ditto, BAMF and Abyss. the reason i got into this is because i had my own band way back and wished to make better demos for us. the band broke up and i surprisingly found myself hooked on this even more than playing the drums.
jplacson, yes we really need to support eachother if we want to grow as an industry. right now the recording scene in philippines is still at its teething stages. i for one am still learning to get a grip on all this technology. anyway, the updated rates are 600 per hour.
abyss, are you in the states? i downloaded some mp3's from a guy who makes home demo's there in the US. i was pretty blown away by the quality of his work. it is a lot better than even the commercially (local) recorded cd i compared it with. have you ever done a recording here in the philippines? if so did you notice any difference in the quality of your work here and there (using the same equipment)?
thanks.
starfugger, I am. i didn't get into recording before leaving the phils but I did have an idea aboout how records between the US and Phils sounded since my Dad has always been an audiophile. i grew up around hi fi equipment so, although I didn't have a good background with the music technology aspect growing up, I was able to contextualize how records sound the way they do once I got deeper into music production and engineering mixes. for the most part, I don't think the equipment used between DIY people in the US and in the Phils is the one-all-end-all in the grand scheme of things. Rather, the main difference is in the actual engineering of the music and the performance. a lot of home studio owners in the states - at least the ones that spend a lot of time in the music scene as DJs, producers, and engineers - spend a ton of time with sound design aspects of music production such as EQing, learning the limitations of the gear, and how to get as close to a solid commercial sound with the most basic off-the-shelf gear. in a lot of cases, playing out a lot here lets you cut your teeth in a large part of music production mechanics because they have a lot of sound engineers that don't just work clubs, a lot of them work in professional studios as well or are gigging musicians too. through this scene, an emphasis on sound and tone is emphasized because the audience (the music market) are very fickle and, unless you have your sound together, you aren't going to get very many gigs and you will be criticized for your poor sound quality.
when I first started posting around here on Philmusic, one of the first things I noted was how the sound in the Philippine produced CDs kind of sounded unfocused or not punchy enough in comparison to some of the imported UK and US records I eventually grew up listening to. This does not go on to say that the Philippine sound is bad - just different - especially since the "sound" seemed to be how a majority of the records were mixed down - but in comparison to records from labels in the UK and in the US, the Philippine "sound" always sounded like it needed a lot of work to bring out the best in the different aspects of the mix. I later found out that it wasn't in the equipment since a lot of the places had comparable gear to a lot of homsestudio owners in the states...the difference was in the knowledge behind the engineering of the mix - the usage of frequency differences, the exploitation of space in the mix to create ambience, and the use of the song's mood to arrange a mix to suit its genre.
If I had the chance, I would love to have the chance to record back home and just see how people are doing music recording in the Philippines. I would love to share tips, gain a bit of knowledge from fellow music enthusiasts, and just help spread things over from what I've learned working with producers and studios here. Moreover, I think the musicianship is, and has always been, top notch at home but a lot has to be done to show the world that Philippine music can hang with the best of them in the world. To accomplish this, I think its just a matter of time.
I've always dreamt about working with local musicians such as Joey Ayala and Freddie Aguilar and maybe collaborating with them on some downtempo track for a neo-soul kinda vibe. Our country has such a rich heritage that it is sad to see people aren't sharing it a lot more...in fact, I am really aching to collect indigenous Philippine instruments to use in tracking such as the kulintang and those other interesting instruments from Baguio.
