I am a musician. I play drums, keyboard, bass guitar, rhythm guitar. I also sing both lead and harmony. I have a home-recording studio that is equipped with a Roland VS-1880, Tascam 388 1/4 reel-to-reel, CD-RW, Yamaha Motiff 8 Keyboard, Roland MC-50, several guitars and many microphones. I've been a musician for almost thirty years. The majority of my musical experiences is across all genres of church/gospel music. I spent six years working in music ministry abroad. Including most of the United States, Freeport Bahamas, Nassau Bahamas, Andros Bahamas, and Trinidad West Indies. I've been on both sides of the recording industry--as a musician, a vocalist and as an engineer. I've produced/engineered five projects (all for various local artist) with a sixth in process now.
In times past, home studios were extremely limited in the quality of the sound they could produce in their final mastering process. Formerly, it was necessary to have sound proof booths in order to record each acoustic instrument. The audio signal would continue to weaken as the signal traveled to the analog mixer that would then be mixed down to a reel-to-reel. After all of this, the project still had to be mixed to a final master. All of this would further degrade the quality of the signal. Now however, we have the use of digital audio which works like a closed system. The signal strength remains strong. This combined with the modernization of musical instruments allow home-recording engineers to produce high quality digital recordings.
There are a lot of myths, facts, and opinions regarding which is better--analog or digital? For me, there's nothing more satisfying than the fragile delicacy of playing a grand piano. The dark sound quality, the elegant appearance, the ivory keys all combine to flood your senses. But I can't fit a baby grand in my bedroom studio! (grin) I can, however, fit a Yamaha Motiff 8 synthezier that in fact has several baby grand and grand piano sounds along with hundreds of other quality instrument sounds. Digital home recording is not a short cut. It is the way to produce a high quality recording with less head-ache than analog and works great in a home setting.
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I found your blog interesting because aside from having a passion in music, i was born in a family with musicians. You've said that majority of the genres you've played were gospel/church music. my grandfather was a pastor and so as my other uncles and they are all musicians. I can still remember how critical they are when it comes to the product quality of music that an instrument or a specific recorder make. So i believe your blog will help me to get through the tiny bits of information on that since you have a well rounded experience in the music industry.
ReplyDeleteI am enjoying your blog. I also home-record using midi devices and the computer program Reason. I have been using it for a few years and I have gotten pretty good at drum programming. Recently I decided that I wanted to learn how to play the piano and the guitar and purchased those along with a real drum set. I wanted to find out if the sound quality of recording live is better than digital quality. I have heard others say that analog equipment creates a “warmer” sound. Have you noticed a difference in the sound quality of your recordings over the years?
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