Maximizing Your Recording Budget
Other money saving studio tips.
By Steve Sherrard
MusicTECH Productions
If you hire a producer, he or she will help guide you through the entire recording process. If you end up producing the project yourself, or still believe that you can't afford or don't need a producer, then these tips will help you make the most out of your studio time.
Setting up
Show up at the studio early. Most studios will start charging you at the scheduled time whether you are there or not. In addition, most studios plan at least an hour between sessions for set up and tear down time. If you have a lot of equipment, such as a drum kit or huge keyboard or guitar rig, be sure to show up at least half an hour ahead of time to set up so that you can get started at or close to your scheduled time. Most studios won't charge for set up time unless you have a really big set up.
Try to make the studio a comfortable place to work. You need to feel comfortable and relaxed in order to get a good performance. Don't bring friends or other unnecessary people that could possibly cause distractions. Dim the lights, use candles or lava lamps, or whatever you need to make you feel at ease. Don't bring your cell phone or pager on anything else that could distract you.
If you don't have a producer, it is very important to go over your songs with the engineer to make sure that he or she understands the type of sound you are going for. Hopefully you checked out the engineer ahead of time and listened to other material he or she has worked on. Communication during the session between yourself and the engineer is very important to getting the results you want and to keeping everyone comfortable during the recording.
Plan out your track usage according to how many tracks the studio has in order to ensure you leave enough room for all the parts you need for each song. Try to record each song with as close to the same track set up as possible, (always put the basic instruments on the same tracks for each song, for example, bass on track one, drums on tracks two through ten, guitar on track eleven, etc.). If the engineer doesn't have to change the setup of the console for each song, it will greatly simplify and speed up the tracking and mixing.
Make sure you put new strings on your guitars and new heads on your drums, and bring spares! Bring plenty of drum sticks, quality working cords, and picks. Know where the closest music store is and its hours just in case you need to make a run there for some reason. New strings and drum heads are essential for getting a good sound. For guitars, make sure you plan ahead to allow yourself time to stretch the strings out to avoid tuning problems. Make sure that you know how to tune your drum kit or bring along someone who does. If your instruments don't sound good to begin with, no engineer is going to be able to make them sound great. If you don't own good sounding instruments, consider renting them for the studio session. Everything starts with the source, and you don't want your instrument or amplifier to be the weak link in the chain. If you do decide you need to rent equipment for the session, be sure that you take the time to get familiar with the equipment before you go into the studio. You don't want there to be any surprises!
Recording
Keep in mind that it is emotion and feeling that make a great song, not necessarily technical perfection. If a part feels right, leave it alone. Working on a part over and over to try to make it technically perfect can sometimes destroy the emotional aspect of the part. If a part as a few minor mistakes, but has a great feel, it might be worth keeping.
If you make a mistake while recording, don't stop and start over. With multitrack recording, you can punch in and correct simple mistakes for most parts. Drums are about the only part that you need to try to get in one complete take (and even drums can be punched in if there is a break in the song or sometimes at any part in the song if you have a great drummer and a digital recorder). Most other parts are easy to punch in and fix on any type of recorder.
Just because you may have 24 or more tracks available, doesn't mean you have to use them all! Sometimes less is more. Don't try to squeeze extra parts into a song just because you have extra tracks available.
Reserve the most time for the part that is the main focus of the song. If it's the vocals, spend the most time working on them. Build a strong foundation for the focal point of the song, but don't waste valuable studio time sweating small details that don't highlight the focal point.
Don't rely on being able to "fix it in the mix." Get the sound you want while recording. You need to get the instruments sounding the way you want them to sound and make sure that the engineer chooses the right microphones and uses them appropriately to capture that sound.
Record individual tracks clean and add the effects later. It is hard to tell what each part will sound like in the final mix while you are tracking. If you insist on recording your guitar parts through a processor with tons of reverb and delay, you won't be able to remove or change any of that reverb or delay later when you or mixing. What might sound great at the time might not work in the final mix once all the parts have been recorded. Too much reverb and delay can makes things sound distant and muddy, and if it is recorded on tape that way there is nothing you can do except re-record it. All mixing studios have a large assortment of great sounding reverbs and delays that can be added appropriately during mixdown.
Don't waste time double tracking everything. Plan out ahead of time which parts should be doubled. You need to have contrast in a song for it to be effective, and doubling a part can sometimes hide the subtleties that can give a song personality. If you are going to double vocals, try doubling them only during the chorus or bridge to make those parts bigger.
Know when it is time to call it quits for the day. If you are tired or are simply having a bad day, it will show. Don't try to force the issue.
Don't bring guests to your recording session. They can distract you and may try to tell you how they think your music should sound. It's your recording and your studio time. Don't bring along anyone or anything that could possibly distract you and cost you valuable time.
Check your tuning often. There is no excuse for out of tune parts. Bring a
tuner along with you and make sure it has fresh batteries.
Make backup copies after each recording session whenever possible. It might be difficult to make a copy of a 2-inch reel-to-reel tape (and these tapes are expensive), but these machines and tapes are usually very robust. However, you still aren't protected against operator error, accidental erasure, or lost or stolen tapes unless you have a safety copy. Many studios are now using the more cost effective modular digital multitrack recorders (MDMs). There are different brands and formats, but they all use low cost video tape formats to record on. The tape is much cheaper, but the tapes and the machines are not as reliable as the big reel-to-reel analog machines. Since the tapes are so inexpensive, there is no excuse for not making backup copies after each recording session.
Vocalist should bring water along with them but should avoid using ice since it can constrain your vocal chords. Hot tea with lemon and honey is a very popular drink for vocalists in the studio!
Be sure to get an accurate track sheet and take log from the studio for each session.
Monitoring and Mixing
Bring along CDs that you are used to hearing on your home system and listen to them in the studio to get your ears used to how the studio's system sounds. As you get close to finishing each mix, check your mix against a CD of similar material to check your song's relative levels and sound.
Check your mixes at moderate levels in your car or on a boom box. This is how most people will hear your music, so you want to make sure it sounds good on these types of systems. Most mixes sound great when played at loud volumes on the studio's system. But most people aren't going to hear it this way. Make sure your mixes sound good at lower levels on other systems. In addition, monitoring at loud volumes in the studio will quickly fatigue your ears and distort the "true" sound of the mix.
Don't try to mix right after a long tracking session. Your ears need time to rest and readjust. Take a day or two off and then come back in to do the mixing. You may also need to do the same when mixing. Sometimes taking a day off and then coming back to listen will give you a better idea of how your mix really sounds. Even when mixing at moderate levels, the ears will fatigue quickly. Take plenty of ear breaks and don't try to mix for more than six or eight hours in a day.
When reviewing your mixes, make sure that you can comfortably hear each instrument, even on a small pair of speakers at very low volume levels. Makes changes to the mix until it sounds right and you can hear each instrument even at these very low levels on small speakers.
Quit when you start to get tired. You are much better off quitting a session early than wasting time while you are tired. You won't hear things right when you are tired and you'll just end up making a bad mix that will have to be redone anyway.
If you are not working with a producer, elect a member of the band to act as the producer ahead of time. This person should be the one to make the final decisions and to communicate with the engineer. An engineer getting opinions from every member of the band on how the mix should sound will quickly get tired or discouraged and will probably not do a very good job for you.
Trust the engineer or producer you selected to do the first mix of each song for you. Their ears are better trained than yours and they know how parts fit together in the sonic spectrum. Try to keep an open mind and wait until they get the first mix set up before making any comments. A good mix engineer or producer knows how different types of instruments will fit together in the mix and knows how to shape the sound of each instrument appropriately. Room has to be made for each instrument in the sonic spectrum, which means getting rid of frequencies in some instruments that conflict with the primary frequency range of other instruments. Most inexperienced bands want to hear each instrument "soloed" all by itself and then will add EQ at frequencies across the entire spectrum to make the instrument sound great by itself. However, when the instrument is placed back in the mix with everything else, it will not sound the same and will usually be covering up other instruments that also need to be heard. Trust the producer and engineer to get everything in its proper place in the spectrum first, and then you can give them general remarks such as to make an instrument brighter, beefier, warmer, darker, etc. The producer or engineer will then be able to make the appropriate adjustments to the initial mix they have set up to give you the results you desire.
Focus on the song and not the individual instruments. Decide what is most important in each song and make sure that all the parts support the focal point of the song. Most inexperienced band members are only concerned about their part and usually want their part louder. Each member keeps telling the producer or engineer that their part should be louder until it turns into a "snail race" and every fader on the mixing console gets pushed all the way up. Again, it's important to trust the producer and engineer, or to at least appoint just one member of the band to be the spokesperson who makes the final calls. Leave your egos at the door and focus on making each song the best it can be rather than worrying about if your part is loud enough or not.
Figure out ahead of time what format you are going to mix to. The most common choices these days are DAT or analog reel-to-reel. DAT is a digital format and is much more cost effective than analog reel-to-reel. However, many people still prefer the sound of a high quality reel-to-reel analog machine. Whatever you decide, make sure to make back up copies. If you are mixing to DAT, try to mix to two DAT machines at once (if the studio has more than one) or to at least make a digital copy from your master DAT as soon as possible after the mixing session. If mixing to reel-to-reel, you should also mix to DAT at the same time for a safety copy, or make a copy from the reel-to-reel to a DAT machine after the mixes are completed.
Plan ahead and budget for extra time. Most recording projects always seem to take longer than originally planned. There are any number of things that can cause unforeseen delays or setbacks. These delays can occur in any step of the project from tracking to the manufacturing of your final product. Give yourself plenty of extra time before your release date to cover these delays.
The Final Word
Hopefully this booklet has provided a few tips and alternative methods of putting together a project that you may not have thought of or heard about before. The most important thing to remember about any project is that the music comes first! If you start with great songs and then add to that good musicianship, good sounding instruments, and great performances recorded, mixed, and mastered by technically competent producers and engineers, you should end up with a product you can be happy with and should have no problem selling to your loyal fans or attracting the attention of a record label. If you start with songs that are less than great, creative producers and engineers may be able to help you out a little bit, but they will never be able to produce the results that they are fully capable of with great songs. Concentrate on writing better songs and on improving your musicianship, and let the talented producers and engineers take it from there.
For more information, or to discuss your next project and set up a tour/interview, call Steve Sherrard at MusicTECH at (206) 860-1230, or for equipment list details, client lists, services offered, and much more, visit the MusicTECH web site at: http://www.music-tech.com/reality
MusicTECH offers a wide variety of music & audio services for everything from simple singer/songwriter demos, to full album production services, to multimedia audio services, to jingles, to full film/video scoring & post services. If it has to do with music or audio, MusicTECH can do it!
