Home studio horror stories

[tmcconnell]

For the 2nd time this week and the 4th time this year I have a prospective client with a horror story. They all go like this:

"A friend of a friend built a home studio. I recorded there. I spent about 1000 dollars and the product totally stinks. The performances were ok but the sounds were terrible (thin, noisy, whack whack... and so on). Half way through the record I fired the Studio and they claim they will send me disks of what I did. Now my money is gone and I have nothing. Can you help me?......"

This is good news and bad news. The good news is it turns out competance and experience and gear count for something. The bad news is there seems to be a lot of people ripped off by bad home studios and there is really no standard way to qualify a competant studio that artists can access. Home studio does not imply "bad" as we all know - but howz an artist to tell the truely slutty from the truely fu*ked up?

Is this a pattern that's developing - are U slutz getting a lot of "damage control" gigs?

[David R.]

Yup. I've got a bunch of gigs from that situation. Usually have to re-record the tracks from the previous studio.

I was recently on the other side of the coin, when I had some new clients in the studio to do an album. They were checking me out for a possible string of recordings they do under various names.

Things were going great, untill the back-hoe started up next door. Neighbors were digging up their yard for a swiming pool. My soundproofing could not keep up with heavy machinery 20 feet away.

I lost the gig.

Listened to the tracks later, I did a decent job of keeping the noise out. All mics were in shockmounts. Clients, had they heard, probably would have been happy.

Oh well.

[bjornson]

My biggest project studio horror stories are when people I know spend 20K on gear and when I talk to them a year later they haven't recorded ANYTHING. It's just become a great big home stereo.

[tmcconnell]

ouch

[StudioKing]

Although a pro studio mine is at home, and i used to never get anything done. Now i have solved the problem. No Doorbell, No phone, No Intercom, No Windows that look into the house or garden. Just a cctv system that i can bring up on a screen if i have to.

Isolating the studio was the ONLY way that i ever would have got ANYTHING done, i know so many people who's home studios are used more to impress guests then make any music.

[joelgtrnut]

In my town it is the opposite. I'm running a small 3 room shop out of my house and kicking the sonic crap out of all the bigger guys at about 1/3 the price. Maybe all the big studios in my city are just run by hacks? I don't know. I guess being a little guy with competance, experience, a big stick, and a bunch of high end gear pays off, at least in my situation.

A lot of home studios suck though. I tend to get a lot of mixing work from other people that "recorded in some dudes house" that sounds like crap. I find that by salvaging someone else's horror story, you can often get tons of repeat business, only the next time that artist comes back, they do the full record with you and tell all their friends to come record.