Continuing the discussion from Who here does what?:
A lot of people were posting an overview of their music in that thread. Listening through a few of the posts, it occurred to me that it would be interesting to hear everyone’s progress… a sort of a “then” (when you first started out seriously in recording) and “now”. For example:
This is the oldest one I can find at the moment - it’s from around '91/92. This is an all analogue recording done on a Yamaha MT1X 4 Track cassette tape based machine. The mic was an SM58 for vocals, an SM57 for guitar, with a Profile Telecaster copy into a Marshall JCM900 50w. Bass was a very old “Coronet” Jazzmaster copy direct into the tape machine. Drums were courtesy of a borrowed Roland Dr Rhythm (I think). It’s pretty much mono because all the drums and bass were bounced to one track, then the two rhythm guitars were bounced to another, and the lead vocals, harmonies and lead guitars used up the remaining few tracks, so they got some panning. Automation, EQ, Compression? What are those???!!!:
Here’s a recording I made in 2006. (That was about a year before I joined RecordingReview.com) It was a surprise present for my wife on our (then) 15th anniversary. This is far from the first recording I’d done (at that point I’d been dabbling occasionally for about 20 years), but it was one of my first “modern age” recordings I’d done in 24 bit digital.
I basically sat down and composed, recorded and mixed the track in one mammoth session that started around 5:30pm at night, and finished around 2:30 in the morning. Equipment was a Tascam 2440 standalone digital multitracker, a Samson Condenser mic, a nice Martin acoustic and a Zoom 1234 drum machine. No post-production trickery (I didn’t realize it was possible, and I didn’t have a DAW yet) - all “as is”. The guitar was mic’d as well as DI’d to give some stereo spread. All FX and processing were via the limited eq, compression and reverb options available in the Tascam:
… & here is my most recent recording (which took considerably longer, although not ridiculously so):
…my most recent mix (this song was years and many versions in the making):
…so…feel free to post your “progress” over the years…“Then & Now”
(Pardon the quality - it was recorded to cassette, mixed down to cassette, and copied over to a cassette, then eventually converted to an mp3.)
