Does Pro Recording Gear Belong In Your Bedroom?

Sorry, I've had to get off tangent for a reason. Should you have $20k in outboard preamps in a tiny little home studio? Is that what is going to make you successful? Well it can, depending on your goals for your music career and studio.

If you goals is to crank out mega quality productions, the room is required and the right gear is required (not necessarily expensive, but probably). However, a great room and great gear only give you the possibility of great recordings. There is a lot more to music than audio engineering. In fact, audio engineering is about 2% of the equation. (Feel free to argue with my on my audio recording forum.) Think about that word again...MUSIC. If you keep yourself grounded in this way, you will be more successful and probably happier too.

Will Better Gear Make Your Music Better?

That's the fundamental question here... or at least it should be. There is no doubt that there have been occasions where the right microphone did make a song come alive. For whatever reason, the sound of his voice translated into more emotion and a higher quality of music. So I would say that having the right tool for the job will almost always come out being better.

Has My Soundelux U99 Improved My Music?

That's a great question. I'd say, ?Sure, a little!?. I haven't found a case where the U99 transformed a crappy song into a great song. I've had cases where the sound of an acoustic guitar recorded with the U99 put that guitar in a better position to tell the story of the song or whatever. If your budget is unlimited by all means, go out and buy a $50k locker of microphones so that you'll know that you always have the right microphone for the job.

What If My Budget Isn't Unlimited?

If your are operating on limited funds, you need to find the most efficient way of improving your music (or the music you are recording). Your dollars has to go as far as possible. I can tell you right now that if you have $20k and you buy the best sounding reverb in the world, you'll probably have about $8 left. That isn't going to get you where you want to be (although you will have nice reverb).

For me, without a doubt, the best way to make music great is with time. In other words, taking the time to find the right song for the album is a huge deal. If the song isn't there, fix it or right another one. Finding a singer that can truly express emotion is everything. Getting the drummer to smash that snare harder than he thought possible will make a huge difference. Finding a bass player that will hit every downbeat with precision is everything. Finding a guitar player that plays in time and can come with with parts to the song that add to music is everything.

What will a faster preamp do? It'll add a little top end crack to the snare. I don't know about you, but when I started talking about singer singing and the drummer smashing his snare, I got excited. I imagined making great music. When I thought of some $3000 preamp that has a faster slew rate and more top end on the snare, I felt bored in comparison.

Conclusion

For the home recording enthusiast, recording gear is just a bunch of tools. You need two mics just like you need to 2 different hammers. (ball peen / claw ). However, a hammer is a means to a end. You are using a hammer to build a house or something. What are you making with tools? If you don't like the songs you generally record, you may want to take $2500 that you were going to use to buy a fancy mic and instead put that into feeding yourself while you work with a band to make better music.

I can't guarantee that you'll have magic crack in your snare drum, but I guarantee you that nothing will make a bigger impact on the quality of music coming out of your studio than you taking all the time that is needed with a band that has great songs, great musicians, and great gear (the first 3 factors if you remember). In other words, the best engineering tool on the planet is a producer.

Conclusion 2

If you didn't want to hear the ?work on the music? speech, I'll give you the other ending. If you listened to my recordings before buying the Soundelux U99 and after, you would not hear a dramatic difference in quality. In fact, if you listened to every song I had ever recorded, you may not even notice a bump in the quality with the U99. Of course, this could be offset greatly by the bands I'm doing. I still get compliments on recordings I did 2 or 3 years ago because people like the songs. Then again, I sometimes no one notices my recent work which may sound (from a purely engineering perspective) much much better.

One other thing to consider. The microphone did not make a significant improvement in the overall sonic ability of my studio. However, spending the same amount of cash down at Micheal Wagener's for a week make an infinite improvement in the studio's quality. Of course, that's where I sort of learned that I should be focusing on music...not necessarily engineering.