Quote: (GIBBO @ Mar. 23 2011, 3:53 AM)
I suspect this then is just down to the equipment used to record?
Partially... but much much much more of it has to do with as mentioned... the players, the performance, skill of the guy at the console, the ROOM it was tracked in, mic placement (you can easily spend a day just getting sounds on a single drum kit). The last item is critical and for whatever reason no one does it. They toss down a mic and go. Even at "real" studios i have worked in, most techs don't even bother. In real studios the control room and recording space are separate and you can send Kenny the intern out to move around mics and get a great miced sound back through the monitors. Essentially mixing the tune before mixing the tune. For the home one room setup, this is a little more laborious as you have to track something and listen back rather than listen while Kenny the intern moves things around while the players play and you listen back in a separate isolated room.
Also, multitracking things. For instance, even in simple recordings like Greenday they will have 4 bass tracks... a DI, two mics on the amp and maybe a room mic. (Not that you use all of them, but you have lots of options).
Folks at home simply don't put in the time and effort required as often times they think a plug in will fix things.... and until recently, the thought of 100+ tracks for all this multitake stuff was out of reach on older systems. For a single guitar track i am usually using 4-5 tracks. DI, 2 cloe mics, a room mic, maybe split the signal to a second amp for a different tone. Reamping is a valuable tool too. At least get a good DI track and you can mess with getting tones for days with reamping.
