10 Reasons Why Home Recording Studios Suck

I happened to come across this post recently and found it pretty interesting. It's so easy and inexpensive to buy some really powerful recording gear these days that almost every musician has a home studio, but all of them will tell you that recording is not as easy as it seems.

This article from AudioGeekzine nicely points out what eventually becomes the "hardship" of owning your own studio.

Don’t get the wrong idea from this article, I’m not hating on home studios, I have a home studio, I host The Home Recording Show. I’m not complaining, just pointing out some of the negative sides of the average home studio. An average home studio being a room in a house or apartment that was not specifically built to be a recording studio. Purpose built home studios are the exception, they have some of the qualities of professional studios, but some of the downsides still apply.

1) Less than ideal acoustically. More often than not the home studio is a spare bedroom or in the corner of the basement. Most home studios have little invested to improve the sound in the room.

2) Noise issues. Professional studios are constructed with extreme acoustic isolation in mind. They keep sound from escaping and outside sounds interfering, allowing them to operate at any time of day. In the home studio you have to deal with your neighbor mowing his lawn, children running around and other noises. Additionally you can’t work at a normal volume too early or too late in the day without neighbors or your family complaining.

3) Never ending money pit. You may think you have everything you need but it won’t be long until you succumb to G.A.S.

4) Low perceptions of quality. If you’re trying to use your home studio to make an income, there is a limitation on the kind of work you’ll get. A major label is not going to send a band to your bedroom to make a record. There is still plenty of jobs you can do at a quality level but you’re at a disadvantage from the start.

5) Pro studio owners HATE you because you take business away and put out an inferior product. Whether that is true or not can cause some heated debate.

6) A major distraction. You just wanted to make a quick recording of a song idea. You spend the next two hours doing software updates, scrolling through synth patches to find the perfect one and oops you’ve forgotten that great idea for a song.

7) It changes your role from musician to engineer. Instead of spending your time improving your playing and songwriting abilities you must spend your time learning recording techniques, troubleshooting,

8) Equipment that doesn’t match in quality or is low quality overall. Cheap mics into a cheap mixer into a built-in soundcard using cheap cables. If you want a professional sound there is a minimum level of equipment that must be invested.

9) Less respect for your time. I’m finding I sit around waiting for late clients much more in my home studio than as a staff engineer at a studio. Another side of this, a band spends two years recording their album in their home studio but could have gotten the same or better results in two week at a professional studio. Time has value.

10) It never ends. Without strict self imposed time limits you will never finish the album. A fear of commitment and the ability to tweak absolutely anything makes things take so much longer than necessary.

So there’s 10 negative sides to this Home Studio thing we’ve gotten ourselves into. Obviously these don’t apply to everyone, and some points are very general.

Without my home studio, this website and half my income wouldn’t be here. On the other hand I’d probably have a lot less grey hair on my head and a lot more money in the bank.

I’m well aware of the limitations of my studio (the room specifically) and what it is perfectly capable of accomplishing, however this doesn’t satisfy me.

Home studios aren't going away any time soon, but neither are professional recording studios. In the meantime, let's hope we can keep the techniques of the pros alive so that the next generation of pro can easily make the leap from the home to the commercial environs.