bapu
decent song
talent 
decent mic,
then preamp,
then everything else.
 

well said

bapu
decent song
talent 
decent mic,
then preamp,
then everything else.
 

That second one is a toughie...

Talent...ah yes. I think it's rare, but elusive also, and I often think 'talent consistency' is also a formula to be found by many of us. I have sometimes played, written or sang something that, even with the usual critical filter on, I have thought fleetingly sounded as good as anything I have heard from any major talent. If that sounds grandiose, think of the analogy of playing golf, where just once or twice every round, you pull out a shot that could not be bettered by any of the golf pros. Then again, try repeating it predictably, or filtering it out of all the mundane and dross.....so is he 'talent' the talent? or is 'talent consistency' the talent? My thoughts aren't fully formed on this, so other opinion welcomed, but certainly great albums with less than stellar recording set ups, must become lionized for a goodly amount of talent consistency across the work. 

Hi, 
 
Oohhh my gosh ... 
 
Amon Duul 2 - Yeti, Wolf City
XTC - Black Sea, Mummer, English Settlement, The Big Express
Caravan - For Girls that Grow Plump In the Night
Renaissance - Ashes are Burning
Nektar - Sounds Like This, A Tab in the Ocean
Banco - First 3 albums
PFM - First 3 albums
Ange - First 4 albums
 
For the most part, a lot of places in Europe, lacked the equipment that America and England had, and though we might say that Germany had some hi-fi stuff, compared to the bigger studios in London and NY, they had home equipment, and yet, things like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and a lot of electronic stuff from the early 70's still made it and it was quite pretty, pristine and just out of this world.
 
Put on "Epsilon in Malaysian Pale" or "Phaedra" and then realize that you have better equipment at home, TODAY, than they did some 40 plus years ago .. to realize the beauty of some of the stuff done than.
 
In Japan, when you hear things like the Sadistic Mika Band (we gotta get Bapu to redo ... a song or two from that first album .... it's so psychedelic and rocking fun!), you wonder how they got such a clean sound, though Hot Menu, was done professionally later (their "last" album).

Great examples, thanks all :-)

I go to a web site called The Recording Revolution and they are always putting forth groups who did well without the monster audio recording budget. The site focusing on learning how to mix with what you have, and not trying to find the one plug-in that will make your mix (spoiler alert - it doesn't exist!). Anyway, here are links to two recent articles on just the thing you are talking about:

• How This Band Went From Dorm Room Recording To #1 On Spotify
  http://therecordingrevolution.com/2016/08/15/how-this-band-went-from-dorm-room-recording-to-1-on-spotify/
• Using old DAWs, $300 Speakers, And Winning An Emmy
  http://therecordingrevolution.com/2016/07/18/using-old-daws-300-speakers-and-winning-an-emmy/

 
Hope that helps

MandolinPicker
I go to a web site called The Recording Revolution and they are always putting forth groups who did well without the monster audio recording budget. The site focusing on learning how to mix with what you have, and not trying to find the one plug-in that will make your mix (spoiler alert - it doesn't exist!). Anyway, here are links to two recent articles on just the thing you are talking about:

• How This Band Went From Dorm Room Recording To #1 On Spotify
  http://therecordingrevolution.com/2016/08/15/how-this-band-went-from-dorm-room-recording-to-1-on-spotify/
• Using old DAWs, $300 Speakers, And Winning An Emmy
  http://therecordingrevolution.com/2016/07/18/using-old-daws-300-speakers-and-winning-an-emmy/

 
Hope that helps

Cool!!

talent never stopped me! I recorded anyway! oops... I forgot the great album part 

Hi,
 
In general, I would almost suggest that the best examples you can get are by unknown bands, and those in way out of nowhere places, where there is no such thing as a good this and that ... just what there is.
 
The fact that a lot of it, specially from the 70's, in what is known today as "progressive music", has survived and still sells, is basically insane. There is so much stuff in there that never made it to a big studio, and yet, the music is outstanding.
 
Heck ... go listen to Gentle Giant really early stuff. Talk about musicianship making a studio look like a bunch of crap!

Scratch Perry turned out some truly excellent music using very basic kit and facilities. Lots of reggae and ska was recorded using facilities that were primitive compared to what big labels and studios in the UK or US had available. There's a lot of African music being recorded in quite basic studios.

Mind you, even Abbey Road in the 1980s was pretty basic compared to modern studios, even modern DAW-based home studios. We're lucky to be living in a time where getting an extra four tracks doesn't mean spending shedloads of money on a high-maintenance tape machine and perhaps a replacement mixer. Come to that, we don't even need to buy tape.

Modern interfaces are amazingly good, especially considering the cost. Even a basic one can turn in quite respectable results. If we want high-quality compression on every track, it costs us no more than putting a compressor on one track. Same with eq and everything else.

Then there's electronic music, which has moved from a synth costing tens of thousands that fills a room, on top of which a huge amount of other hardware is required to all you need is a computer or even an iPad or Windows tablet to make and record music that would have required a huge budget less than 25 years ago. And if you want to use hardware synths there's a huge range of good ones costing a few hundred or even less. Even guitars are less expensive than they used to be, partly due to manufacturing in lower-wage/lower cost of living economies and partly due to guitars becoming a highly competitive marketplace rather than one dominated by three or four companies.

It's a really good time to be making and recording music.