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Hi there !

Ever more people produce their music nowadays at home on the PC. Not only electronic musicians, but also rock bands, orchestra (amateur live recording) and similar.. No time pressure and no hourly costs as the advantages during making music. Somehow it comes only sometimes that people ask me to do whole recordings. ever more they just ask me to do the mixing with their home recorded material or doing mastering. For those few nowadays who spent several hundred dollars per day for renting a studio there are already enough options. But what about the large amount of hobby musicians who play at evenings in the clubs and just want to sell a few 100 CDs ? As your opinion in the today's time and in future how does a rental recording facility have to look like also in economic points so it would still be a good alternative to standart home recording. No more large recording rooms because of the high costs ? Only a well equipped control room with a small recording room (maybe around 200 square feet) for some acoustic recording ?

Had read a magazine thread here about this and simply would like to know your personal opinion.

Kind regards, Heiko

Comments

maintiger Mon, 05/01/2006 - 08:08

If you have a decent home studio and also a BUDGET for your production, it makes sense to go to a pro studio, at least to mix, and of course to have the final product mastered at a good mastering house. To recoup these cost you will need to sell several thousand CD's, which many indies can do.

For the weekend giging musician who wants to sell a few hundred CD's at gigs- and has a DECENT home studio- it makes sense to keep the production at home. Now mind you, if you can sell more than 100 CD's you should consider mastering- it will make your tracks way better.

But of course this is only if you have a DECENT home studio. If your studio and your chops suck then you will get lousy results no matter what you do.

Bottom line, we are living in wonderful day for recoring mucisians. You can get great stuff for a fraction of the cost it used to be. You have to put in your time and develop your chops- vocal chops, songwriting chops, musicians chops, producer chops, recording chops.... the list goes on and on. If and when you do though, you can get decent results with your home studio. :D

anonymous Wed, 05/17/2006 - 02:01

If you can afford it then yes, it makes sense to invest time & money in renting a studio & engineer.

If you have a decent home studio, renting pro studio time is still a good idea if you want to record stuff that is not easy/impossible at home (not everyone can record drums at home or has a grand piano for example).

I personally would use a studio if I had the budget ... Specifically for the large things like real drums & piano, but for everything else I do it on my G3 powerbook in my own space. There is no ticking clock or money counter going on in my head when I am tracking and I can get more done.

For vocals I just take my "studio" to my vocalist house and record hime there, take it all home again to mix....

Many people would not consider my system to be a decent one, but I am confident I get very very good results with it.

Just a G3 powerbook, Apogee mini-me, VX Pocket & Protools Free/Logic 4.8 software.

What is important is to be able to use the equipment and to know when you need somebody else to help you.

Check out the results!

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.myspace…"]The Lost Angels[/]="http://www.myspace…"]The Lost Angels[/]

Robak Tue, 08/15/2006 - 03:34

My opinion is that you need to calculate for yourself. Gear manufacturers are trying (with good results) to persuade musicans to build they own studios. I think novadays there are so many cheap studios with experienced engineers that musicans will realize it may be reasonable to use them. Here's an example I know: A band decided to record their album in a basement where they rehearse. To make a decent studio they spent nearly 10000$. After a year they had an album that didn't sound good. The band split. They sold the gear for less than half the money. If they had spent 4000$ in a cheap studio they would have better result and it wouldn't take a year (btw 4000$ it's 2 months in a decent studio with engineer and assistant here in Poland).