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Hit out of bedroom


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If anybody ever managed to mix a great hit based on home studio capacity?

Please don't give me "this should be $150k equipment to start with". For great hit all it could take is good mike, unique voice voice and decent guitar... And... the great song.

 

So, again, any inspiring story about the great hit out of bedroom?

 

Thanks

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Closest thing to it that I know of is probably Beck's "Loser" which was done on a Tascam 8 track. It was taken into a big SSL room and remixed though. I think there are a number of hits where certain tracks were overdubbed in a small home studio, but most of them were remixed or had parts re-done on a 2" or in PT.

 

Still, I'll bet there are one or two out there.

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That's a good question. I'm not sure. There have been a lot of hits from home studios, but rather NICE home studios. But I don't know about someone who has really minimal gear, like just an MBox and a computer. There have been a lot of indie bands that have recorded like that (read TapeOp, for example - Deerhoof comes to mind).

 

There has also been that guy who recorded a blues album in his car (Ben Vaughn?) and a band who recorded their entire album on Pro Tools Free (wasn't a huge hit, but it's cool that people can do that!!!).

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I guess nowadays a 97.5% -with a 2.5% of error- of songs begin at home studios, and I really mean perhaps a laptop and something like a MBox.

 

However for the final touches, everybody wants to make sure it gets the best they can afford and either go to a studio or get a better room for theirselves.

 

That includes my own band! I did all my band's music on my laptop, much of it even when I was at airports and airplanes or hotel rooms, through several countries, but recorded voices and mixed it at my own studio and had it mastered at this great studio in Santiago, Chile.

 

 

With all these good toys around, it is simply stupid to pretend you sound good when you can stop pretending and actually sound good by using the good stuff, learning how to master your own gear and getting help and advise from more experienced others.

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... and actually
sound
good by ... learning how to master your own gear and getting help and advise from more experienced others.

 

+1+1+1000 :thu:

 

The equipment available to any musician these days is incredible. The ability to get the most out of it is really the big challenge.

 

I think the other missing link is the environment. Like you say Gus, you did a lot of developing your material on a laptop in airports, and then polished the stuff in a proper facility. I do a lot of prep work on commuter trains, then get down to business when I'm in front of my real monitors. I think a lot of people overlook how important an honest listening environment is for creating the best sounding tracks and mixes.

 

And to the original question, I believe Imogen Heap does a lot of homework.

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I'd guess that there are not that many bedroom hits simply because most hits are done by artists signed to major labels. Most of the time, these people have a budget for a real record. If I was on a major, I'd ditch my home studio for a year or two too (until I got dropped).

 

So for a band to record their own music and the label say "THAT'S PERFECT!" and release it is not a typical thing. Most bands can't get it right. Hell, most pro engineers and producers can't get it right.

 

Brandon

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I don't know myself,..but I would have guessed some hip hop hits were done at a home studio? Am I mistaken?


-LIMiT

 

 

I think Tone Loc's stuff was done out of a cheap home studio. I'm sure there are others. I also heard that Ice Cube did his first release on an Akai MG1214, an odd analog 12-track that, yes, I still have...(I keep it around mostly for transfers).

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This question gets answered depending on who you ask. A lot of studio owners will not really say anyone.

 

I have recorded and mastered songs that are being used in films and documentaries. They were mixed with headphones and a hi fi speakers in a very reverby room. Maybe I have a good ear (or two) I don't know. I'm shocked myself sometimes. I think I've learnt how to compensate for my enviroment.

 

I think these days, you can get the actual recording good enough in a bedroom for most things but having it mixed and mastered is different.

 

I think some musicians have intuition that just seems to make everything come together without technical knowledge.

 

I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve with recording that I would not say. The trick is to experiment and do something you HAVEN'T read about.

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I don't know myself,..but I would have guessed some hip hop hits were done at a home studio? Am I mistaken?


-LIMiT

 

 

Yeah a lot stuff is bedroom/home studio especially outside of the commercial stuff. A lot of the beats are done at home or wherever and brought into the studio for vocals and mixing. Some people even do vocals at home, too. It really depends on the person. But, yeah there are a lot of things that are home brewed in hip hop.

 

I would imagine the gnarls record was probably at least mixed in a studio.

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Closest thing to it that I know of is probably Beck's "Loser" which was done on a Tascam 8 track. It was taken into a big SSL room and remixed though. I think there are a number of hits where certain tracks were overdubbed in a small home studio, but most of them were remixed or had parts re-done on a 2" or in PT.


Still, I'll bet there are one or two out there.

 

 

I'm supposed to be mixing some tracks for a friend on one of those very machines today actually. He recorded some local band and figured it'd be fun to have me help him mix it. I wanted to dump them all into the computer to mix them, but he's all about doing on the tascam so we'll see what happens. Could be fun, I haven't used a cassette machine for like 10 years.

 

Either way its probably going to be bad. I heard one of the tracks last night on it and tried a quick mix on little computer speakers. wow. The drums were submixed to one mono track, but the guitarist supposedly insisted he needed two rhythm tracks and two lead tracks. It should be at least interesting.

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Didn't Bruce Springsteen do an album on cassette in various hotel rooms? Seems I read something about it several years ago..

 

And it seems there is an article on some band that has hit the big time after releasing a CD they did at home with old sub par gear in just about every issue of Keyboard or EQ magazine..

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http://www.lannenjukka.com/ Check out the "Briefly in english" and "gramofoni" sections.

 

Due to language barrier this is not an international hit record, but indeed it has sold and still sells very well in Finland. The guy is an alter ego of a very well established major artist with a long and succesful career here (I guess he's sold around million records during his career this far in a country of 5 million people). And indeed it's a simple home recording: man playing banjo and singin, recorded in one cheapo ribbon mic into portable recorder, mono, no overdubs.

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street fighting man was recorded on a crappy 4 track recorder and the drums were some old jazz drum set charlie watts had in his hotel room. also the band recorded big pink in thier house but i don't know what they used.

 

 

Neil Young has lot's of home recorded stuff in his records. I think Big Pink is not recorded in their house but the next album "The Band" mainly is.

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