Abbey Road Studio 1

There was a time when just acquiring the use of a recording studio was for an elite few – when the idea of building a home-based recording studio was about as realistic as setting up an assembly line to build cars for you and your friends in the basement.  Oh how times have changed.

In the 50′s and 60′s, the worth of a recording studio was largely to do with the size of the live room.  The spaces were designed to mimic live concert halls because there was little to no processing of the sound after the actual tracking (ever heard of Abbey Road?).  As a result, owning a recording studio was somewhat comparable to owning your own concert hall.

In the 80′s, recording spaces went in almost the completely opposite direction, where for instance, drums would be recorded in small booths practically devoid of any natural acoustics.  The worth of a recording studio became more about the control room and the equipment found therein.  And the cost of the good stuff was exorbitant – well out of the range of mere mortals.

Computer-based DAWs (digital audio workstations) dominate the process of recording today, and just about anybody with any kind of budget can create their own recordings.  The debate about whether or not they should is ongoing.

Regardless, today’s large scale commercial recording studios are closing their doors at an alarming rate, and professionals and amateurs alike are setting up smaller home-based facilities with steadily increasing success.

I would venture to suggest that there still remains an immense difference between low and high end gear, and immeasurably more to be said about having someone with the know-how and experience to operate whatever equipment is on hand.  Arguably, many of the factors that result in a great recording have never changed.   But there is little question that it is a brave new world for artists and an exciting time to be making music!