The cost of creating a home recording studio has dropped significantly in the last 10 years. Coupled with the low cost and ease of distribution via the internet, the amount of self-released music by independent musician has increased dramatically. You needn’t look any further than a company like CD Baby, one of the leaders in distribution for independent artists to realize that, while the major label and traditional brick-and-mortar retail sectors of the industry are suffering, companies are growing on the backs of independent musicians.
This is both good and bad. On one hand, more interesting and niche-oriented music is being released. Music that makes up a tiny part of the market, simply because it has a very specific and rather small audience, can still be created and widely distributed. On the other hand, there is a lot more low quality and, let’s face it, bad music flooding the market.
Traditionally, the prohibitive cost of recording gave record labels the exclusive ability to choose what music was recorded and released commercially, weeding out amateurs. This wasn’t always a bad thing. In the mid to late 20th Century a lot of great music was recorded, and a handful of labels focused on the forefront, or perhaps fringe, of artistic innovation. Yet as the labels grew and transformed into corporate behemoths, the focus naturally shifted to recording the music that would sell best to secure the bottomline. Even so, innovative, avant-garde and counter-culture music, all decidedly having less commercial appeal, still finds it’s place in the industry; recently it’s just been shifting back into the independent sector. Now, with the lower cost of recording, individual artists can do whatever they please and make their music available across the world, commercially or otherwise.
There are a couple points of debate when it comes to home recording vs. a professional studio recording. I’d like to address these first, because they are issues I’ve weighed heavily before recording any of my albums. For the record, I’ve recorded in several scenarios. My first album was done in a “live” setting at a music venue with a great sound system, where the band set up on stage, a live mix was set, and we recorded straight to DAT. I’ve also recorded my jazz trio in a studio, vintage boards, mics, the whole deal, and we played live but with complete separation between guitar, drums, and organ. Finally, I’ve recorded five albums at home or in a friend’s apartment using a laptop, audio interface, and one microphone, tracking each part separately. In each case, I hold myself to very high standards. I want to be proud of the final result, and I don’t want people to know what was recorded in what setting. Ultimately, the average listener should have no reason to be concerned about the production of the album because it just sounds right.
1) Concerned about sound quality?
One of the first issues people have about home recording is that it just won’t sound very good, or that it will sound amateur at best. But others will argue that today’s home studio has far more technology than the studios that gave birth to legendary albums 30, 40, or 50 years ago. Achieving excellent sound quality is really no longer a problem. Furthermore, even without superb audio fidelity, many recordings have become and remain iconic. Robert Johnson or Son House were recorded with one mic, straight to the lacquor or cylinder that was used to press records. Much of the early music in American history, the blues, ragtime, jazz, was all recorded with a live mix created by careful mic placement. In a situation where a home recording trumped the studio album, Bruce Springsteen recorded Nebraska (released 1982) on a four track in his friend’s kitchen, initially as a demo. After he recorded the songs with the E Street Band, those involved felt the demo was the version that should be released, due to the original, raw sound. In fact, there have been many lo-fi albums over the years that achieved critical acclaim despite their sub-standard or unusual recording quality. This includes debut albums or those early in an artists career.
On the contrary, slick recording technology found on any modestly priced recording software often ends up ruining a recording. Seth Godin really summed this up for me with a blog post called “The dead zone of slick.” As listeners, we connect to something real, something organic, and in many cases it’s as simple as the live sound of our favorite band. But all too often, musicians start tweaking the life out of their music using studio gadgets. If a slick sound is what you need, then you ought to do it properly. I recommend you honestly assess your music before deciding to shoot for slick. If it turns out you only want that production style for smoke and mirrors–to disguise the lack of depth to your material–then perhaps you should address the more serious issue of your music first.
Ultimately, it’s all about using your ears. Compare the sound with your favorite recordings, or at least recordings that sonically match what you’re trying to do. Embrace your limitations so you make them work for you, and don’t settle for something you’ll regret later.
2) What about a producer and engineer?
Among other things, the producer’s job is to help focus the artistic direction of an album during the recording process. In many ways, this takes the artists’ minds off everything except the music. Sometimes this means preventing too many layers of “slick” being applied, sometimes it means recognizing when something isn’t working and a new recording technique should be applied. Most importantly, it’s up to the producer to make sure a good, consistent sound is captured on the recording.
A good engineer knows all the techniques for capturing that sound. They know about the various types of microphones and where to place them on an instrument or amplifier. They understand acoustics. They are often the problem solvers when something doesn’t sound right. The engineer has to know his way around the studio’s equipment in order to capture the sound the producer and band are trying to achieve.
If you’re going to be recording yourself at home, then you’ll be inadvertently producing and engineering as well. The first step is to understand the equipment you’re using to record. Do you know how to get the best sounds with your microphones? Do you know how to operate the rest of your hardware? Do you know the primary functions of your recording software? Without any experts around to help, you’ll need to teach yourself to step away from the recording, evaluate the music, make some honest and conscious decisions about the direction things are going, and know how to make adjustments.
Again, I think you must trust your ears. You may not do everything “right,” but nobody knows or cares how you got your sound when they hear the final product. All that matters is whether the sound of your recording properly reflects the music you made. That’s what your fans will expect. As long as you capture you then it doesn’t really matter how you did it, right?
The Basics
As I said earlier, at the core of my home recording rig is a MacBook, an audio interface, one microphone, and some recording software. When it comes to buying these things, remember that in most cases you get what you pay for. I was using a fairly inexpensive interface that came with the recording software, and after putting up with it’s overheating problems over the course of four albums it finally gave up. I feel like I got my money’s worth, but could have saved some dough had I bought something better to begin with. Just read a lot of user reviews before you purchase, unlike yours truly. My microphone is a $99 cardoid condenser which I’ve been extremely happy with for vocals, acoustic instruments, electric guitars, harmonicas, and various percussion instruments.
I don’t want to make this a discussion about gear, but my point is that it’s possible to work with what you have and not spend thousands of dollars getting set up. The computer is really the most important piece of the puzzle, and as long as you’re not working on a machine from last century, chances are it’ll work with at least the most basic recording program. A lot of people make excuses that they can’t do this or that because something isn’t right. When I started recording, I had no idea if the microphone was the “correct” one for what I was doing, but I moved it around in front of my guitar, found a few spots that gave me different but all very good sounds, and went with it.
Whenever I’m recording a new or unfamiliar instrument, I use this simple aproach: Get the sound you want in the room, and put the mic right next to your head. Then go to the headphones and make some adjustments to the mic level and placement until the sound is faithfully reproduced. Press record. Make music.
There are two other elements that make for better home recordings. First, a quiet place to record is invaluable. Microphones will pick up every sound. Something you’re used to hearing throughout the day, like the quiet hum of the air conditioning, can make for unwanted noise when you’re recording. Secondly, patience is more than a virtue here, it’s a necessity. There’s no way to make good music if you keep getting pissed off at any number of distractions, be they your gear or your cat. Stay calm, take your time, and don’t stress yourself out!
Tips for Starting Out
Trial and error have taught me much of what I know, and a few things here might help you out when you start tracking your next project. Please share any other tips in the comments section below.
- The click track. Take some time to get the tempo right, and if there are changes in tempo or time feel, learn how to create a tempo map.
- Make a scratch track. Once the tempo is set, make a rough recording of the song to help you hear the form. This gives you something to play along with when you lay down the first few takes of the real deal, so you can focus on playing musically instead of counting how many times you’ve played through the chorus.
- When in doubt, double it. Once you nail a take, do it again. This gives you the option of doubling the part if you need to fill out the sound (comes in handy at the mixing stage). Or if you hear a small mistake later on, you have a back up to patch things up with a crossfade.
- Save the best for last. Wait until the meat of the track is recorded before laying down vocals or solos. You want the performance of any lead voice to sound like the lead, and it will always turn out best if done last.
- Don’t add effects or automation before tracking is complete. Depending on the speed of your computer, this can cause problems as you continue tracking. Memory that is needed to record is instead being used to read automation or add to the tracks playing back. On playback, you’ll hear some unwanted noises on whatever you just recorded.
- Sleep on it. Before you give it your stamp of approval, distance yourself from the recording. I always listen the next day to make sure I’m happy before moving on.
Mixing and Mastering
These final steps will either make or break the efforts you put into tracking. Mixing is the process of finding a balance between all the different parts, both in volume and in panning (how far to the left, right, or center each part sounds). Mastering is a matter of sweetening the whole album through tweaks on the EQ, dynamics, and master levels. Once again, you need to rely on your ears for both of these steps.
Mixing is something you can learn to hear by carefully listening to your favorite recordings. Hone in on each individual instrument and note it’s placement and balance. It’s also a matter of experimenting. There is no wrong way to do it, but there are definitely some choices that might sound better than others.
The biggest problem I hear in people’s mixes (and I know that I’ve been guilty of this as well), is to make their own part too loud in the mix. This happens naturally because the mix you’re used to hearing in your head will always have your part loudest. It’s what you focus on when you play the song, and by proximity you’re probably hearing it louder than the rest of the band, and especially the audience. Just be aware of this and it’s easy to avoid.
Also, realize the sonic similarities between certain instruments and try to pan them away from each other. Guitars with a similar tone or range with other stringed instruments are going to rub against each other in the mix. That might be what you’re going for, but if it sounds too muddy, distancing the two voices on either side could fix the problem.
Mastering is the last process applied to the final mixes. When it comes to mastering, it pays to find somebody that knows what they’re doing. This is a very nuanced process.
In many ways, I was lucky enough to have a job at a record label that required me to listen very closely to the mixes and masters of nearly everything we released. My job was to note any ticks or irregularities in the sound quality, and it really honed my ears to some subtle differences in sound. Many times I’d discuss the issues with engineers at the mastering studio and they’d tell me what they would do to try to fix the problem. This gave me an idea of what to listen for in my own albums, and how to fix the problems. This is a skill that can be learned, but it takes practice.
Depending on the scope of your project and your ability to hear these nuances, you may want to consider budgeting to have your album professionally mastered. There are a number of services out there with a wide range of prices. Do some research early on in the recording process if not before you start. It will save you some scrambling for time and money after everything is recorded a mixed.
Today, there are a lot of shortcuts to mastering via digital compressors and limiters. I have always been weary of any standard preset in a machine because it doesn’t require any thinking. It’s also worth noting that albums today are mastered at significantly louder levels than 15 or 30 years ago. Call me a purist, but if the dynamic range has been sacrificed so a track can “compete” in the “marketplace” then our priorities are out of line. Proper mastering should take the material into consideration. Make sure your master enhances the music you’ve created, not take away from the artistry.
Knowing When It’s Done
There are two pitfalls at the end of a recording project:
- Find yourself rushing to finish because you’re out of time or money, and ending up with something you’ll hate a year later.
- Getting stuck in a perpetual cycle of tweaking the tiniest detail of every song until you’ve taken the joy out of the music for yourself.
In both cases, it’s hard to live with the music down the road. If this is something you’re going to sell or even just a demo used for booking your band, you need to stand confidently behind your work. Allow yourself plenty of time not only get everything done right, but also to give yourself some space to step away, listen to other music, listen to no music, play some music, and then come back to the recording. That will help you keep things in perspective.
With enough space, you’ll know when it’s done.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, the information here will encourage you to try some home recording. As I’ve written in many other articles (see here, here, here, and there), the low overhead of a home recording is a great way to create some revenue. It’s simply a matter of taking the time to first focus on the music, know what you want to create, and then setting out to do it. Excuses be damned, if I can do it, you can do it. Once the album is done you can start worrying about selling it or promoting it. Just focus on the music first.
The albums I make at home, which only cost me my time and $55 to start selling and distributing it through CD Baby, have created the kind of income necessary to afford a proper studio recording with my trio, which I mentioned earlier. For those recordings, I need to use a Hammond B3 organ with a Leslie speaker cabinet, a full drum set, and a big, fat tube amp sound on my guitar. Not only do I not have the equipment to do that at home, I don’t want to get kicked out of my apartment! So instead, I work within the limitations of my home and gear, make and record appropriate styles of music for that setting, and save the rest for an actual studio. While I’m sure many of you have bands or projects that might not be suitable for home recording, I also believe there is always something you can do at home, either a variation of your full band or another type of music altogether.
Don’t let appearances fool you. Home recording is not an amateur activity. It’s something amateurs might do, but in the hands of smart, creative, independent artists, it poses a serious threat to the status quo. So go arm yourself with some basic recording gear and join the independent music revolution!
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