Recording Your Music in a Studio

There may come a time in your musician's life when you find yourself facing the blank stares of your band mates across the room as you all gather around the stereo hi-fi and listen to the freshly minted EP you completed the day before at that basement studio a few blocks down the road adjacent to a former girly bar. "This is it, boys! The one that's going to take us to the top!" you exclaim as you pop in the disc while everyone waits in anxious patience for the first glimmerings of the band's original music to fill the void.

As the opening notes sift through the air, your well rested ears suddenly realize that they're the wrong notes being played in the wrong key, the drums come in half a measure late, the bass sounds warbly, and the vocals sound like someone singing with a head cold wrapped in thermal underwear. In other words, not only does the recording sound horrible, but the performance sounds even worse!

The most important thing you should bring to a recording studio, aside from all your fancy gear, is knowledge: knowledge of your music, knowledge of the process involved in recording your music, and knowledge in getting the most from yourself and your band mates.

There's nothing worse really than heading into a $50/hour studio to do a recording and then taking the whole day just figuring out the basic parts to your songs because you claim that you haven't played some of them in a long time and need a refresher. A refresher should only take a few minutes, not the whole day!

Prior to the recording session, work out all the parts that you'd want to work into the songs and get a few hours of practice under your belts to make sure that the band is familiar with the songs and the relevant changes. It's a waste of both time and money for you to meticulously figure out the intricacies of the songs during the recording session itself.

Familiarize yourself with the process of recording a band playing at the same time, and the advantages and disadvantages it has over recording one instrument at a time and layering them. This would have a huge influence on the overall sound and feel of your recording, as well as your approach to playing on record. Speak with the resident engineer about what gear you would have to bring, if any, to make the recording go smoothly without anyone having to wait for someone else to bring any necessary gear because you forgot to clear things up with the studio.

Finally, know when a take done by the band is a good take. There will inevitably be a point of diminishing returns in terms of performance quality and vibe, so it's important for the band to realize when they've played their best. There's nothing wrong with getting another take or two down on tape, but if you're striving for a level of perfection that may be impossible to attain by the collective, then it may not be something worth slaving hours on end for. The vibe of the group's performance will always hold more weight than note for note accuracy and clinical precision.