How come we never talk about home recording? (1 Viewer)

[RED(tape)MENACE]

Well, assholes? Haha.
C'mon.
Ask.
Discuss.
Abuse.

 

[egg_]

My latest thoughts on home recording can be summed up thus:

Don't bother trying to sound like a studio. You'll only break your heart

 

[RED(tape)MENACE]

Well, you should always be *Trying* to sound like/as good as a studio. Just realise that'll you'll probably never get there.

 

[dudley]

then you put the real studios and engineers out of work!

i think a happy medium between the two is the way forward....

 

[Scientician 0.8]

My latest effort at home recording can be heard here
http://www.myspace.com/bigmonsterlove
the first track.
My mate recorded it for me in his gaff on a recently purchased
24-track, the brand of which currently escapes me. There's
3 vocal tracks, guitar, bass, accordion, melodica and a shakey
percussiony thingy.
I think it sounds home recorded but I like the sound of it. My main
experience with a "real" studio was bad, the results being worse
sounding than your home dictaphone recording. I also find the
atmosphere in studios can sometimes be stifling. When sitting in my
mate's gaff we can have a laugh more it seems. Anyway enjoy...

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Well, you should always be *Trying* to sound like/as good as a studio. Just realise that'll you'll probably never get there.

i dont see whats wrong with it sounding like it was recorded at home if it was recorded at home. i also dont really get the idea of bands trying to capture their live sound on tape/disc/whatever because at the end of the day its a recording people are going to listen to not a gig that theyre going to go to.

heres a picture of the drum set up for one of the tracks on Agitated Radio Pilots new double 3inch cdr on rusted rail. they were recorded in my bedroom through a pair of walkman speakers (someone had a loan of my only mic lead).

heres me playing a similar set up in 1994

 

[the departed]

this stuff is home recordings,,,
www.myspace.com/thetrurosyndicate

its a bit rough but so is our playing..

 

[Pantone247]

home recordings deadly

I don't want my stuff to sound all studio slick and shit, I like it fuzzy and raggedy and sometimes silly and sometimes have mistakes and sometimes have the telly noise in the background.... cause that's where my songs come from I guess... there are things about my recordings I like (crunchy acoustic guitars from a shade of digital clipping leaps to mind) that just wouldn't come out of a "pro" "studio" ...also the ammount of fucking about I can do with stuff over weeks and months to get something the way I want it is deadly

I've never come away happy from a studio thing, the expense, time constraints and engineers who just plain don't get what you're trying to do, and won't even try is far too fustrating... I'm happy my stuff is home recorded and have no desire for my songs to sound any other way

 

[Pantone247]

this stuff is home recordings,,,
www.myspace.com/thetrurosyndicate

its a bit rough but so is our playing..

the leccy guitar in the right speaker of the first song is rapid

 

[the departed]

i really love the papa m track where he's watchin the simpsons in the background. its called krusty cos its a krusy episode. lovely touch. then it has him laughing at a joke.
not sure i like "clipping" though pantone. a bitta overdriven stuff or distorting but clipp can be realllllllly annoying.

 

[Pantone247]

not sure i like "clipping" though pantone. a bitta overdriven stuff or distorting but clipp can be realllllllly annoying.

not the way I do it

I'm not talking about huge spikes, proably more overdriving the 'sound in' on my computer, you end up shaving the tops n' bottoms off some of the higher tranisents, I don't know how to describe it, but in the right place, I likes it!

 

[Rogue]

Good topic, here's our stuff - http://myspace.com/phantomdog - recorded in bedrooms up and down the country.

We were lucky in having the lone of a cracking good mic which made even our dodgy mic positioning sound ok. Would love to take time someday to figure out how to make it sound a bit better, not slick just not so lumpy.

 

[treesurgeon]

So wait...a home recording is only that done at home? A friend lets me use her fully-equipped rehearsal room whenever I want, and she has an eight track cassette recorder...but at the end of the day, I do have to get up off the chair, walk around the drum kit and clamber over several thick webs of cable in order to press the stop button/check the sound levels.

So how about a new definition? 'Home Recording' is when you are inconvenienced but in a lovely way.

Examples can be found at the address below.

 

[Rogue]

I suppose 'home recording' is as good a name as any for 'not-recorded-in-a-professional
-studio-type-recording'

 

[classic seanc]

I've been to a cupla lectures/talks/whatever you wanna call em, that were given by big music industry types, and they all said, all of them, that it doesn't really matter if the songs sound "home recorded", or whatever, as long as the tooones are there.

I guess there ain't no point forkin out for a session in grouse lodge if you're able to get across the essence of what you're about through a cupla mic's in your bedroom, as long as the actual song's are good.

I spose, as long as everything is in time and in tune, and all the technical stuff is correct then, it don't matter. a good tune is a good tune.

 

[kraster]

I think it's a question of performance above everything else. Home recording has bought us time to perfect the performances. In a studio you are time-limited by what you spend. So the time spent performing is limited when you take setting up/mixing into the equasion.

Good gear will help capture the nuances of the performance but a 58 will still be able to impart 90% of it. The trick is not to treat a home recording setup like a €2000 a day studio. If you work within the limitations of a given set up you'll get good results.

Anyway, most of the time spent in a flashy studio is usually spent trying to make the music sound crappier!

 

[RED(tape)MENACE]

My latest effort at home recording can be heard here
http://www.myspace.com/bigmonsterlove

This is nice stuff.

i dont see whats wrong with it sounding like it was recorded at home if it was recorded at home.

That's fine, but what I was saying in response to egg above was that you should strive to make it sound as good as possible (or rather, as good as you want it to sound).

i also dont really get the idea of bands trying to capture their live sound on tape/disc/whatever because at the end of the day its a recording people are going to listen to not a gig that theyre going to go to.

Well for me, with a lot of bands that's my starting point. I try as best I can not to throw a band in at the deep end of a fairly unfamiliar environment. I think if bands were able to play as comfortably as they would at a gig, then folks would go home happier with the results a lot more. Obviously, some bands are looking for "hyper-real", "produced" results and aren't looking for that.

Good topic, here's our stuff - http://myspace.com/phantomdog - recorded in bedrooms up and down the country.

This is cool too. Kinda creepy (in a good way!). What was the nice mic?

Examples can be found at the address below.

This is fun stuff. I'd love to mess with the multitracks of this.


I actually had a big discussion about studios/engineers/shitty results/the whole damn industry over pints with Mumblin Def Ro last night. Damned if I can remember enough to condense it down succinctly right now - it's pretty early.
Quickly, the whole reason I started recording was because of engineers who didn't/couldn't/wouldn't get what my band wanted or needed from him and the studio. It's really important to find a guy who can bridge the gap between control room and live room well. It's also hugely important that a band properly convey their intentions to the engineer. I have a funny story about a metal band who told me they wanted to avoid the click 'Korn' kick drum sound at all costs. However, when mix time rolled around, the only thing that made them happy was the clicky-est kick drum sound I could get. Go figure.

 

[RED(tape)MENACE]

then you put the real studios and engineers out of work!

i think a happy medium between the two is the way forward....

What I've been enjoying doing recently is tracking most stuff in a 'proper' studio in town, and mixing + some overdubs at home.
I'm pretty happy with that medium.

 

[kings lead hat]

I dont really want to get into a hoo-haa but anyway
I record distorted and clipped all the time is that home?

maximo parks(not that there my fav band) recorded the 7"they got signed on at home with 3 mics and took their time and it sounds AMAZING on a dig 8 trak

big deal if sounds good it is, duh

big up the donnas 21



*exeunt*

 

[Rogue]

This is cool too. Kinda creepy (in a good way!). What was the nice mic?

Cheers, we're gonna start on new stuff soon and try to remember all the ways we fucked up in this one.

The nice mic was a Rode-NT1 I think, cheers to Gav. Although one of my favourite tracks we did live and semi-improvised in a bedroom with just an overhead mic from the el cheapo t-bone drum mic set; we got lucky with a cracking performance and a fortuitiously placed mic.