Recording in real studio, mixing at home w/ Pro Tools, mastering at real studio
 

If I record a song at a real studio, and I bring all the .wav files home, and mix them on a PC using Pro Tools LE, then master it at a real studio, what do I lose in the way of sound quality? It's just a rock song with two guitars, bass, drums and vocals. The studio uses Steinberger Nuendo.
What if I mix it and master it at the studio and load it into Pro Tools and EQ it a little bit? Do I lose anything?

Re: Recording in real studio, mixing at home w/ Pro Tools, mastering at real studio
 

It depends on what you have at home in the way of gear. If you don't have a good quality monitoring environment, you are going to make incorrect judgments regarding the mix. By environment, I mean the whole signal chain from audio interface to monitors to room acoustics.

You might want to study up a little on what mastering is actually for.

Maybe what you are asking is will your computer inherently degrade the original in some way. I would say no, only the human aspects of it will do the damage.

Re: Recording in real studio, mixing at home w/ Pro Tools, mastering at real studio
 

Your hypothetical has less to do with gear and far more to do with the skill of the operator(s).
Really.

Re: Recording in real studio, mixing at home w/ Pro Tools, mastering at real studio
 

Thanks y'all, if I screw it up, it's my fault and not the computer or software.

Re: Recording in real studio, mixing at home w/ Pro Tools, mastering at real studio
 

you really should not have to eq anything after you master, like someone here said, read up a bit on mastering and you will see why very quickly.

Re: Recording in real studio, mixing at home w/ Pro Tools, mastering at real studio
 

Really don't take it as an offence, but if you have a question like this, you should give your material to engineer/mastering eng., and don't touch it after.

Really read about the whole process. Don't make it upside down.
The correct order would be, read-read-practice-practice-, etc.

Re: Recording in real studio, mixing at home w/ Pro Tools, mastering at real studio
 

I'd take it back for bounce down and maybe a final tweak.They may have a better clocking system which may effect the bounce. They may be able to offer some sort of analog summing too. But that's all extra frog skins.

Re: Recording in real studio, mixing at home w/ Pro Tools, mastering at real studio
 

I've never gotten anything from a studio that I was 100 per cent satisfied with. Maybe not even 90 per cent. "OK" is the best I've ever gotten.

Re: Recording in real studio, mixing at home w/ Pro Tools, mastering at real studio
 

Not a good idea...
actually, it shouldn't even be 1...

Re: Recording in real studio, mixing at home w/ Pro Tools, mastering at real studio
 

If this has been the case on more than one occasion, then you have to start wondering if maybe it's you that doesn't hear things right.

It depends on your goal. If the goal is to have something with which YOU are 100% satisfied and you don't give a rat's patoot what others think, then you should do the work yourself. Or feel free to modify someone else's mixing and/or mastering. You are the final customer.

But if the goal is to have the recording acceptable to the masses and the industry, then you would be well advised to accept the product of people who have a reputation of consistently being able to do that, regardless of what you think of it. You are not the final customer in this instance.

Reputation and proof of previous work is key for the second scenario, especially if your ears are not agreeing with the outcome. To use an extreme example, if the likes of a George Martin did a mix and master for me, and it didn't sound right (to me), I would question my ability to discern what is right.