How to Succeed as an Artist in a Recording Studio
For many musicians, hitting the recording studio can be an incredibly exciting or anxious time if they haven’t done it before. Whether the swing is up or down, it is extreme. If you are looking at your first time hitting a recording studio – or you would like to be sometime soon, there are a few things you should know, to make sure you have a good, productive session and experience.
Now remember that you are going to a place to work. Recording a song is about getting a perfect – or as close to perfect – take as possible. Whether a perfect take means recording the Motown funk band in the attic, or it means isolating each drum and re-recording and retrofitting together samples, it can be repetitive and it can be tedious.
Understanding the reality of recording is going to help you better prepare yourself overall and help you to succeed in the long run. Before you hit the studio, make sure you read the rest of this article!
Have A Game Plan and Budget
You don’t show up to a recording studio with a guitar and learn how to play it and then write your songs and eventually record them – it would be way too expensive! Well, the same is true on the engineer or producer’s side of the fence, and to that end, you need to get in touch with them and get a game plan together.
Different sounds employ different techniques – different microphone configurations, maybe you need to rent a space to record the ambiance of a room? You never know. This isn’t a drop-in tattoo shop we’re talking about, it’s a highly specialized and technical facet of engineering.
Get in touch with several studios and find out about their rates and how they would go about producing your project. If you are trying to put together a budget, they can help you get an idea of what you will need to accomplish your goals.
If you have a budget, they can help you work within it, but you need to keep them in the loop! If you are working with a label and they have dictated the budget and the studio, this will help you stick to the budget and contribute to your image as a professional.
Show Up Ready to Work
This is like an extension of the first, but it applies to when you get there. Be prepared and rested for a long day. Have patience! There will be interruptions, there will be mistakes, and there will be lots of reasons to feel agitated. Stay positive and focus on the work.
Respect the Space & the Equipment
A recording studio is typically filled with all kinds of expensive equipment that is often not in production anymore. Be careful with any food or beverage – and treat everything with respect. In many recording studios you will find no need to touch a microphone ever, so don’t, unless you are trained with them or are asked to, just leave them alone.
Lots of artists like to invite friends and family along to watch when they are recording – this can be a useful tool. Having an audience present is a thing that many artists find to help them get the most out of their performance. With that being said – you don’t need to roll with your whole crew.
Bringing a big raucous group of people into a recording studio is just bad form! Unless you are playing it into a microphone or an engineer asks, don’t touch it!
Stay Positive
Being in the studio can mean long days of problem-solving, endless dilemmas, and difficult decisions. Stay positive. Many people are dying to be in your shoes – a bad day of music is still better than a good day working for the man, right?!
Just expect that some things are not going to go as planned and try to go with the flow. When it comes to putting a record together or recording any piece of music, things don’t always go to plan. Try and roll with it – history has been made that way before and it will surely happen again!
If you want to learn more about music production and the recording arts, check out our Studio recording program here!