is best, what FX setting should I use, and so on. Add to that, keeping up with the latest gear, the expense of all the gear, and the learning curves involved.

As far as I'm concerned, it's very difficult to be both a Stan Getz and a George Martin. Some may have that talent, I don't know if I have that potential or not, because I'd rather learn how to play another new instrument.

Besides, I make a little "extra" money by recording studios hiring me to add to their client's recordings.

Insights and incites by Notes

One thing is for certain that you'll see here but not likely in other discussion forums is BIAB RealTracks and RealDrums have taken care of most of the technical issues, room ambiance, interference, noise floor, room treatments, mics, amps, cables, engineering, quality effects, plus the person doing the audio engineering that would be encountered in a commercial studio. Another point, though it appears to me it's not always taken advantage of, BIAB tracks even provides commercial grade, professional cross fades, transitions, solo intros and endings and mixing to some degree.

The material we have available from BIAB audio is post - live recordings by top grade session musicians that are of equal or greater quality of anything most here on the forum would ever receive in a live recording studio using these same musicians. We don't have to worry in any way the technicalities and quality or expertise of the recording process used to create these tracks even though they perform exactly the same as if the session players were with us in any studio, of any size and quality, anywhere...

We have a distinct advantage not available to many home recording artists.

Charlie,
+1

Thank you Charlie. Great point.

Take this with a boat load of salt...

Firstly a caveat: I have recorded my bands and others off and on over the years dating back to the 60's - mostly live but sometimes in a home "studio." I have some familiarity with studios dating to 1966 when a buddy and I leased a studio, formed a "company" (with much audacity) and recorded garage bands. Also our grammy nominated friend Randy Howard was a N'ville session luminary having recorded with the likes of Garth Brooks and many others. From him I learned a bit of the "real" studio routines, etc. But this was back then...

Janice and I had left our band and had not recorded for 10 years when we discovered BiaB in 2012

I had missed out on the digital revolution but upon buying my first Mac in 2011 I got curious about a freebie that came with it - GarageBand. That lead to BiaB and Logic Pro X. I had a TON of things to learn at a rather advanced age Fortunately via PG Music we quickly became friends (real friends) with our frequent collaborator floyd and through his infinite and continued patience I learned some digital world production chops (and a LOT about writing).

Get to your point Bud.

All meaning we've created productions in our home that have been licensed 26 times by a large world wide (143 countries) company Mood Media and several other companies. We were offered a contract by Crucial Music (accepted) and we have songs featured on Songtradr's short curated genre playlists. Braggadocio? Zero intention. Only that all of these productions use multiple RT's and RD's and were done at home by what some would consider, perhaps rightfully, rank amateurs. Would they have been better done in a "real" studio? I guess so dependent upon how we define "better." And if done in a studio I suppose they would meet whatever some folk's perception is of a "real" studio sound. I'm not naive enough to say they are comparable but they work for us and apparently for a lot of folks who pay us to use them.

I say go with whatever fits your wallet and comfort zone.

Bud

Just set up my little home studio not so long ago and love it.

If trying to lay down a few tracks I can take as much time as I like, and believe you me, it does take quite a few takes to get it right.

Would cost me a fortune if hiring a real studio, but then I am not a pro.

Its an interesting thread.

I think all of this becomes a question of money and what the end product needs to be.

If money was no question I find it a lot more fun to be in a studio in LA or Fort Worth or Nashville...you get the picture.

Having a great studio session player like someone you never heard of or someone like Brent Mason is a real experience.

Fifteen of us flew into Dallas one evening and spent all night and half the next day creating a song that meant absolutely nothing to anyone else. We drank a few beers and had a wonderful time. It is a totally different experience when all you have to do is play and let the engineer deal with all those bells and power faders...lol

I think it goes without saying I can get a more technically correct recording from Sony studio that uncle Joe's Pro Tools Heaven. The end product most likely will not be worth a dime more.

The availability of skilled session musicians in a place like Nashville or LA is unbelievable.

With the advent of high speed internet and good video programs like Zoom , Skype, and Google Duo, a lot of those same musicians can show up at your house and you don't have to put up with them walking outside to smoke dope...lol

No matter what sort of studio you are using it is a absolute requirement to have really good musicians. It matters little if they come out of BIAB or your next door neighbor. And yes I know some less than skillful musicians have become well known but there are ten zillion you will never hear of.

If you are skilled at using music software you can get high quality music at home. But...your computer will never smile at you when you play one of those really cool licks!

Cheers,

Billy

I'm a player, and spend my time improving my playing skills on saxophone, flute, guitar, bass, wind synth, keyboard synth, and drums. I'm also a singer and I spend my time improving my singing skills. I make my own backing tracks so I also spend a lot of time arranging.

I haven't the time to learn all about what those experts do on the other side of the aquarium glass. That's another lifetime learning profession, and if they do their job at the top of their game and I do my job at the top of my gain, the end result would sound better than anything I could do in a home studio.

Insights and incites by Notes

Well I need mine for my sanity. With the threat of Covid19, with the California fires nearby and an orange sky with ashes everywhere, my home studio became a welcomed escape yesterday for 9 hours.

I agree with Notes. Yep, Bob...I am running out of time to be a studio engineer...lol

The home studio is a good place to escape but real work needs to get done in a real studio.

I find it very distracting to look at a DAW, press keys on a keyboard, and play guitar.

The last California house I lived in was outside Corona, California. The day I moved in a fire came over a mountain and was stopped across the street from my new house. Air tankers were dropping that red stuff on my car!! Red sky is scary stuff.

To me there is a big spectrum of what is a real studio and a home studio. I have seem real studios that are top notch, and those that are simple and basic. I have seen home studio with the same features.

If your home studio is a rascal 8 track, or a cheap laptop and some co outer speaker run everything in through a $59 berhringer mixer. (What I used to have) you might get less than a pro studio results.

If your running a top flight PC or Mac, SSD hard drives, 32 gig of ram, in a dedicated space that does have sounds for the road outside the Ice maker, the HVAC coming on, the dog barking, etc. Basic sound treatments on walls top quality studio monitors. A pristine audio interface with a nice assortment of mikes and gear. You can get a very professional result.

As everyone mentioned above skills are important. If you invest in good equipment you can close that gap. Another thing is finding the effects that work for you. Finding the software that makes the process flow.
My 2 cents worth.

As we have had this discussion before I will add the same type of comment I have made in the past. This question can't be asked without also asking "What is your end game?" Do you need a CD out that shines like a perfect diamond so people will come to see you on your upcoming arena tour? There aren't but a few people here who are actually in that kind of situation. You don't need that level of engineering to play your favorite Hank Williams tunes down ta' the Iggles club.... If you have no distribution channels and dozens of rabid fans to buy 50,000 of your CDs, why waste all that money? I put out one CD and that was a bucket list thing for someone who was bogged down in cover bands his whole life and always thought he was the next Lennon/McCartney as a writer. Of course I am not. I am just some chump in Ohio with marginal talent and a massively inflated ego. I was happy to sell the 45-ish units I sold, and lost what to me is a a fair amount of money doing the thing. That in itself is relative, as losing a few hundred bucks on CD that really only mattered to me may not mean anything to someone with a mansion and his choice of Bentleys to drive down to where his yacht is docked. True fact is that I could have had George Martin and Geoff Emerick work on that CD and it wouldn't have been any better than it was. While the material mattered to me because they were stories of my life, real songwriters likely would have to stifle the laughter if they heard those songs.

In one of Tom Bukovac's videos he talks about doing a session and telling Bryan Sutton "I don't know. I just don't like anything I am playing." To which Sutton replied "Tom, THE SONG SUCKS!" That'd be me.

Another story involves some girl singer who recorded a CD in a friend's home studio. I did some work on it for him and happened to be at the house when she called to say she was picking up her CDs which had been delivered to the house because he wanted to hear the mastering. She came in, he popped a copy in, she listened for about 4 or 5 "A&R listens" of maybe 30 seconds on each song, shrieked "Oh my god! I SUCK!" threw the whole box of 100 CDs into a trash can and ran out crying. I don't remember if she even got out the door before we fell out of our chairs laughing. I mean she was TRULY awful. And then he told me how many takes he had her do on every song, and that those were the best of the bunch! And that started me laughing again.

So, a pro studio isn't necessarily a magic potion. You can suck for free at home or for hundreds of dollars per hour at Muscle Shoals. Inversely, you can also shine in a home studio. For free.

So yeah, for "real" bands, studios have a place. Otherwise it's a digital hole in a building into which you pour money.

Though it is a fact that some once-busy music city studios are working to keep the lights on, it would be a mistake to say the growth of home studios is to blame. The former sysytemof production/distribution has been changed. It would be fair, though, to say that that cultural tastes, including pop culture, have changed. That could go back to Picasso, when people embraced other than "produced" art, and the artist became a public figure. (Then, too, there was the photo studio.)
Today's musicians are thought of as entrepreneurs, and expected to have commitments to social causes. We can see the taste change rendered by cell phone video. Perfection is not the standard. Being there at the scene of the content is. Home studio musicians are experimenters, explorers, hobbyists, and technocrats. Just look at the growth of home based video blogs on You Tube!As some of the posts on this thread suggest, we are not lookingat a choice between the two. Those great commercial studios might start thinking of being distribution points, as well, though.
That's what the Opry did.

You can sum a lot of this up with "Then computers and the internet happened...."

I remember when bands got 1 million dollar advances to do an album. 1 million dollars. That led to them doing things like renting castles in England to record in. That studio clock runs whether you are working or playing ping pong in the rec room.

There's no better example for me personally than my working with Rog. We live 3600 miles apart, but when I send him files he has them in minutes. He works on them and sends them back usually the next day. I critique what he did, he makes changes as needed, and sends it again. Once I like the mix he pulls out that magic dust he uses to master and then I get them back one last time. We've never met, likely will never meet, but we have a fine, respectful working relationship.

A local band here in the Cleveland area (now long disbanded) went to England to have Hugh Padgham mix an album for them. And it didn't sound any better than the ones done by the local guy they usually use. We have a studio here called Suma. That was the home base for Ken Hamann, who won gold records for his work with Grand Funk. His son Paul took over when Ken passed, and every band in the area wanted to record there because he was just that good. Sadly we lost him a few years back to cancer.

Studios will always be needed but by a different demographic than in the past. A lot of "if we could only record in a real studio with a real engineer" bands will still rent studios to take their one shot at fame and fortune, but be realistic about the odds. Think about this. There are 32 teams in the NFL. That means that for the entire male workforce, there are 32 starting QB jobs. And the odds are probably better at you getting one of those jobs than being a major force in the music business.

One of the things that come to my mind that many pro studios have that most home studios don't have is a selection of microphones. It is very easy to get thirty to fifty thousand dollars invested in microphones alone. Some studios have a lot more than that tied up in microphones.

A new Neumann U87, which is a common vocal microphone, cost over $3000 dollars. Old vintage
Neumann microphones are so sought after the price is insane.

Rooms designed for sound, isolation booths, B3 organs and other instruments , engineers with years of experience are common conditions of good studios world wide.

There are limits on everything. Money is a real issue. Home studios address part of the money issue. They provide a condition that provides a way for many people to produce music who otherwise could never afford it. There is a place for both.

I can assure you that professional recording studios are not going away anytime soon.

Billy

Billy

Quality Studios make a massive investment in procuring and delivering the best possible equipment. Quality sound engineers don't just happen. Years of development and skill precedes them.

When musicians wish to take advantage of the talent set and functionality that can be provided, well, it obviously comes at a price.

Indeed, there is still a relevant and warranted place for quality studios and engineers.

Platium New York



Abbey Road London



Unbelievable technology.

Unbelievable technology is right and unbelievable money too, even if you want to setup or upgrade your home studio you need only look at a music mag to see how much you can spend.

You sure can spend some serious money by just buying music equipment.

Oh, it's quite believable. It's right there to see, thus it is believable. The quality and clarity of the channel strips in Neve consoles is beyond compare. The best part of watching Sound City is seeing Dave Grohl buy the Neve board from them He STILL will not divulge what he paid for it, but he does say that the studio paid $78k for it and they gave him a very reasonable deal on it. I still watch that movie 3-4 times a year. Great stuff.

It has come around to another predicted stage, "on demand" radio programming. Some networks are introducing smart phone and laptop apps that permit users, for little money, now, to join a club that permits them to request custom playlists from the networks' huge databases. Goes without saying that Amazon is in this hunt, too.
In the mid 90's, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft's intention was to own the copyrights of all material ever produced.

Isn’t that what Apple Music and Spotify have been about for years? For $10 a month with Apple Music I have access to millions of songs on demand. They create weekly playlists for us and I can create one in a few seconds based on genre, song or artist. And as multi genre listeners I don’t recall ever looking for a song that wasn’t available. And since we uploaded our 400+ CD collection to iTunes years ago Apple Music has those for a reference as to our tastes in addition to our more recent listening habits. We love it.

Thanks for the update. I've recently been listening to NPR, so when they announced the "program" badge, I thought it was something new.