While I totally agree about sorting out your space acoustically speaking, (I was amazed by the differences in my last two little rooms) the pictures I've seen of Rockfield in the Bohemian Rhapsody era didn't appear to have a whole lot of 'studio-ness' being more obviously a converted barn

And then you get people like Steven Wilson who appears to have mixed grammy nominated stuff in the bedroom of his mum's house.

But I guess there are exceptions to every rule and Queen and SW are both exceptional exceptions :)

The venerable Sam Spoons summed it all up on another current thread on a similar topic:

A great song, performed by a great band in a great room will get you 99% of the way to a great record. All the rest is fluff, or those old Sun Studios recordings (with 1950s tech) of the greats would sound rubbish.

Dr Feelgood were great, and you could have recorded them on a dictaphone and they would still be great (though maybe not quite 'CD quality') ;)

Many of us on this forum have been there on the voyage of discovery which always starts with "If only I had xyz gear my recordings would sound like [insert major band/artist here]". And then you learn that it simply isn't true. (Usually after spending a lot of dosh.)

It's all about the 'content', to use a modern term. Good song, well sung, well arranged, well played. Especially it's about being in tune and in time. Get all these right and record and mix it competently on even what might be considered really budget gear and, bingo, your track will be well on its way to sounding like a record.

Biggest improvement to my mixes recently, was Softube Console One and more importantly the effect it had on my plugin usage.

I'm not suggesting you buy it as a magic bullet, of course that doesn't work, however it did do several important things that have really helped;

1. stopped me chucking loads of plugins on everything. It just doesn't sound good and it often is a huge distraction from what you're supposed to be doing - Listening!
2. Using loads of different 'flavours' - Yes, we now have the ability to have a neve on bass, API on guitar, Tubetech on something else. The pro's do it right? so it must be right, right? No not really if you're not that experienced. it just becomes a non-cohesive mangled mash of flavours.
3. Mixing with my ears - plugin GUI's look nice. The Console 1 GUI doesn't nor does the hardware, but turning a knob and hearing whats happening is way way more useful and less distracting than the GUI on most lovely looking plugins...
4. Simplifying workflow. Console One provides a good sounding toolkit of everything you need in one plugin. You often don't need anything else. I find this means you can get to mix quicker and easier because the decision making process of should I reach for this plugin for this task is removed, so you focus on listening and getting the mix working well. If its not happening in a certain area, THEN you reach for an alternative. Having loads of options is great. But its also really stifling to the creative process...Learn one tool well, rather than loads not so well....

I'm not a softtube user but taking a similar approach with a 'standard' channel strip and a control surface has given me the same benefits in terms of focusing my attention and speeding up the work. :thumbup:

blinddrew wrote:I'm not a softtube user but taking a similar approach with a 'standard' channel strip and a control surface has given me the same benefits in terms of focusing my attention and speeding up the work. :thumbup:

+1 to that. I have sort of setup my own Softube arrangement. I got a Novation Launchpad and with that I have instant access to any of 48 channels, and 16 other buttons (well they are pads actually) for the more common commands, including transport - using the Cubase 'learn' is quite easy.

I have a UAD 2 DUO PCIe card and I have set up various recording templates where I have each channel with the basic UAD channel strip by a cheap MIDI controller which has 24 rotary and 8 fader controls, I can not only control the values but open and close the plugin too.

To top things off I have a dedicated controller - the ICON QCON and I have my virtual mixing desk and I hardly go near any of the myriad of plugins, I stick to the UAD ones and maybe a couple of the better Cubase ones, and yes it really focusses the attention, feels more like a mixing desk.

Only the other week Cubase started crashing when closing it, all down to one of those pesky plugins that I cannot seem to resist, took the offending plugin off and now running smoothly again, so now I need to book myself into PlugIn Rehab and do a PlugIn Detox and cure me of the habit of keep downloading them and slapping them into Cubase