Recording in The Studio-A Primer

March 27, 2008 at 04:03 PM

Recording in The Studio-A Primer

So whether your in a band or your a songwriter, at some point you will probably want to record your masterpiece. These sessions can be for fun,for the archives or for money or better yet all 3!
So if I was writing this piece 20 years ago we would be talking about recording with tape in a decent size studio and decent sized budget. If I may recall one of my earlier recording sessions in the late 1980’s. We had a 4 piece band and wanted to record a 3 song demo tape to get club bookings. We found a small local studio, nice size about 800 sq ft with a decent design to it. They had a separate booth for recording drums. That was kind of the norm. Either a giant room or a little room to put the drums in. A very tight drum sound without much natural ambience. Anyway, we had to pay an hourly rate of $45 per hour which was about average for a smaller studio. We also had to purchase tape. If i recall for 3 songs it was about $150. We also had to buy a mixdown reel which was about $40. So before we hit the first note, we spent $190. Everything moved real slow then. Just rewinding and fast forwarding took forever. We were cutting on an 8 track machine. If I remember the way it worked we cut drums bass scratch gtr and scratch vocal. Then bounced the drums down to make room for overdubs. In the end the drums became a stereo pair. 6 tracks were left for vox,gtr bass etc. Because of the slowness of these sessions we rehearsed quite a bit before we went into the studio. Even today the studio is not the place to learn the song. All in all when said in done,with minimal takes, I think we spent about $900 to record including tape. We left with our reference cassette tape.
With all of the advancements in technology in the last few years, you can produce a radio friendly demo for pennies on the dollar. Assuming you already have a computer, you can buy an inexpensive interface (Digidesign Mbox etc) with software included,a few mics and set up in your bedroom for less than $1000. Of course you can buy some nicer mics and more advanced systems, but again for less than $1000 you get a lot of mileage.
With the internet and instant networking, you can reach out to people around the world and learn about recording. There are several documents online to get you started. Just do a search for basic home recording and you will return a plethora of information to research. As you get better, you will find a lot of neat recording techniques that you can incorporate into your sessions. Remember that there really isnt any rules or laws when it comes to recording. Do you like the way it sounds? Does it hold up to other things you like? Then it worked. The other thing you may discover when recording is someone made a mistake and you ended up keeping it because it sounded cool. The only time the rules may differ is if your doing work for somebody else and they want a certain polished sound that you dont know how to obtain. Like if you are working on a Janet Jackson record that has over 100 tracks of just her vocals. Not my thing, but thats a whole other story.
So whatever you want to do, a small investment will go a long way. If you dont feel like you want to be bothered with the DIY thang, next time we will discuss going to somebody else’s studio.
-Earl Smith