Indie Do It Yourself (DIY) music has made a claim to fame in the last 10 years. Studios are no longer as necessary as they were and great music can be recorded with just an interface and a laptop. Whether it be a lo-fi DeMarco song or a gritty rap track, you can now create beautiful music from the comfort of your own bedroom. However, in my opinion, outside of music genius, a DIY styled music approach can result in a mixed bag of sounds. When you want your car fixed by a professional you go to garage just like you go to a studio to get your music recorded by a professional engineer. However, you can now go on YouTube and learn to fix your car by yourself. Who knows, you may get better results doing it this way. However, the essential issue I have with DIY styled recording is that while you can create a very cool sound by yourself; you are still limited by the confines of your understanding of sound as a science.
What I see happen time and time again is a weird amalgamation of expensive plugins, poor quality microphones and google informed mixing. I am not saying that DIY is an illegitimate route, in fact, there are many artists I am heavily inspired by that take on the whole process by themselves. What I am saying is that there is nothing worse than a folk song that wants to be a rock song. Commit to the DIY sound or seek out a studio. Do not do both. It is like dressing up a donkey as a race horse. If you want your song to sound like a race horse, you have to pay that price. Now that doesn’t mean it will sound good, but you can ensure it will be that quality. Just the same as DIY. In fact, it is the lack of quality that makes it so darn good. My advice? Trust the sound you are aiming for. This mean being genuine to process that will authenticate this sound. There is no right or wrong way to record music , but there are certainly dos and do nots.
Aaron Wylder
@aaron_wylder