Technology has come a long way and especially in the last 20 years the digital revolution has brought a drastic change to the way media production is organized. While traditionally, big recording studios with huge booth dimensions were the way to record instruments or voice overs, it almost seems that nowadays you can manage the same production quality using just your smart phone.
Actually, you could, considering there are numerous USB microphones with mobile adapters available on the market, so you could directly record into your phone. But, this does not change the environment you are recording in – which makes all the difference.
Meaning, the voice over booth or recording booth for your instrument can’t be replaced by a phone. While some algorithms help reducing background noises and reverberation, as you can read in our article about “how to make a bad recording sound good”, these solutions will always compromise your sound quality.
Thus, having an acoustically treated recording room is crucial when aiming at high quality recordings of your voice or instrument. But what is the difference of having a portable soundproof room in your own house or going to a traditional recording studio?
Most of all, a professional recording studio will have invested far more resources than you did on your home studio – basically, because they have to cover a wider range of recording options for their clients than you will need at your home. Since you know what you need, your booth and recording environment can be configured just for your use case, regardless of you being a musician, a voice talent, or if you want to have uninterrupted business calls.
A traditional studio will have several recording rooms as well as a control room including an engineer, which is one of the biggest difference compared to recording at home. It’s always great to have someone listening to your performance and giving you feedback – two pairs of ears usually hear more than one pair.
Thus, when recording in your soundproof booth at home it is highly recommended, to always listen to your recordings after each segment and the end result for quality control, before sending your production to a client.
Furthermore, a traditional studio will have a more extensive gamut of equipment, including microphones, preamps, compressors, etc than you at home. Let me tell you though that regarding equipment, sometimes less can be more, meaning you should find the best combination of microphone, preamp and furniture inside of your recording booth, optimized for your use case.
Did you know that Studiobricks offers a Voice Over Edition of our recording booths? In this case you just need to find the right microphone & preamp for your voice and we take care of the rest, including a script mount, screen mount, microphone arm and a table – The only thing you would need to do is mount your devices and press record.
If you aim to record a whole band in your house, this isn’t a problem either. As our Studiobricks concept involves a modular and configurable approach, we can design just what you need in order to create the acoustic spaces you desire in your premises. Gives us a call, let us know what you need and we take it from there.
Last but not least, when you go to an external studio, you will have to commute. With a home studio you just need to decide where to place your recording booth and have the flexibility to record on your time, and accept even the tightest deadlines without going throught the hassle of having to coordinate studio time.
In case you want to change the position of your booth or you need to move houses, our booths are easy to assemble and disassemble, due to pur patented the plug-In system without screws, that prevents damages during moves and assembles – this will be way easier than moving an entire studio with several recording rooms and a control room.
Most of the aspects above are connected to investments, depending on the variety of use cases needed. When going for a big recording studio you will have to pay for the engineer, the potentially better recording equipment, the bigger studio booths, the commute and the time to get there – and you will have to pay all of the above, every time you go.
Depending on budget and production quality needed a professional studio can help create an A+ output, specifically when it comes to timed productions, as the engineer will clearly help here. However, with sufficient practice I have seen many musicians and voice talents create the same quality output from home, using Studiobricks.
If you go for a portable recording booth for your house, you will have a one time investment that lasts a lifetime and gives you the possibility to reach the same quality recording as a traditional studio.
Most of all, recording at home gives you the flexibility to accept last minute jobs, the freedom to produce whenever you want or, in case you are just practicing your instrument and you found that melody that you would love to record instantly. Our soundproof recording booths will allow you just that, without compromising the friendship with your neighbors due to noise conflicts.
Studiobricks gives you the freedom to be loud, on your time and your terms.
Author: Nikolai Hüsch – Audiovisual Engineer Advisor
