Recording Studios?

[ZBomber]

OK, so me and my friend are getting pretty excited about a project we've been working on, and we agree it'd be a shame to have it in shitty sound quality. We're thinking about going to a professional studio to get it done. And since that costs a lot of money, we want to make sure we go with a good choice.

So I got a few questions... one, what should I expect for the cost? We are estimating that we will probably have about 45-60 minutes of music, which will include keyboards, drums, bass, vocals, and guitar.... and some parts with have other instruments such as violins, cellos, flutes, and harmonica. How many hours should we expect for that to take, and what would be a good rate?

Second, are there any good studios in the New England area?

Third, I've already designed the cover and liner notes... what would be the best way to go about doing this? I looked up some places online, and it appears it'll cost almost 2000 dollars to make it. I don't need that many copies, maybe like 100... any good places that could make them? The booklet is kind of big. Would it be possible that I could do it myself at home without losing much quality?

This is still off in the future, probably another year or so until we are ready to enter the studio because the song is still not finished, and we want to make sure we've mastered it before we enter the studio to save us time and money. However, I think now is a good time to figure this out since I will likely have to save up quite a bit of cash.

Thanks for the help

[Adami]

It depends really. Are you guys playing all of the instruments? How well does whoever is playing them know the songs note for note? Can you all play to a click track? If all of these are good, it should only take a few full days. Depending on how much layering and so forth you need to do. Expect to spend no less than 30 an hour for good sound and expect it to take several days at the very least.

[ZBomber]

Its gonna be three people, with me playing bass and doing background vocals, my friend playing guitar, violin, cello, and lead vocals, and a drummer. The song isn't done yet, but we plan on being able to play it front to back perfectly before we book studio time so we don't waste any money. There will probably be quite a bit of layering and harmonies, but like I said, ideally we will be fully practiced by the point where we are ready to enter the studio.

I'm not sure about a click track, as I have no experience in that. What exactly is it, and how can we prepare for that before we set foot into the studio?

[Adami]

Its gonna be three people, with me playing bass and doing background vocals, my friend playing guitar, violin, cello, and lead vocals, and a drummer. The song isn't done yet, but we plan on being able to play it front to back perfectly before we book studio time so we don't waste any money. There will probably be quite a bit of layering and harmonies, but like I said, ideally we will be fully practiced by the point where we are ready to enter the studio.

I'm not sure about a click track, as I have no experience in that. What exactly is it, and how can we prepare for that before we set foot into the studio?

It's a metronome. Ideally, you record to it so it keeps you all perfectly in time.

Go to a music store, buy an electronic one, find out the BPMs (Beats per minute) to each section of your songs, and practice to it.

[ZBomber]

Its gonna be three people, with me playing bass and doing background vocals, my friend playing guitar, violin, cello, and lead vocals, and a drummer. The song isn't done yet, but we plan on being able to play it front to back perfectly before we book studio time so we don't waste any money. There will probably be quite a bit of layering and harmonies, but like I said, ideally we will be fully practiced by the point where we are ready to enter the studio.

I'm not sure about a click track, as I have no experience in that. What exactly is it, and how can we prepare for that before we set foot into the studio?

It's a metronome. Ideally, you record to it so it keeps you all perfectly in time.

Go to a music store, buy an electronic one, find out the BPMs (Beats per minute) to each section of your songs, and practice to it.

Ah alright, I always thought it was something more complex than just a metronome. I'll have to buy one pretty soon. What is the best way to deal with tempo changes when playing to a metronome, because there are gonna be quite a few throughout.

[Adami]

Its gonna be three people, with me playing bass and doing background vocals, my friend playing guitar, violin, cello, and lead vocals, and a drummer. The song isn't done yet, but we plan on being able to play it front to back perfectly before we book studio time so we don't waste any money. There will probably be quite a bit of layering and harmonies, but like I said, ideally we will be fully practiced by the point where we are ready to enter the studio.

I'm not sure about a click track, as I have no experience in that. What exactly is it, and how can we prepare for that before we set foot into the studio?

It's a metronome. Ideally, you record to it so it keeps you all perfectly in time.

Go to a music store, buy an electronic one, find out the BPMs (Beats per minute) to each section of your songs, and practice to it.

Ah alright, I always thought it was something more complex than just a metronome. I'll have to buy one pretty soon. What is the best way to deal with tempo changes when playing to a metronome, because there are gonna be quite a few throughout.

Well in the studio, he'll make a tempo map for changing tempos. But for practice, I dunno. Just make sure each section can be played to a click.

[RobD]

Considering that this is your first recording and it's going to be a full album, I would say at least a month would be needed. As far as price, it's not always reflective of the quality. Look for studios that seem reasonable, but always ask the engineers that you're looking at for some examples of their previous work. Choose an engineer you like not only the sound of the work, but someone you get on with great. The gear will only come second to a good engineer, and a crap engineer will sound crap even if they have the greatest most expensive gear in the world.

I'd also like to add that pre-production is the single most important thing you can do. If you want to do all that whilst in the studio, then be prepared for more stress and time whilst in there. There is nothing worse than recording sessions where people are being distracted by how much time and money they are spending. Make the click tracks/midi files before you go in so it's just a matter of putting those into the recording software. Doing them in the studio (especially if there's a lot of changes in tempo and time signatures) will take out at least a day or two for a full album. Make the cliok tracks yourself and practice to them so you are both familiar with them and save time in the studio.

The recording sessions should really be just tracking the instruments to save time, headaches and money.

If there's instruments such as cellos and violins, then you want a studio with a good live room. Small spaces for acoustic instruments are usually not great for them. You want at least a big, controllable room (in the acoustic sense - I.E: control over how much reverb/ambience the room creates) which is good for both close and ambient recording.

Session plans are also advisable for recording an album. Plan who comes in on what day and what needs to be done on those days. This needs to be discussed with the engineer and studio owner, and remember you need to leave several days for mixing, probably a week or two depending on how much there is in the mix.

[Adami]

I don't see how you can think making a tempo map can take a day or two. As long as they can play to the clicks, and have them figured out ahead of time, it takes an hour or two at most.

[RobD]

I don't see how you can think making a tempo map can take a day or two. As long as they can play to the clicks, and have them figured out ahead of time, it takes an hour or two at most.

That's why I said to do them before you get there and prepare for it properly. I've done a lot of sessions with bands that didn't and it's painfully slow getting exactly the right click tracks for a how album's worth of tracks, especially with lots of changes, because you the engineer doesn't know that material. Combined with the band having the wrong pre-concieved ideas about what recording is like and not knowing just how much needs to be done for recording properly to avoid it being done on the fly and ending up sounding terrible and it all adds up.

[Adami]

I don't see how you can think making a tempo map can take a day or two. As long as they can play to the clicks, and have them figured out ahead of time, it takes an hour or two at most.

That's why I said to do them before you get there and prepare for it properly. I've done a lot of sessions with bands that didn't and it's painfully slow getting exactly the right click tracks for a how album's worth of tracks, especially with lots of changes, because you the engineer doesn't know that material. Combined with the band having the wrong pre-concieved ideas about what recording is like and not knowing just how much needs to be done for recording properly to avoid it being done on the fly and ending up sounding terrible and it all adds up.

I love it when bands do stuff like "Well...we wanna record to a click track, but this riff tends to speed up and slow down randomly". Yea, because you don't know how to play it to a click track, jeez.

[ZBomber]

Good advice, thank you! I'll invest in a metronome immediately.