vera_roberts•11d agoProlific Poster

My first backyard studio was a tent in the rain...

I used to record vocals in a $40 camping tent stuffed with moving blankets inside my garage... the echo was awful but I thought that was just how home recordings sounded. Then I built a real shed studio last spring with proper acoustic panels and a 2 inch gap for air flow... the difference is night and day. Anyone else start with some janky setup that makes you laugh now?

2 comments

2 Comments

mitchell.shane10d ago

That whole thing about thinking your gear problems were just part of the craft... I see it everywhere now. My buddy spent two years thinking his guitar had a natural warmth to it. Turns out the tone knob was just broken and stuck at half position. People get used to broken tools and call it character. Same with relationships and bad habits too honestly. We convince ourselves the struggle is part of the art when really it's just a busted setup. Once you fix the actual problem you realize how much time you wasted romanticizing the mess.

patricia_wright11d ago

Twenty five years ago I recorded my first demo on a four track cassette player in a coat closet. The mic was a Radio Shack special and I had to hold it myself because the stand was a broken lamp. It took me years to realize the hollow sound on those tapes wasn't some cool vintage vibe, it was the closet having better acoustics than my playing. Kind of like how people think their first car's weird noises are personality until they figure out the muffler was held on with a coat hanger.