Things Your Band Should Do Before Booking Studio Time
So you want to make a record? You've scraped together some cash or maybe a buddy said they would front you the money and you are booking time at your local studio. If you want to save yourself some time, money, and frustration, put down the phone and read this blog post.
Know Your Songs
In absolute and minute detail, forwards and backwards! If you don't know how your songs go, your engineer or producer can't either. Name your sections, intro, verse, pre chorus, chorus, reintro, bridge, solo, breakdown, outro, etc..... Develop a common language with your bandmates so everyone is on the same page and there is no confusion when it comes time to do punch ins and overdubs. As an individual musician, I like to take this a step further and know not only my parts, but what my bandmates are playing as well. I've been in situations as a producer where one guitarist was playing an A Major while his counterpart was playing an A Minor. Neither of them knew it. Don't make this mistake, it will cost you a lot of time and money to learn the songs in the studio.
Play Your Songs Live Before Tracking In The Studio
Songs have a tendancy to develop over time. If you write a song and head into the studio immediately, you don't give the song the opportunity to grow and morph into a co-creative vision amongst you and your bandmates. Interesting and spontaneous moments happen on stage that are hard to replicate under the budget constraints of studio time. Use your live performances to improvise and see what sticks. Then take it back to the studio after you have it down.
Know How You Are Going To Record
You might need the help of an Engineer or Producer to determine this, but know how you plan on tracking each instrument. Is your rhythm section tight and you plan on tracking the whole band live? Will you use a click? If so, you need to practice to it, EVERYONE, not just the drummer!!! Will you record scratch guitar tracks first and let the drummer play to them? Do you plan on major editing like beat detective, or replacing drum samples? These things often turn out better if you do them before tracking other instruments. These decisions also impact how you progress through the recording process. Develop a plan of attack and allott enough time and resources for each stage of the process.
Develop a Schedule and Budget and Stick To It!
If you have unlimited funds, essentially, you have unlimited time. That doesn't mean your recording will come out better though. Limit your time and budget and use those constraints to help you get the best product possible. If you only have a few thousand dollars at your disposal, don't plan on recording a full album. Use that money to get 3-4 high quality songs to distribute and gain momentum for a full album later on. Less is more. If you play fast and loose while recording, the quality of your product will suffer. You may also want to place limits on how much time you spend on various phases of the recording process. Sir George Martin used to have a maximum amount of time The Beatles could spend on any one song before he forced them to stop working and move on to the next song. It seemed to work out ok for them. If you've spent 4 hours recording a single electric guitar track and still have 10 other tracks to record in the remaining 4 hours, it's probably a good idea to work with what you've got and move on. If you heed my 1st suggestion in this blog post of pre-producing your songs, you can avoid this mistake all together.
This may not be an exhaustive list, but hopefully it will help you and your bandmates keep on time, on budget, and, more importantly, stay creative during the recording process.
