My recollection is that even back then, the capital outlay required wasn't egregious. I recall a friend setting up a space with second-hand pro mixing board, amps, mics, etc all for around $10-15K in initial expense. And all sourced on various internet forums. Of course, today the mac book pro alone may set you back $5K+!
Other big costs at the professional level included hardware gates, compressors, tape machines (2 inch analog IIRC), the software (Cubase) and the Macs with the memory and storage required to run it, and staff -- a few engineers and manager employed by the studio and the hired guns brought in for specific tasks.
I was just listening to "Justified & Ancient," one of The KLF's hits from 1991/1992. I don't think it would have been possible to do a song like that (and the remixes) with the Amiga and other low-cost home gear of that era. It's really complex and layered, and Jimmy Cauty and the people he worked with were really pushing the capabilities of the software and studio hardware they had at their disposal. Check out these two mixes of that song:
They shifted key with some very complex backing harmonies to make the two versions. It's possible they did that in the studio with singers, but I suspect that was probably done at the console, with hardware and software handling the shift. It would save a lot of time (and money) applying tech for that use case.
Of course, nowadays it is like you said -- the bedroom/home studio model followed by Billie Eilish and her brother and practically every other up-and-coming artist.
The technology shift is very liberating, and opens up music to a much wider range of artists, but there's something lost, as well. A really powerful documentary about this trend was made by Dave Grohl some years back about Sound City in L.A. and the Neve console that powered recordings by Neil Young, RATM, Tom Petty, and more. Details: https://www.npr.org/2013/03/08/173823162/dave-grohl-finds-mu...
It's a different vibe, that's for sure. I could go on for days about the technical differences, analog 2-inch tape versus a to d converters and so on. Analog synths, effect boxes now replaced by VST plug-ins.
But I thinkt the biggest difference is really more on the human level. It used to be an enterprise that by its very nature required multiple people to be working together. Now, music is a largely solitary endeavor. Back when, you started playing with your friends in the garage, and if you move to the next level you recorded in the studio together. Now you put together a demo on your Mac, throw it out into the world, and if it goes viral you get to do it again.
Different times.
I was a studio engineer the same time as you, predominantly in a studio in Sheffield. I was blessed for the fact that the studio had an epic live room, fabulous collection of mics and outboard, including some mental compressors from Tubetech and E.A.R. - all recorded to 2 inch via a Neve that we had dismantled from its previous home in CTV and rebuilt and installed over the course of a month or two.
Around the time I moved on, Logic Audio was really coming into its own, particularly the plugins available. I remember seeing an AC30 plugin (we used to have a lovely AC30 in the flesh) so I figured "this will be *", but it wasn't - times they were a'changing :)
I was a little sad because I loved the all the moving parts and collective effort/experience that it took to build a record, and watching it all disappear inside a box seemed to steal some of the magic. That of course is just the opinion of a tech guy - for the guys on the other side of the glass, it has been a game changer democratising access to making records. (Not that it stopped some people at the time - I remember the massive A&R bun fight over Gomez when they appeared - they very shrewdly managed to get an excellent deal, together with advance and then promptly went back into the tiny studio they recorded the demos in and put that out - it did sound great to be fair)
Sort of back on topic - never got near Amigas. Before Macs becoming ubiquitous it was all Atari STs ...
I run Ableton Live 9 and Logic Pro along with all of my normal software instruments and effects on a 2009 Macbook Pro that was given to me for free. Upgraded to an SSD and 8GB of RAM and it runs nearly just as well as on my 2013 Macbook Pro - which I would use but the keyboard has started to go out.
My point is you could just buy a used MacBook or a lower end MacBook for far, far less than 5k.
On the flip side of that I have a synthesizer that has increased in value five fold since I bought it in 2007.
I had an electronic music studio from around 1997 to early 00s, which over the years has cost a lot of money. I sold it all off at a massive loss in the end (A Yamaha Promix 1 mixer was gone for 70 quid for example) and years later moved to a software only world. Back then the gear was necessary. When I sold it it seems an unnecessary luxury. Still miss it though.
One classic comment about a major uk star "97 FUKI*&G tracks in pro tools for his vocal"
Rick Rubin on Metallica circa 2008, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/rick-rubin-my...
"Aaaand we're out of memory."
Explains why samples tended to be really short .. and also why some artists (or their labels) did make the investment in studio time & the professionals who knew how to take this tech to the next level.
I worked in a 24-track studio in London in the early 90s where dance music was recorded, mixed, and remixed by The KLF and Nomad, among others, as well as soundtracks by Hans Zimmer, who owned the studio. There was a small army of people who not only knew the studio hardware (the board, Moog, compressors, gates, etc.) but also Cubase, sequencers, and other software, which was quite expensive but utterly necessary to crank out the hits played on the radio and the remixes that were preferred in the clubs.