United States

Jahva

I have external speakers tied to my computer and when I turned the bass up on your song it really growled! I just hadn't heard it in the first listen. It truly put another sort of ambiance on the song. (for me at least)

I gave my squire bass to my step son and got a Hohner five string. Not terribly expensive and makes an awesome sound. (active pickups)

Talbot

I bought the Squire out of necessity more than anything didn't even shop much. Found it on CL for the price of a few pairs of strings... and it serves a good purpose for these demos.
I'm not too concerned about the over-all quality of recording as much as the quality of "song".
I've been wanting to go and do some studio recordings but $$ can be a real deterrent from such whimsical notions!
That... and I can never decide which songs to do!

Save your 'studio money' for home studio improvements (amp sim, maybe a mic preamp, etc). You're getting good overall quality already.

I hear you Mike... you can decent sounds at home and for what I'm doing it's good enough to me. I'm not too concerned with the techie stuff... I'm just trying to write some songs... the recording is out of necessity so others can critique. I remember using a single track cassette recorder... it was good enough to put down an idea so having a mic and so many tracks available is beautiful thing. And you don't have to pay anyone 40 bucks an hour.

But in the end what separates home from a real studio is in the microphones and outboard equipment. Well that and an engineer who knows what the hell he is doing.
Tens of thousands of dollars in microphone quality isn't going to be duplicated by any plug-in.
Studios are reasonably priced here in Charlotte but now is not the time for me.
It's more of a "eventually going to do it keeps getting put off can't decide which songs" blah blah blah... other than feeding my own ego there isn't much reason to do it. I suppose I can use the ol posterity reasoning. So yeah I'd rather go into a studio than take any more steps toward being an engineer

Subscribe to Tape Op magazine (it's free) and start reading the forums at homerecording.com. Good way to get a perspective on recording.
It's not ALL about the equipment (and more and more studios are not using much outboard equipment anymore). If you capture your mic-ed parts well, is there any real difference between a $100 SM57, a $200 condensor , a $500 ribbon, or a $5000 Neumann? More often, it is about the recording space itself.
You can pay 100s of $$ to record at a studio, or for an engineer to mix, etc, but will anyone but you really notice a difference in the overall sound? The more parts in the music, the less each one matters individually - if its just you on an acoustic and singing, 1 track of each, you can hear noise, frequency issues, etc, but when you add drums, bass, a couple of electrics .... only the most discerning ears in the best listening place (like a studio's mixing /mastering room) are going to hear it.
Once you compress to MP3 or MP4, (which it seems 90%+ of people use these days for their daily listening), true quality sound takes the back seat anyway. Better to mix/master so it sounds decent when compressed to MP3.
Just my opinion.
For an example - recording my acoustic, all the 'best advice' said use a 2-mic, use the better condensor mic, etc. I tried them all, side by side comparisons. There was very little difference in each method. Other than the condensor picked up too much 'room' even when as close as the dynamic mic.

I have a much better understanding today then when I first started this a few years ago... and yeah there is room for improvement but as you know it's all a matter of available time and interest.
I'm content with what I'm getting I know it's not "Broadcast Quality" or even close. I'm searching to improve... but it's to improve as a song writer mostly.
Structure, lyrics, phrasings chit like that.

Don't get me wrong Mike I appreciate your knowledge and help. That's why I come here to talk about and learn about music. Like I said before I'm going to focus more on bass sounds to see if I can getter a better groove going on the next song.
Thanks again.