How to balance the incredible possibilities of studio quality home recordings with the unlimited power and sonic perfection of a large format studio is a question I face everyday. Having designed and built over two dozen studios of varying sizes, it has been noted what limitations exist in each environment without the personal bias towards one or the other.
For most it is the defense of ones way of recording (which is based largely on budget) that draws the line in the sand that many fight over. But is the line a figment of our imagination and ego? I say yes! If we look at the needs of our project from the standpoint of boundless finance and view each recording space a point or location holding task specific tools and environments, each unique in and of itself. How would be use these resources to complete, what for us as an individual artist, would be the perfect piece of work? How many different environments would we choose to use? And how much time would we allow ourselves to complete each phase of work? I know that most of us would create a mixed use game plan. Drums, bass and guitar in a large stone room through a Neve console at one of the worlds foremost tracking studios. Keys may take a couple weeks at a professionally equipped midsized studio with API pre's in the woods with a view of the forest. Vocals at a home studio with Grace converters, a C12 (for female vox) or a U47 (for male vox) and the relaxed atmosphere of being at home. Then more guitar overdubs at a friends house using a mobile rig that included a collection of vintage guitars and amps that you could not get at any studio of any size (but never leave his private space, so you had to go to him). It may be the case that the best Steinway is located at a large home on a lake just on the outskirts of town and so you use the mobile SSL truck and head on your way. You may return to another large format studio to take use of their all cedar tracking room to capture acoustic guitars through tube pre's and compressors. The soft synth samples and loops my be embedded into the songs at the private space of one the best cats in the world at native sounds, analog Samples and special effects. You may then spend a couple months editing and pre-mixing your work at your home studio with Genelec near fields to end up at a world class mixing studio in South Beach Florida.
Most would say, "that sounds like the perfect way of going about it." Well, that's the way more and more people ARE going about it. In our case, we work with studios around the nation as a part of our "network" and can scale the level of quality up or down depending on our financial limitations. We experience artist who come to the three spaces we own for different needs that their home space can't cover. Then we support them in working the rest out at home with tips for editing, tracking and mixing in the box. Many return to mix a project that was mostly done at home.
The death nail for the large studio has not been the rate they charge the indi artist, but their failure to work with them to provide them the services they need. Big studio ego says, "it can only be done right in our world class studio." Artists egos says,"I have all I need at home and with enough time, I can equal the big boys." This ignores the obvious middle ground that benefits both parties. Indi artist and labels fail to use large studios for their supplemental needs. This requires booking time with a clear focus on what is needed from the space and articulating that need to the studio management and engineer. Larger studios fail to respect the quality and benefits of home studios and insist that they are incapable of delivering industry standard recordings. Both insisting that they don't need each other.
But the truth is that we do need each other and there is a new generation of artist who get that. So, much of what is needed to bridge that gap is protocol. A way of judging the needs against budget against time. You may wonder how creative people just like yourself have done this? Show me the working model that gets me results.
Well let's look into this!
For most it is the defense of ones way of recording (which is based largely on budget) that draws the line in the sand that many fight over. But is the line a figment of our imagination and ego? I say yes! If we look at the needs of our project from the standpoint of boundless finance and view each recording space a point or location holding task specific tools and environments, each unique in and of itself. How would be use these resources to complete, what for us as an individual artist, would be the perfect piece of work? How many different environments would we choose to use? And how much time would we allow ourselves to complete each phase of work? I know that most of us would create a mixed use game plan. Drums, bass and guitar in a large stone room through a Neve console at one of the worlds foremost tracking studios. Keys may take a couple weeks at a professionally equipped midsized studio with API pre's in the woods with a view of the forest. Vocals at a home studio with Grace converters, a C12 (for female vox) or a U47 (for male vox) and the relaxed atmosphere of being at home. Then more guitar overdubs at a friends house using a mobile rig that included a collection of vintage guitars and amps that you could not get at any studio of any size (but never leave his private space, so you had to go to him). It may be the case that the best Steinway is located at a large home on a lake just on the outskirts of town and so you use the mobile SSL truck and head on your way. You may return to another large format studio to take use of their all cedar tracking room to capture acoustic guitars through tube pre's and compressors. The soft synth samples and loops my be embedded into the songs at the private space of one the best cats in the world at native sounds, analog Samples and special effects. You may then spend a couple months editing and pre-mixing your work at your home studio with Genelec near fields to end up at a world class mixing studio in South Beach Florida.
Most would say, "that sounds like the perfect way of going about it." Well, that's the way more and more people ARE going about it. In our case, we work with studios around the nation as a part of our "network" and can scale the level of quality up or down depending on our financial limitations. We experience artist who come to the three spaces we own for different needs that their home space can't cover. Then we support them in working the rest out at home with tips for editing, tracking and mixing in the box. Many return to mix a project that was mostly done at home.
The death nail for the large studio has not been the rate they charge the indi artist, but their failure to work with them to provide them the services they need. Big studio ego says, "it can only be done right in our world class studio." Artists egos says,"I have all I need at home and with enough time, I can equal the big boys." This ignores the obvious middle ground that benefits both parties. Indi artist and labels fail to use large studios for their supplemental needs. This requires booking time with a clear focus on what is needed from the space and articulating that need to the studio management and engineer. Larger studios fail to respect the quality and benefits of home studios and insist that they are incapable of delivering industry standard recordings. Both insisting that they don't need each other.
But the truth is that we do need each other and there is a new generation of artist who get that. So, much of what is needed to bridge that gap is protocol. A way of judging the needs against budget against time. You may wonder how creative people just like yourself have done this? Show me the working model that gets me results.
Well let's look into this!
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