The advances in technology for home recording studios have been astonishing over the past 20 years. Honestly, we wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for home recording. However, home recording has its disadvantages. Most people’s homes or apartments are not built with proper design or acoustical properties for a “clean” recording. Commercial recording studios invest tens of thousands of dollars in designing and building rooms that are properly balanced for resonance, timbre, and sonic frequency response. You may be able to “bury” your neighbor’s lawnmower in your mixes, but fragments of unwanted noises will always remain. Larger studios are also equipped with microphones and gear that are typically impractical for the home studio. This allows us to capture intricate details of the performance and dynamics that are often lost in home recordings. Then there is the mixing/mastering… most musicians and DIY engineers have a pretty good ear for what they want but don’t have the experience, gear, or ability to incorporate that sound in the mix.