... sorry to disappoint you pero may dahilan kaya multi million ang nagagastos sa "totoong" recording studio
Granted na these major studios use Pro Tools and other high end equipment like Studers, Langevins, and Neumans, its true na aabot ng million ang required investment.
On the other side of the coin naman, there are artists like Claire Marlo who recorded their album sa bahay nila, tracking a few artists/instruments at a time, tapos building up the tracks until she was happy. John Taylor of Duran Duran made his solo album in a garage, and there are countless stories of artists who made demos on 4 track cassette some tracks of which made it to the final mix.
In my experience, ang mga kailangan to make a good recording is the following:
- a good mic, not the 'sony' ripoffs na kasama sa mga karaoke or ung mga 'blaster mics, but at least a Shure SM57 or 58 will do for starters. Perfectly adequate for vocals and some instrument miking ang mga shure.
- a good preamp/interface. Anong point ng magandang mic o gitara kung yung papasukan ng signal nila ay isang cheapie na mixer o soundcard? What you need is a very low noisefloor mixer or soundcard. Sa mixdown, kapag lahat ng mga tracks mo mataas ung 'hiss', naririnig un and that's how the pro's can tell kung masama ung recording. Some 'blasters have high noise floor and other technical limitations that make them unsuitable for recording. I've used an AWE32 and SBLive before kaya alam ko how difficult na tanggalin ung hiss nila.
- good recording equipment or software. Since pc-based ako, I was lucky na may kasamang Cubase ang Emu ko. There's a big difference when using 'try-before-u-buy' and registered software - updates. In most cases, libre ang mga updates at support ng registered software. Kumpleto pa sa mga manual, e.g. ung manual ng Sonar 4 is more than 700 pages!
- good monitors. What's the point kung maganda ang gamit pero pagdating sa mixdown ay earbud headphones ang gamit? I'm using relatively cheap Fostex 2.1 monitors but what's important is they sound good and allow me to hear 'depth'. You can visualize the soundstage kung maganda ung monitors mo, tsaka kapag nakapag-mixdown ka na sa cd at nagplayback ka sa component o car stereo at maganda tunog nila dun, then you have good monitors.
- Lastly, all the above is useless kung wala kang 'tainga' for the job and a good recording environment. All the above requires skill and a good ear for the job. Madalas, you have to be objective (and yet subjective) when mixing.
Medyo long post but when you add up the cost of the above, hindi aabot ng million. Not even hundreds of the thousands! The only thing priceless is skill.
