highly addictive

In my opinion, home recording is a dangerous drug. Before you know it, those innocent, playful sessions turn into dark, serious all-nighters fuelled by endless cups of coffee (gasp). Instead of playing music, you spend all your time deliberating which gates and compressor settings might work best – only to delete them later on when you realise that actually, they don’t.

Financially too, it’s a bottomless pit. There’s always a New Shiny to covet: the one that will transform your recordings and make everything ok at last … and somehow never does. You can spend a lot of money chasing rainbows.

Or, as in my case, you can just stop. These days I  use home recording for two things only: as a quality control tool for my singing and playing (tape don’t lie), and to mess around with new songs in a lo-res, what-do-we-have-here kind of way.

Once I’ve got all the rocks out of the road (and only then), I go to a professional studio and do it properly. Is it expensive? Yes. Is it worth it? I think so – but only if you find a studio (person) who’s completely on your wavelength. Read my studio posts for more on that.