Good question. Nowadays, many people have access to a home recording setup using Garage Band, Cubase, Protools LE etc, so what is the difference between using one of these and paying someone to come out and do essentially the same thing? After all, if you go to a studio, they'll have soundproofed rooms with perfect acoustics and all kinds of flash outboard gear that's bound to make you sound better than you possibly could anywhere else, right?
Well, no, not really.
Lets look at one thing at a time. First, the difference between you recording yourself at home and us recording you at your home.
First there's the issue of equipment quality. Yes, you may have a good laptop, and a good microphone, maybe ever a good sound card to get the sound into your computer. Perhaps you run a version of one of the popular recording packages, Logic, Cubase, Garage band etc.
Is your microphone the best one for your voice, though? Most consumer mics are dynamic (moving coil) and are less sensitive than available condenser or ribbon mics. We have a wide variety of the three types, which all respond differently and we'd be able to find the right one for you. for explanation of the different types of microphone, click here.
Are you plugging straight into your soundcard? If so, we differ here also. When the sound goes through the mic and down the cable, it is generally low level and will have a high dynamic range (quiet bits and loud bits). This means you may hear background hiss, and your voice will vary in level, meaning it never quite blends with the backing track. We use quality microphone preamps, such as Focusrite, with onboard compression. These boost the level, and make sure what you're recording sounds clear and even. For a proper explanation of Preamps and compressors, click here.
Finally, What do you do with your voice once it's recorded? turn it up or down, add a bit of reverb? Well, in truth, once the sound is recorded, our job is really only just beginning. To help you sound like a professional, we will (even if your voice is absolutely incredible), record you singing the song two or three times. We will then go back to key passages and record these bits again. And probably again. possibly varying the phrasing and checking that tuning and timing is just right.
Why?
Not just to make you work harder, but because when we have finished, we will have a single take with you singing your best at every single stage of the song. You might have nailed it the first time, but it doesn't hurt to have options for different versions of the song and we will make sure that we've captured the best you can deliver.
But isn't that cheating?
Well, no. Unless everyone in the industry is cheating. If you want to compete on a level playing field, this is the way it's done.
After all this comping (putting together the best bits and tidying up round the edges), we will use a suitable reverb, or delay, if needed, to help your voice sit in nicely with the backing, we will then run the whole mix through a multiband compressor to make everything nice and loud and sparkly and ready to put on CD or encode to MP3. This part is easier to do back at our base, though we will usually be able to provide you with a rough mix on the day for you to listen to.
All the above is just for a vocal. If there's a whole band, repeat that for every instrument.
DON'T PANIC!
The whole point of us existing and operating the way we do is to enable you to feel as comfortable as possible throughout the whole process, and a large part of our engineers training and experience is in how to get the best performance from the person they are working with. If you need to perform together as a band to be able to play songs, that's ok (though the more you practice, the better your recording will sound).
So what's the difference between using you and going to a recording studio?
Not a huge amount, really. You get to pick where you are happy playing / singing is the main thing and yes, it does help if it's quiet, but you'd be surprised what our engineers can work with.
Oh. We're cheaper. And our engineers are very, very good at what they do (some of the work we do involves taking recordings that people have had done at studios and removing the noises that shouldn't be there that have somehow ended up on the final tape. We also remix tracks for people who have experienced bad mixing in the studios they have been to).