3) Be Realistic, plan your session and approach.
If you have booked your session in the studio for a weekend or a couple of days just pick a couple of songs, at a push maybe three.
Wanting to record 6 or more usually is the start of disaster and clock watching becomes the new sport as the time drifts away.
Believe me I have had to sit down quite a few times to discuss a more productive approach to bands believing they can do this.
Put it this way and let me explain,
if your in for a 16-20 hour recording, this how maybe a band session will run-
First setting up can take anything from a hour or two, etc miking drums and getting them to sound right. Lol maybe even waiting for the singer who left the lyrics at home ;) Even the odd ghost in the machine, where I have had to speak to my computer firmly.
But of course any time lost is not taken into account from the band side when it's from my end.
If your multi-tracking/layering (your songs (to record certain instruments separate over pervious recorded instruments )then this will take time. If your still in the dark what this means I going to write a blog on it so don't worry.
Recording drums, bass guitar,rhythm and lead guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals Maybe keyboards or bag pipes/solo cowbell then you can say maybe a hour or two on each instrument to put these in your songs, don't forget we are all human and everyone is different and it can take some time on performing parts.
So your talking maybe a whole day if your lucky to get everyone down on tape, sorry computer I meant for your songs.
Then after that it's the polishing off time for the song(s) (called editing)from the engineers side like fixing small problems, adding magic sprinkle dust to get it to sound as they believe it should, also taking out the swear words from the vocal track before the start of the singing parts, or any other noises they believe we can't hear.
Then it's mixing, which is making each instrument at the correct sound level and good with each other and finally to putting the whole songs to cd or audio device of your choice.
So pick your best couple of songs (and one on the back burner) to record as your demo and a structured approach to your days will help things good more smoothly and save you time and stress.
Also another few small tips is try to make sure you mix on a separate day from your recording day as it gives you ears time to rest and to check the way the instruments work together in the song, fresh.
Ears get tired after being exposed to music for a long period of time and start to fool you into not thinking the cowbell solo is not loud enough!
Also as a studio engineer/producer I always believe in putting each song on a cd or USB drive as I mix each or the whole lot. I then play the song(s) on as many rubbish speaker systems I have to see if the bands happy and I am too with how it will sounds away from the studio monitors.
For example this can be on a car stereo, computer speakers, a old cd boom box that's from the Stone Age etc. I have even have emailed the song to my phone to have a listen but balancing/mixing for this type of media is different, but I just wanted to see, I meant hear, oh you know what I'm trying to say.
So ask your engineer to do this if you still have enough time(make time) when your making your songs sound right, believe me you may thank me for it!
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Right after writing that essay I will leave it there as I will add the next Do's And Don't comments in the next couple of days.
Please feel welcome to ask any questions or post any comments and I will answer them.
Even if there anything else about the recording studio.
Keep on rocking :)
Cheers all
Tony
"Phattone Studios"
www.phattone.co.uk
07841110231
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:Reading, Berkshire
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