How To Plan For The Studio

As many of you know, wasting time in the studio can add up on your bill pretty quickly. You’ll inevitably strike up conversations and try to talk through a problem you’re having, so don’t stress too much. To keep it in check, it’s best to come planned and prepared as much as possible!

Photo by Tom Pottiger on Unsplash

Plan The Order Of Recording

Not only should you plan what songs you’re recording in what order, but also who is recording and in what order.

This largely depends on how you’re recording; some engineers have the space and equipment to record multiple people at once (which can be good or bad, they have their pros and cons). Usually the drums are tracked first because it lays down the beat for everyone else, and the drums take such a large portion of the sound, from the low frequencies in the kick drum all the way up to the shimmer in the cymbals.

Before deciding on the order, it’s best to ask the engineer for their input in addition to your band; they may want to record something first or last for a particular reason. Other than that, you know your band best and whatever order works best for you, do it!

Cramming In Recording

Everyone wants to get their recordings down as quickly as possible; but sometimes you’re just trying to fit too much into one day.

This has many consequences even though on the outside it looks great to get everything done in one day.

For one, the performances can suffer. If your musicians are feeling rushed and stressed, it’s not necessarily the best environment for the best takes you can get, especially for vocalists. Granted, sometimes stress can help a performance, but for the most part it’s best to keep things as stress-free as possible.

Secondly, sometimes being over-confident in your ability to record quickly can bite you; the reality is that you’re depending on other people to do their best and fastest work, and without knowing what can go wrong or how slow it actually is. This can largely fall to the engineer, depending on how fast they can work.

So, it’s best to err on the side of caution when planning how much you can get done in a day.

Batch Recording

The best way to be efficient and effective recording an album is to batch record!

This is when you record as many songs as you can on one instrument; after all, everything is already set up! You can save so much more time recording the whole album’s drum tracks in one sitting than it is to record all of one song for each song there is.

You’d be setting up drums 10 times for the album as opposed to just once if you only did the drums first for every song! Not only that, but the sound will be more consistent across all of the songs by leaving the drums/guitars/piano set up throughout the album recording.

This also makes it easy to determine the order of recording, since each musician will have one specific time when they are recording. Of course, you may want to go back and add or improve on some parts, but for the most part, batch recording can help you save time, get better performances, and keep the stress levels at a minimum.

If you’d like to fully plan your studio session, you’re in luck! Here's a fully comprehensive free checklist you can use to make sure you’re 100% absolutely ready for the studio! All you have to do is head over to the blog homepage and scroll to the bottom and you can download it from there! Hope it helps you out!

-Michael