I have written loads of songs I very much like but have not produced and recorded them on a high level. Demos can be made but they’re after all, just demos.

Listening back to old classics and wanting to create the production quality they had in those great studios. How great if you could record great songs at home.

My journey to a satisfactory home studio seems more and more unrealistic. Having a great and treated room for recording + huge amounts of money in gear. That’s just really hard to make work of you’re living with someone and not dedicating your entire life towards it imo. One should absolutely do that if the process of it is enjoyable, but not as means to a goal.

For someone who really wants to make his musical ideas into reality, should one ditch trying to make the home studio dream work** Instead, fully pursue writing, performing and creating.

If you are an artist who dives into home recording, you'll be consumed with gear and tracking concerns and mixing and mastering. And gear. The learning curve on those things will eat up your time and you'll play less and sing less.

If you have money, you could just pay a studio to record you. Then you could focus on being an artist and never mind the money because money is stupid anyway.

When I lived in Pacific Beach, California I performed at a posh coffee house. The owner talked me into booking and managing the live music seven nights a week. What an education! One of the acts always made me smile when after playing his gig he would say, "I'm an artist and I don't care about money. So where is my money**"

My advice to songwriters is to get out and play your songs for live audiences. If you can't get paying gigs then play your songs at open mics. You never know who is listening.

Also, when you record a demo you can enter your songs in contests. You can get a list of legitimate song contests from ASCAP or BMI.

My old stomping grounds.

Just find a buddy near you with the same passions. He can help at your place, you can help him at their's. That allows you to keep in an Artist's mind set while doing your stuff and an Engineer's mindset while doing their's. Sometimes not wearing two hats at the same time helps.

My time in PB proved to me that Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys weren't joking about California girls. Jeeesh

The stories I can't tell!

I started writing songs 50 years ago, and had a few recorded in studios - as demos. Then I got the recording bug and built a little rig in a friend's garage, with Teac 3340, etc. Fast forward to 2015, it bit me again, and now it was SO easy to get good sound with the new-fangled digital DAWs and such. Only somewhere in the mix, I sort of lost interest in songwriting. Now I record local singer/songwriters for free, just for fun.

If you really love recording, do that. If instead, you really love your music, save your money and have someone else buy the mics and gear and studio space. If you love both, well then sonny, kiss your money and your time goodbye!

If you have good songs and good arrangements (spend enough time in preproduction)....and you record them nicely what's stopping you**

If things are written and recorded nicely....all that's left is mixing. If you want someone else to mix it...just send it to someone for their abilities on your work.

I see recording and production much like learning to play an instrument. If you love to do it, then having your own space to learn and grow in is a big advantage. And of course, how much time in a day do you have to devote to not only recording, but writing and practicing** I had many sessions in L.A. where people would come in with a low budget and want to do 10 songs. It never went well. Even in a studio with a low hourly rate, you're on the clock and my experience was when that happened, people tended to let things slide. Performances that could have been better were "good enough". Mixing was a hurried affair. With today's tools you don't always have to start out spending a ton of money to get a small rig going, where you can learn the craft and take your time getting things the way you like them. If you find you really love it, and want some high end stuff, it can be a money pit. But for me it's a labor of love. Heaven on earth. I'm not waiting to die to go to heaven. And if there is a heaven, I'd want them to put me right back in the middle of my gear, with a better console, a higher ceiling and a few more guitars.

Indeed. I never understood why an ambitious singer-songwriter would spend more than a few hours learning "how to mix" when the label that might sign you is looking at your voice and your songs. Not at your mixing. If you did get signed, the first thing they are going to do is hire a pro mixer to mix your tracks. Assuming they don't make you track it all over again at their studio with their mics.

While you are watching youtubes on how to employ parallel compression, your competition may be taking voice lessons, shedding his instrument and sharpening his lyrics.

Check the liner notes of the classics you are thinking of, and I bet you will see that the engineer was a different person from the guitarist. And the guitarist was a different person from the drummer, for that matter. Specialists. Masters of One.

If I was a singer and songwriter, that's surely what I would do. Splitting one's time between many different endeavors means slower progress in each one. And if your time is already split with a day job, a family etc etc. you are taking a slice of a slice.

If you think about it, most things can be hired out.
You can mix yourself and track yourself - but it is possible to go to a studio. You could teach yourself Adobe Express to make your own album cover - but it is possible to hire a graphic designer. When the band is working through dinner, you could make your own pizza dough - but it is possible to call DoorDash.

The things that absolutely cannot be hired out would be your singing, your playing, and your writing.

Lots of great advice here.
Always loved home recording and maybe especially as a songwriter/singer i find it's great to have a super simple (hi quality if possible at all) set up where you can press record within a minute when the mood strikes - and magic moments might happen that can't be repeated going to a studio later.

Like, a Beyer M88 mic and a 2 channel interface, set and forget, and very importantly, undaunting.... relaaax
and just practice one mic recording with vox and instrument and get a feel for what sounds appealing when listening back.

What i like about this concept is that one is forced to focus on the strength of the song and how one transmits it, naked as it were and that IME is still the best check whether a song (and me) are happening and not just showing up.
Plus your biggest chance at making a high quality recording at home (that you could embellish with symphony orchestra at Abbey Rds later) are again the basic vocal/instrument, while trying to sound like a rock band/big production with fake drums etc. is and sounds no fun and eats up all your attention never mind time. Fun and play.

Meanwhile.... request the cosmos to send someone like Rob to the neighborhood!

If you record yourself at home, even in a rudimentary way, it will make you better at all the musical things you do. Writing, singing, playing. After a while you’ll get better at recording, too.

That's great news.

How much longer do I have to wait**

Maybe you were great from the start, so it doesn’t apply.

It's worth it for some, and not worth it for others.

Pretty much like everything else on Earth.

This,

. . .and this,

. . .and this.

True, I know several self-recording musicians in their 40's and 50's who are starting to get pretty decent at it.

Recording myself has become an integral part of my own practice. And yes, it makes me a better player.

After a while, you’ll learn to streamline the process. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you record. Work out a setup, then stick with it, so you can concentrate on playing.

Bear in mind that, nowadays, even prosumer gear can give excellent results. You need not spend a king’s ransom.

As a not-recently retired person, I have progressed (or something) to a point in my life where I am happy to provide for free my recording and mixing skills to local artists that interest me as writers and/or performers. I live in an area where there are no professional studios that I would be taking work from. There also aren’t a lot of artists worth recording, so I’m not overworking myself.
The artists can learn about the artists’ end of recording, get some useable demos, and not spend “money for nothing” on possibly garbage recordings. And I don’t have to sit around for hours listening to mediocre singers singing mediocre songs.
Win-win**

I'm going to let this hang in the air. Maybe I'll read it out loud a few times and make believe just for a second it were true.

You hit the monkey on the bungus.

I notice that as I refine my tracking/mixing workflow and get a little better at it, I end up casting a brighter spotlight on what I'm playing and how I'm playing it. The more my recording skills improve, the more my playing has to.

It really is startling how recording develops your ears in ways playing live doesn't (as much). Even my drummer pal who plays twice a week gigging says that after working with me in the studio he has gotten tighter and sharpened his timing. The mics just don't lie.

Let it hang in the air, float out onto the patio and hang in the trees like birds too tired to fly.

Not so. Of course the devil's in the details (like living in an apt vs a house is a huge diff as is renting vs owning etc), but you absolutely can make a respectable home studio without spending tons of money in gear or room treatment.

If it's that stupid, please send me all your money. I hate the idea of you having to endure all of that stupid money.

Geez Bill.

Yeah a little joke in there about money, but being good at recording and being an artist are often two different things. That's what I was getting at. Is that not clear**

Sorry to piss in your soup.

* Responding to your original post, not the one quoted above.

Then pardon if I took it wrong...but it sounded like you were just being snarky and dismissive of the OP vs actually trying to be helpful.

Less and less these days.

Before you start burn your money, wich kind of recordings your trying to make, out of ordinary guitar and vocal stuff?

My experience as semipro musician and a bit better mixing engineer in recording disasters showed me that when it comes in sound and usability a recorder like zoom/tascam could be quiet okay, cause positioning of cardiod mikes in xy stereo fields could be complicated, and paralell recorded directional diminished instruments could result in phase erasure.

For this I´m landed now for room recordings with Jerry Bruckheimers KFM360 technique into a H6 recorder USB powered at one mic stand, in position between the musicians at 1,5m height, or a DECCA Tree structure for small rooms.

Cause everything what makes it more complicated is the dead of creativity.

So double MS with three mics could be interesting for your needs.

A pair of ISK CM20Q omni sdc mics and figure 8 condenser Behringer B2 or better 200bugs and more , Cad M179, WA 47Jr, Nt2a, Se2300.... would be good starting point when your using this for Double M/S recordings with a official sounding interface.

Don´t get me wrong, but a behringer UMC is quiet trimmed in certain points, a evo8 offers good preamps but has weak output, ID44 three times more expensive much better output same micpres....

So for only recording a Zoom F6 with 200mw headphone output and battery powered, especial when it comes to huming problems and house electricity would be the better invest as your buying a 500bugs interface, but in terms of music making and low latencys Motu M4/6 + a dedicated class A preamp or tube pre would be more interesting for you in terms of posibilities.

Motu M4 + Art MP/C preamp/compressor + Genalex 12ax7 tube inside are a good invest+ interchangeable large Condenser and some electret small condensers.... + Beyerdynamic M88 or four times cheaper SE V7x as secret hypercardiod weapon for everything.

After years i can say, don´t waste to much time with fancy announced plugins.
Slick EQ M and Kotelnikov GE are affordable mastering tools often in sale and working well enough without getting frustrated, Some tape compression for your track FX sometimes working wonders to glue things together.

HighEnd hardware offers 10% more sound^^

But to find and get the right sound for the final release, it depends on your speakers. At all I realized with other musicians at reasontalk forum that the right lofi sound, it´s amount of loudness is the key in mastering.

In this term a f..k JBL bluetoothbox could be the holy grail of loudness, or a pair closed pc speakers....

If your not as rich, as other forum members, entry Esi aktiv 05 speakers, ATH M40x or Sony MDR7506 headphones are working really nice in our musician combo when it comes to music making and mixing at home. For mastering i like my open DT880 more than the aggresive sounding closed DT770 headphones, but also a cheap shure SRH240 are quiet working well enough...

If your looking at my studio collection, money is one aspect, but for example firstly i realized i need better mics, but after using my semiexpensive mic collection with different impendances and other opamps than NJM4580 in my Fireface, sun begins to shine, and I invested another 1k for a second new hybrid micpre and used multipattern mic and a second transformer preamp, two extra u87 clones for Decca Tree recordings in smaller rooms where mics are placed upon heads over musicians.

So normal priced stuff can work fine, and that´s the main thing, when the sound just fits, mixing plugins are not needed so much, or more or less not at all best!

After tried out different mid priced mics, a Roswell K47 was not my choice, of its really open sound and room amount!

If your reading comparable discussions in GS at all, at this point of a relative high quality sound it is much more a question of composition, instrument skills, trained voice and a mic that fits your voice range and vibrato.

The last polish and wideness a question of, would i spend this money

At this point be warned I´m personaly over saturated with equipment and maybe a second comp54 could be a thing for my mastering needs to get the billboard sound for heavy graasroots-electronic stuff, but for singer songwriter needs you don´t need such outboard stuff. like others said, when it comes to the point your are signed a musiccontract, all your sound footage will be mastered by a mixing engineer.



some interesting links about recording techniques
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/st...ic-techniques/
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniq...ides-recording
https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/su...nded200203.htm

You have not articulated what it is you want to do. What is your end game? Do you want to become a professional song writer or is this simply for your own pleasure? What genre of music do your songs fall into?

Putting a home studio together does not have to cost a ton. A few thousand will get you enough to make great sounding recordings provided you acquire the skills to do so. You would need a Computer and a DAW, an interface, 1 good microphone and a pair of monitors. That's about 3 grand off the top of my head. If you are poor and living on a budget, then yes, that is a lot of money. But if you're making a decent living, it is doable. As to treating your space, you can turn that into a fun do it yourself project and that won't cost an arm and a leg to do.

It is up to you to determine what it is you want to do. You may, or may not enjoy learning to record and mix. If that does not appeal to you presently, then trust your gut and as many have suggested, let someone else do the engineering. If it interests you, then give it a try.

You really have not provided enough information for us to offer more streamlined advice because we're mostly speculating as to what your intentions are and providing input based on our experiences.