April 30, 2008 The Myth of "Almost Zero" Recording Costs
There’s a myth being perpetuated these days that recording costs are approaching zero.
For example, in his popular article “Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists” David Byrne states:
Artists used to need the labels to bankroll their recordings. Most simply didn’t have the $15,000 (minimum) necessary to rent a professional studio and pay an engineer and a producer. For many artists — maybe even most — this is no longer the case. Now an album can be made on the same laptop you use to check email.
That last sentence sure sounds exciting, and I’ve read similar statements by other people. But it isn’t really true.
I think it’s fair to say that most musicians today could make a decent demo-quality recording themselves for a negligible amount of money. But to suggest that most artists can create a professional quality, commercially viable recording at almost no cost is misleading. Making a great recording that can capture people’s attention in a very competitive music environment still requires a reasonable investment of money and time.
Digital technology has certainly given artists unprecedented access to most of the hardware and software they need to record and produce music. These days you do not need label money just to access recording equipment. But let’s be clear on one point: your favorite artists are not churning out finished albums solely from the laptops they use to check email. You should not expect to either. Depending on the type of music, an investment of $5,000 to $20,000 will buy most musicians a very capable home studio. Over time, you will probably need (or want) to buy additional hardware and software for your studio, but $5k - $20k should do the trick to start. In the scheme of things, that’s a pretty modest investment and well within reach of the average person.
Of course, the tools themselves are just part of the story. How you use them is just as important, if not more so.
Creating recorded music is an art in and of itself. I’ve heard many indie acts that sound absolutely incredible live, but whose albums fail to capture the magic they produce on stage. Despite having excellent songs and phenomenal musical talent, their recorded music falls a bit flat. I’m not referring to cases where something is obviously wrong with the musical performances or the recording technique. I’m talking about albums where everything sounds well done, but ultimately it doesn’t move you or excite you or grab you as a listener. Why does this happen? I think it can usually be attributed to shortcomings in one or more of the following areas:
Engineering/tracking. Where you place microphones, the volume of your instruments, the size and shape of your room, the combination of gear you use and the order of your signal chain will affect the sound of each instrument you record. Good engineers understand each of these factors and are able to get the best results out of the equipment and recording environment at hand. Seemingly slight differences in the tone and character of each sound you capture can have a big impact on how the recording sounds overall.
Production. A producer is essentially the creative director for a recording. Producing involves determining the musical arrangement of each song; deciding what elements are needed at each moment in a song; deciding when particular elements need to be re-recorded, re-worked or eliminated; and coaxing the best performances possible out of each musician. It may also involve digitally editing the performances of certain instruments as needed. Arrangements that are too cluttered, combinations of instruments/sounds that sonically interfere with each other, arrangements that fail to emphasize the strengths of the artist, or elements of the track being slightly out of sync with each other can all cause a recording to fall short.
Mixing. Mixing involves two main tasks: balancing the relative volume of each instrument in the song appropriately, and adjusting the frequencies and panning of individual instruments so that they each sit in their own sonic space without interfering with each other. The differences between a mediocre mix, a good mix and a great mix can appear subtle to the untrained ear. But the quality of your mix will greatly influence how listeners psychologically perceive and respond to your music.
Mastering. This is the final step in the recording process. Mastering involves adjusting the overall EQ, compression and volume of each song. The goal of mastering is to not only make each song sound as good as possible on its own, but also to make sure all the songs on an album sound consistent in terms of volume and sonic character. High-quality mastering typically requires a perfectly tuned room, specialized high-end equipment and an experienced mastering engineer. A good mastering job can be the difference between an album that sounds amazing and one that sounds dull, harsh, or unexciting.
If you really want your recordings to be on par with the pros, all of the above tasks must be done well. And doing them well typically requires years of practice and experience. So if you or your bandmates don’t have experience yourself in any one of these areas, you’ll need to find people who do. At the very least, you’ll probably need to hire a legitimate mastering engineer. (Don’t be fooled by “auto-mastering” software or producers/mixers who claim they can master your project too – mastering is a very specialized skill that few people can do well.)
Hiring good engineers, producers, mixers or mastering engineers doesn’t necessarily require outrageous sums of money… but it’s not zero. It’s difficult to say generally what these services will cost, because they vary widely depending on many factors. However, in my experience:
- Mastering will typically run you anywhere from $100 - $500 per track, assuming there are no major problems with your mix.
- Hiring an experienced mixer can cost a couple hundred dollars per song all the way up to several thousand dollars per song.
- Engineer and producer fees vary quite a bit, but they can easily add up to several thousand dollars or more for an entire album.
Has digital technology lowered the costs of recording and created new opportunities for independent artists? Absolutely. But if you are serious about your music and your career, you still have to do some spending in both cash to buy equipment and/or hire professional help, and in sweat to develop your own engineering, producing or mixing skills over time. It will be very hard to survive as a professional artist if you don’t.
Reader Comments (33)
Man, that's some solid advice you're offering right there. I hope independent artists of all stripes are paying attention. :)
It always boggles my mind how many people foolishly try to save $100 here or $500 there when they're creating something so important - for themselves and, hopefully, for others. It's always worth it, imho, to wait until you can Do It Right. Or don't spend any money at all - literally. The middle ground seems to be the fastest route to spending money while getting nothing of value in return..
I agree. The 'almost zero' recording costs concept is bullshit. Yes you can make some kind of recorded music for almost zero. Whether it's competitive or not is another matter.
As has been much discussed, getting people to actually engage with your music is problem number one. Whether you help yourself by giving people access to you music for free or not, the second problem is IS IT ANY GOOD. And by any good I am talking about is it GOOD ENOUGH.
Good enough means competitive. Competitive means that it is at least as good as the music that people have become accustomed to listening to. It's not about content - it's about how well turned out it is. How immediately engaging it is, how pleasing to the ear it is. If it sounds crap compared to other music that people are listening to.
If you are working in a certain genre you have decades of work to compete with and you need to sound AT LEAST as good as that. Now what sounds good and what sounds bad is entirely a matter of opinion, but as I said before, it has to be GOOD ENOUGH.
The best songs ever recorded are some of the best songs ever produced. If you really want to be played for the next decade or two on people's iPods then you sure as hell are going to have to sound as good as the classics in your genre.
Ok you're in a rock band and I decide to download one of your songs and stick it on my iPod. My iPod's on shuffle set to rock music. Back In Black by AC/DC comes on. When September Ends by Green Day comes on. Then your song comes on. How do you think it competes sonically with these other tracks? If it was all recorded on a laptop, extremely badly.
Recorded rock music is a lot about production - getting the guitars rocking, getting that killer drum sound etc - Country music is a lot about having a great vocal sound, well recorded instruments played by great players in nice rooms.
Your laptop is looking a bit silly on it's own with it's cheap soundcard and crappy speakers compared to the last Shaun Colvin album mixed by Bob Clearmountain.
'Hang on' you say 'but of course I'm going to run a DIGI 02 with it and some Tannoy speakers'
Ok, you just made this less free.
'And of course, I have to record the guitars somewhere, and the drums'
More expense. How long did it take to make this recording?
'Oh about 6 months here and there between 4 people'
Time is money.
Even a crap recording cost money. And the contradiction is, while the blogosphere is telling you that access is everything and the old model is dead, it is 50 years of the old model's recordings that you are up against. To even stand a chance.
I'm not saying you can't make some income from being lo-fi, or doing dance or hip-hop almost entirely on a laptop. But these are genres themselves, which are based on this technology.
We don't all make lo-fi, electronica, hip hop or dance music. A rock band, even on a low budget, is going to need a week of recording if they're well rehearsed, and a few days of mixing. And who's going to record it? Who's going to mix it? And are these people any good? And will the final product be GOOD ENOUGH for people who like the rock genre to download the tracks, even for free?
Because even with budgets people can't pull this off. Even bands who are succesful and have quite large budgets turn out bad albums. It's REALLY HARD to create a great recording which can stand the test of time.
Quincy Jones had three studios running for 3 months while he was recording Thriller (not even mixing). I must email him and tell him that nowadays he could have done it all on a laptop for free.
I agree absolutely. We are artists who have always worked in their own studio. Over the years we have collected a lot of timeless equipment that is part of our sound (Vintage tube mics, preamps, gold foil plate, analog console), and also 23 years of experience. If I would add all the cost incl. rent etc. I think it was expensive to produce our music.
And as we work for customers, too (arranging, engineering, producing, track laying) I know what it costs when an artist really takes care of the details of his production. It takes time = money.
Maybe you can get away with a laptop production in some electronic styles. But then it may be something that everybody else with a laptop can do, too.
Blue Star Studio
This is a very valid point; there is a somewhat worrying tendency to devalue musical output down to the simple cost of the technology used to produce it, without placing any value on the talent of the musician/producer, or the years of work they may have put into reaching a certain level of expertise. If you go to a solicitor for legal advice, the only gear she uses might be a pen and paper, but nobody would say that the service provided only costs 99p. It's like the story of the engineer who charged $10,000 for fixing a ship's engine by tapping it once with a rubber hammer... his bill was itemised as 'tapping with a hammer - $1', 'knowing where to tap - $9,999'.
- all true! --- BUT --- you still can do an album "on the same laptop you use to check email" (If you >DON'T< really want your recordings to be on par with the pros) BUT to be simply *music* ..
... if you have the ability to create *magic* based on being *unique* .. few are blessed with this ... all others have to follow each and every aspect of the article .. and still may have a terribly boring release as a result .. I have heaps of those .. I produce radioshows since the late 1980s ...
.. studying all *rules in the book* is highly recommended! .. but it never guarantees anything ... just mentioning this because too often I've heard bands saying "we need a certain amount of money to get a good result" ...
cheerz
Lord Litter
I agree, the myth does exist. Each of the steps listed above are valid as their own art forms requiring not only the money to work well, but also the years of dedicated practice in that particular point of delivering the art.
However, the distance between artist and audience is decreasing such that the laptop recording idea does have merit. It may not be that a professional sounding piece is delivered, yet a very good piece of art may. If an author were to write Tale of Two Cities with a number two pencil on scraps of paper - it would still be excellent, though seen by fewer than some throw away novel posted on a blog. Yet now, most everyone has access to blogging. But as noted in a comment above, it is the engagement with the listener which is arguably as much a part of the art as the creation itself.
The focus here is on the creation/production aspects of technology, but the barrier of access to all parts of the process of delivering music have been reduced, especially in terms of money. Meanwhile, the actual practice by the individual of these parts have in no way changed and are each enhanced by their experience of practice.
- Kourosh
Mind, Music, and Technology
Thank you for giving voice to what I've been thinking for some time — just yesterday, in fact. For 20 years, I reviewed demos and self-released recordings by unsigned bands, for Alternative Press and my own site, Demo Universe; during that time I've reviewed literally thousands of amateur and semi-pro recordings, created under every possible condition. (I've also made many records, both as producer and performer.).Suffice to say, I know a bit about what makes a recording sound good.
Although it is true that extraordinary songs have the potential to overcome, or at least compensate for, the limitations imposed by the average home studio (I'll bet David Byrne's set-up cost way more than $20K!), such cases are very rare.
In my experience, a competent producer (who understands not only arrangements but also how to elicit the best performance from the players), experienced recording and mastering engineers and a professional recording studio are essential ingredients of a truly great recording.
The day has long passed when a band needed to go into a studio just to make a demo. But there's no doubt in my mind that serious artists will continue to recognize and appreciate the many benefits a pro studio provides — and that's one reason I'm now realizing my dream of opening one!
Wow.
I guess I will be the first one here to disagree with the overall tone of this post.
I definately see the validity in what is being discussed but I think we are dealing with a majority readership here...a majority of "Audiophiles" and "Engineers", "Producers", etc. etc..
I believe that there is a vast majority of people out there hearing music on crap sound systems where quality does not play a factor in how much they enjoy a song...and this is where anyone can make a "Hit" on the same laptop etc. etc.
Also in the realm of electronic dance music alone I would argue that a great many "Fan Favorite" songs are produced in small home studios (many probably using headphones to mix and master even...a stretch maybe).
Again let me say that I see the need and validity of the Pro Mix and Mastering process...BUT, I also believe that a whole helluva lot of great music can be achieved with a good DAW, a box of "Auralex", and a closet.
It all comes down to talent. Talent to write, mix, and master.
The $$$ aspect is dependent entirely on the level of talent.
(in my opinion)
Cheers,
Milton
It may be true that recording costs will never be zero, but I firmly believe that many artists end up overspending in the studio. I've seen it happen. They drop thousands making a great-sounding recording, then never make a second album because they never dig themselves out of debt.
It's insane to me that an unsigned, unproven band would drop $20,000 on a recording. Wouldn't it make more sense to spend a fraction of that money making a really, really great-sounding EP of the 3-4 best songs? Maybe do a short-run with less-fancy packaging in order to test the market?
I agree that the production should be great, or at least above a certain level of "good" where the production quality doesn't hinder the song.
But I see a lot of indie artists these days being encouraged to spend, spend, spend on a recording in order to "compete with the pros" or some such nonsense. They're pushed to make poor spending decisions based on "what the pros do" instead of focusing on what they need at that particular stage of their career.
Above all, most new bands need to win fans, and you don't need to start off your career with $20K of debt to do that.
Thank you for posting this article. This is the one major pet peeve of mine. Luckily for me, the artists I represent, understand this. If you sink money in to get a commercially viable recording and work with a good producer, it's going to help you out in the long run. Not only will you get attention from the "record labels" (the coveted record labels!), but you will also be able to make that money back from publishing and merchandise sales. People may not be able to understand the difference in recordings, but their subconscious can. When the recording is strong, punches, has a good arrangement, and a glossy shine to it...people are more than likely to get into it. Selling media to the public doesn't make you money anymore, however, song placement and touring does. Consider your music a 'flier' of sorts. You'll probably want a really well designed, catchy, glossy flier to get people's attention and show them you care about your music. This also means, if you spend money recording your disc, get a well designed and pressed package. This will get the public interested, out to your shows, and buying your merchandise.
Back in the 90's, people used to scrape and save to go in and record a record. People cared about what they were doing. They didn't something together in garageband, put it up on myspace, and call themselves an artist. There was a labor of love in everything. Every time I receive a CD with an address label, or a myspace address written in sharpie on it...I throw it out. If you don't care about your band, why should I?
If you don't produce stuff that sounds good in all formats and in most listening environments then you are limiting your audience. You want your music to be heard in the best possible light wherever it is played, so that people can connect with what you're trying to do.
If your mixes and tracks sound bad anywhere, you are not going to be as popular as if your mixes and tracks sound good everywhere. It's bad enough trying to find your niche, let alone also define yourself as an artists who only sounds good on PC speakers.
As I said before, of course some kinds of music are based around the technology. But most of it is based on the performance first and the recording second.
I don't think a heavy metal band who were looking to compete in their genre would understand that they should put those guitars down, buy a laptop, and stop complaining. Yes, they could knock out some cool demos. But to compete in their genre they would need to throw a fair amount of money at it regardless of how amazing they were.
Some people CAN'T do everything, and they shouldn't be expected to. And it most cases it's just not practical. I've said it before about 'everyone' becoming web 2.0. literate. The last thing you want to detour a cool happening band with a bunch of technology.
Some people are not nerds. Unlike us lot.
Milton, I absolutely agree with you that talent is the #1 ingredient to making good recorded music. The tools themselves are less important than what you are able to get out of them. The point I was trying to make is that there's a difference between musical talent and recording talent, and that you really need both. For electronic musicians such as yourself, these talents tend to overlap since the recording/mixing/editing process is in some ways indistinguishable from the writing/composing of the actual music.
Regarding your comment that sound quality doesn't play a factor in how much most people enjoy a song, I think you have to look at audio format quality (mp3, .wav, etc.) and recording quality (mixing, mastering, etc.) as separate issues. For many people, audio format quality does not matter - it's really only the audiophiles who hear a difference between, say, a 192k mp3 and a CD. But I believe that the recording quality of a song is something that affects all listeners, often subconsciously. For example, I've found that the mix of a song can really dictate your emotional response to it. When I get to the mixing stage of one of my own songs, I'll usually do a few alternative mixes and then go compare them on different stereos. Sometimes I'll play one mix and the track feels boring or lacks energy... and then I play another mix and the track feels totally rocking. Regardless of what bit-rate you ripped it at or what stereo you listened to it on, the difference between those two mixes would come through.
Electronica = bunch of nerds (myself included)
Daft Punk, Justice, etc. etc...
Have made a lot of money out of their bedrooms! (Maybe it's a French thing?)
Laurence,
I could not agree with you more!
I also had not considered the blurring of processes for electronic musicians. You are absolutely right that for the DAW user it is a bit easier to fall into all the required positions needed to start and finish a "song".
We audiophiles (I think I qualify) will always hear the tiniest of differences in the mix...and as for the kids on the dance floors and in ambient rooms; what percentage is really sober enough to differentiate sound quality?
(Sorry, that may have been unfair to the majority of people that might actually listen to my music.)
I like my Rush and my Yes as much as I like my Basement Jaxx and my Lily Allen
I like my Johnny Cash and my Al Green as much as I like my Blur and my KRS 1
The quality is important to me and definately has an effect on the impact of the song for me, but just being able to listen is paramount!
Thanks for all you do and please never stop.
Milton
I love that music, I forced every one of my friends to listen to Justice at insane levels since Cross came out - in fact it's probably my favourite album of last year. I also forced the same friends to listen to Daft Punk too all those years ago.
Electronica is their genre - they pretty much only need the electronics.
However, I doubt if the Justice album had 'no money' spent on it - 'cos the video sure as heck wasn't free!
My band is DIY, and we've been recording on our own. The good thing about doing it yourself is you can spend the extra time to get it sounding like you want it to without the pressure of $$/hour. The down side is the learning curve to actually do it right. Well worth the experience at least one time for a band to do it on their own.
But, we definitely don't master our own stuff. That's about $50 to $100 per song. Also, not mentioned in the article, is copyrights. That's about $30 per song. And then registering the music with ASCAP also costs.
If you're pressing a CD, then you'll need a barcode which is about $70 from CD Baby. Then there is the packing and printing onto CD. (I got a CD printer for about $200. Good deal, you can print out CDs as you need them.)
There's always cost in *seriously* putting out an album. But, then again, look at the Misfits. They recorded in their basement on 4 tracks. I still love their music even with the poor production quality. Sometimes it's just the song itself rather than how much money you throw into it.
Great article!
This post is full of a lot of good information that can be found in any music business book written 15 years ago. But it misses the point of the quote, which is the problem with most posts of this nature. The point is that the technology to produce music recordings and make CDs is now within the reach of the average person - which wasn't the case 15 years ago. Artists now have a choice.
It's easy to assume that "commercially viable" and "almost no cost" means the same to everyone - but it doesn't.
You used to have to pay a lot of money to make a demo so you could get a lot more money to make a recording. And that's just history. Sure, if you want to try and compete with Madonna or Jack Johnson, go ahead and head off to the studio. But if you're making CDs to sell at shows or offer as downloads to your fans, then it is possible, and potentially more profitable, to do so with the same laptop you use to check your email. Before there wasn't a choice, and most artists lost money or never made it past their first album because of it.
My first album was recorded live out of the back of an amp into a mini-disc player. To date, I've sold about 300 copies (I'm not a full time musician, mind you). $3000 - $300 cost = $2700 profit (900%). If I had went the studio route I would have probably never made the album, or at least still been in debt. But 300 people have my album that wouldn't have (and plenty more have downloaded it for cheap or free). The point is that I made it, and the 10 albums that followed it, because I could.
Your advice may be right on for some artists, and is good information. But for those that look at your bullet points and wince at the $10,000 price tag you just put on their next CD - well, that laptop may be their best choice.
Of course electronica and other contemporary beat-oriented music can be made anywhere.
The signal starts digital and stays digital.You don't need an acoustically tuned, quiet room because the signal never touches the air before it reaches the hard drive. Ditto expensive mics and signal processing equipment. You don't need an objective ear to judge how well the parts are executed because the execution is always perfect. It's a pure expression of the artist's mind. All you need is talent and drive to get in the game. This is so obvious I feel silly stating it.
It's different for rock, jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, classical, etc. Those are live music genres, played on acoustic instruments by inherently flawed human beings.And those genres benefit enormously from proper recording by experienced professionals.
Am I advocating all new bands drop $20K on their first recording? Certainly not! But what about $2,000? If you are talented, well rehearsed, focused, and have the good fortune to find an engineer who won't waste your time, you can definitely make a pro-sounding recording for that price -- without pissing off your neighbors who can't stand the drums emanating from your basement. Is that too much to spend? I don't think so, not if you care about your music. Byrne, understandably, is out of touch if he still thinks it costs a minimum if $15,000 to go into a pro studio.
And all respect to the eminent Lord Litter -- YES if it's just about self-expression, then by all means, you can make profoundly moving art on a telephone answering machine (ever hear Shelly Blake, Litter?). East River Pipe is still using the same Tascam 8-track he started with in the early '90s and making albums that his many fans love.
But let's not pretend such recordings will ever be accepted by the casual music fan.
FINALLY!!!!
Thank you for posting this. There is a huge difference between major label quality and home laptop quality, and this the myth that you can achieve the former with the latter must be stopped.
Preach on my Brotha from anotha Motha.
Voyno
newrockstarphilosophy.com
You have to admit, though, that the technology is less a determining factor of the final quality of an album than it used to be. So what happens should the cheaper technology finally does catch up to the high-end stuff? It then becomes the operator of the tech who determines the quality of the final product, and the room the recording is done in. If the recording set up is portable enough, the room problem can be solved by anyone who has access to a room that would be good for recording. I know that the college that I go to has several great-sounding rooms handy.
And don't ever say the cheap technology can never catch up. If you had told an engineer thirty years ago that there would come a day that a little box costing $2000 would allow people to record 24 tracks for hours at a time and mix it down, regardless of the final quality, that he would've believed you? Never say never.
I'm not trying to argue against spending money for good-quality recordings. I just want to bring in a little perspective is all. For the record, I'm a purely DIY fanatic, inspired as much by found sounds, musique concrete and the BBC Radiophonics Workshop as I am by Genesis, Yes, ELP, and Gentle Giant. I'm not expecting any kind of commercial success with those influences, but I view working at home and improvising with what I have to be essential to my approach to music, especially as it came about because I have no money. Constraints drive art as much as technology does, and so I work with what I have. The people who advocate spending large sums of money on "real recordings" send a hidden message that says "if you have no money, you don't deserve to make music", and I cannot stand behind that message one bit.
effin' A!
Bravo Darren!
what he said,
Milton
I agree with your blogpost, but I think some comments show a confusion between "recording costs" and "free music". "Free music", sometimes called "seems-like-free music", used wisely, can be used to make money.
Regarding to numbers themselves, I think that nowadays you can record a great rock album, for instance, for less than 8K€... And I'm saying this on the base that I have great records on my shelves from an indie label that allways spends from 6K€ to 8K€ in their albums - and they are well recorded, produced et al, I assure you...
I would argue your point, if not for the fact that David Byrne was right. Recording costs HAVE declined to almost nothing now that we can make entire albums on laptops. But many people simply CHOOSE not to do it like that. He's obviously trying to make the point that the computer, which he assumes you already own, has since replaced the 'professional studio', effectively reducing the cost of recording to near zero.
I bet David Byrne could create a professional sounding, and commercially viable album on his laptop for almost no money. The fact that he's David fucking Byrne should have nothing (yet everything) to do with it, considering that most of you are pretty much saying it's just not possible without spending a good bit of money.
At some point you'll have bought all the equipment you need to help you sound professional. It all still comes down to the talent of those involved.
Music is an artform. Some enjoy working at it like a sculpture, meticulously chipping away to reveal the smallest details, taking great pleasure and delight in uncovering the journey itself, with the result being simply a reflection of that journey. For us, the technology means we can get hands on, essentially creating something which is totally ours, a true reflection of all of our intentions, with a good dash of serendipity thrown in too.
For others, they prefer to oversee the work of those who work for them, like the Architect with the team of engineers. They prefer to engage in the integrity and life of the project, and leave the technical details to the technicians.
Whichever side of the booth you sit, or whatever shade of grey in the middle somewhere, the fact is that artists now have a CHOICE. I personally had no interest in producing or engineering, but because i prefer to work in solitude in the studio, and capture something beyond the sound itself, i evolved in taking on new roles than i thought i ever would. I still use the master technicians often, and hence it's not "FREE" in the money sense, but i am freer than ever before within my craft, and with what i choose to share publicly.
I agree with Peter Blue in that time = money, and what one does save in dollar terms, is spent tenfold in the learning curve which is time itself.
smiles to you,
Tania Rose
www.taniarose.blogspot.com
www.taniarose.net
Um, if I want to record something for virtually free on my laptop to give away then I will. The point of DIY if that we do things on what whatever terms we want to, not some standards set out ages ago - which are as opt out as you want.
Likewise you could also write a post about 'The myth of almost zero PR and distribution costs' which is true if you want to sell loads of records but not true if you just want to set up a myspace for people who might like your songs to download them from.
Ok, some people might not like cheaply recorded music, but music doesn't have to be aimed at everyone in the whole world - that's the difference between broadcast media and communication media.
It's also definitely worth pointing out that DIY music has been plodding along happily for 30 years without everyone spending silly money on home recording.
Just to add my two cents, not necessarily following anything that's going on in this conversation, but I will say that the more sonic detail that is involved in the recording, the more expertise is required to bring that recording to life in terms of the production/mixing/mastering of that recording.
If you have a full band - acoustic guitars, electric, bass, drums, keys, organ, harmonies, vocals, etc - this is a MUCH different animal than mixing beats and synth parts on your laptop and layering vocals over top of it, no matter what you say. And I have done both animals in my music and come up against walls in either method - so I'm not just making this up.
I just mean to add that there are certain ways of doing music that lend themselves more easily to this whole "almost zero" ideology - while other ways benefit much more from adding the extra touch that that extra $1000 or $20,000 could provide.
Also, this blog is the greatest. Keep up the good work.
Most people buy songs, not recordings. I like a well-recorded album as much as the next guy but if a musician can write a great song people will want to hear it and buy it. The iPod/mp3 phenomenon should be an indicator to us all that fans don't care THAT much about "audiophile quality" This might change when we have the ability to carry around 50,000 full resolution 24/192/surround tracks on our portable media devices but not yet.
If the playing field is leveled, then the best way to distinguish one's music from the glut of passably-produced bedroom mediocrity is the great song. Isn't that what we all want anyway; great songs?
Good points from all I think....
I’m finding the DYI approach helps me to better understand and respect what the pros actually achieve. Place my simple DYI Pro Tools rig in the hands of an experienced professional and see the contrast in quality! But the song writing quality and production/engineer quality work together in my option. You can only record and make an average song fly so far.
Great song writing should inspire all involved to help create something of even higher quality. For me a great song can be clouded by the low quality of production. I find it distracting and have to concentrate harder then I want to. I think those listening to lots of demos experience this. It’s tiring.
With that said the DYI muso may be quite content with a low quality production, or doesn’t want or have the dollars to spend otherwise and the good old laptop can suffice.
But if we are serious in having our art given the time of day we'll do all we can to make it the best it can be, and usually that means spending more money. I’m in the middle of what I would term a ‘cheap’ album recording and can tell you the Zero Recording Cost is a certainly a myth for me.
Shaun
When We Run
Spectacular point. My business has changed so drastically over the last two years, and now about 80% of my mixing time is spent polishing turds. It's not to say amazing records can't be done on a laptop, because they have - but someone with a solid knowledge of the process will make more of a difference on your record than any piece of equipment.
-C
http://www.mixmymusic.net
Damn, Christian. I sure am glad I'm not one of your recent clients. You do understand that your prospective clients read this blog too, don't you?
Now an album can be made on the same laptop you use to check email is completely true, you don't even need external hardware. I do it myself and I'm pretty freaking serius about music. Money = quality is not always a valid equation. Isn't the whole point of the evolution of technology to always seek to lower the costs of production and get the same professional results?, you can even build a mic preamp for 5 bucks that sounds as good and even better than others priced at US$1500. Yes mixing and mastering are important but thay're not as mistical as some people want them to look like. Of course, it's a matter of knowing to do things right and have good taste and ear to don't stop until you get the professional sound.
Jose, I'd love to know how to build that pre-amp you mentioned! Where can I find out about that?
I am a professional music producer . I have sold 1.5 million records . I have composed music for TV commercials for 20 years now. I produce rock,classical,electronica , blues etc...all from my macbook pro with only a few live tracks recorded in my home studio. I come from the days of tape multitrack and huge consoles . I sold it all and I run my entire studio from a macbook pro. My cost to record is almost nil BUT the real crux comes down to this. I charge a hell of a lot of money for my time. To get me to work on your project will cost you more than it costs to buy all the gear I use . Its come down to the talent now and not the gear or facility . And to all those who say you cant compete with the quality of Lady gaga and cold play with a laptop studio is talking BULL !! alot of international top 10s these days are produced exactly this way . I know too many guys with these huge protools HD sytems and massive controllers making crap music . Talent is everything , gear is nothing !!