How to Record a Band's Demo

The ease with which virtually anyone can come up with a demo recording of their tunes has caused an exponential growth in the number of new bands and acts in the past few years. The internet has become a primary medium for bands with demos by allowing them to market with a vehicle that is available 24/7 around the world through webpages such as MySpace, and keep in touch with their peers and fans with sites such as Facebook. Thanks to simple and intuitive applications such as Apple's Garageband, groups can now create a collection of their tracks at a low budget and fairly minimum capital for distribution or presentation to the labels. And thanks also to these simple and intuitive applications, more and more poorly recorded material is making their way out to the internet and to the ears of listeners everywhere. One way to rise above the din and set your band apart is to come up with a well recorded demo that you can be proud to hand out at gigs and can accurately represent your band to listeners and the labels.

In recording a band's demo, the first important step comes in the form of pre-production. Pre-production allows you, the would be engineer/producer, to hear what the songs sound like with the band playing it in a live situation. One may opt to record this pre-production session for future reference, but the main factor for going through such a session is to get a feel for how the band sounds and plays in the confines of the studio. If the band is giving you production credit or allowing you to modify the songs, pre-prod is also the time to iron out some wrinkles in the songwriting and arrangement, potentially turning a run of the mill track into a must-hear event. Lyrics can be written down during pre-production, as well as the keys and chords of the songs.

What usually follows is the recording of the actual material, either with the band playing together live (the preferable option if space/gear permits, in my opinion), or track by track with the drums going in first, then guitars, keys, other instruments, and finally vocals. I personally feel that recording the band live has an advantage in the sense that as the engineer/producer, one can impart the feel of the band's stage performance on tape, which is a huge plus if the band is very dynamic onstage and has a powerful live show.

Mixing comes next in line, wherein one achieves a favorable balance of each instrument in the mix. Processing that serve to heighten the program material such as EQ and compression are added at this stage as well. Once the mix is done, you can give the finished copy to the band for their perusal, or you can send it over to a mastering house for a more polished and professional result.

The secret to making an effective demo isn't necessarily to capture on tape the band's most perfect take, but to capture their most powerful, energetic and convincing performance.