Sooner or later, many musical groups in their work come to a time when for the further advancement and development of the group it is necessary to record a few songs, so to speak, make a demo recording.
Recently, with the development of modern technology to make such a record at home seems quite real, but the quality of such records, of course, leaves much to be desired.
Also, not having certain knowledge and skills of high-quality recording and mixing of sound, the result may be quite different from what the musicians originally hoped for. And it’s not too serious to provide a “makeshift” CD with poor quality of recording on radio or various festivals. Therefore, it is necessary to record a demo only in a professional studio.
Many musicians, who rehearse in garages and cellars for days on end, have a fairly good level of play, but they can't even imagine how songs are recorded in the studio. Therefore, we smoothly proceed to the first point - we choose a recording studio.
Studio selection
It is natural to go to the first recording studio and donate money to rent the equipment provided. For a start, you can ask around familiar musicians, where and at what studios they record their work. Then, having decided on several options, and it is desirable, especially if the recording will be made for the first time, choose an not expensive category among recording studios.
Since during the recording of the demo in the studio, musicians very often begin to look at their music from a different angle. Someone will play the game differently, someone will change the ending, and somewhere the tempo of the composition will have to be changed. All this, of course, a great and positive experience, which can be relied on in the future. Therefore, the ideal option - an inexpensive studio.
You also need to talk with the sound engineer, find out what equipment their studio provides, listen to the materials that were recorded on it. But it’s not worth making conclusions based only on the equipment provided, since there are inexpensive studios equipped only with the most necessary. A sound engineer has golden hands and the output material is no worse than in expensive studios with a huge amount of different equipment.
There is another opinion that you only need to record in expensive recording studios with a lot of equipment, but this is a personal matter for everyone. The only thing that for the beginning group, which is being recorded for the first time, this option is certainly not advisable.
Record song
Before arriving at the recording studio, you should consult with its representative, find out what you need to bring with you. Usually for guitarists it is their gadgets and guitars, sticks for a drummer, a set of iron. Although it happens that for recording it is better to use the provided studio iron, but the sticks are necessary.
And yet, the most important thing that is required from a drummer is the ability to play his entire batch under the metronome, from beginning to end. If he has never played like this in his life, you need to practice a few weeks before recording, and preferably months.
If you need to change the strings on the guitar, it should be done one day before the recording, otherwise they will “float” when recording a song at the studio, that is, they need to be constantly tuned.
So, we proceed directly to the recording itself. First of all, the drums for the metronome are usually recorded. In the intervals between the recording of a separate instrument, operational information is performed. Due to this, the recording of the bass guitar occurs already under the bass drum part. The next instrument in the queue is prescribed a rhythm guitar, respectively, already under two parts - drums and bass guitar. Then the solo and all remaining instruments are recorded.
After recording the batches of all the instruments, the sound engineer is engaged in preliminary mixing. Then the vocal is recorded on the recorded material. This whole process takes a fairly long amount of time. First, before recording, each instrument is individually configured and verified. Secondly, far from the first double, the musician will give out an ideal part of his instrument, at least he will have to play two or three times. And all this time, of course, included in the hourly rental studio.
Of course, much depends on the experience of the musicians and on how many times the group is recorded at the studio. If, for the first time, such an experience and no one musician has no idea how songs are recorded in a studio, then the recording of one instrument will last approximately one hour, assuming that for the first time musicians will often make mistakes and rewrite their parts.
If the rhythm section’s music is well-coordinated and there are no errors in the game, you can record the drum part, bass guitar and rhythm guitar for economy. Such a record sounds more lively and dense, which gives its interest to the composition.
You can try an alternative option - live recording - this is if the money is tight at all. In this case, all the musicians play each their own part at the same time, and the sound engineer records each instrument on an independent track. The vocals are still recorded separately, after recording and finalizing all the instruments. The recording turns out to be of lower quality, although everything depends on the skill of the musicians and how well they play each their own part.
Information
When all the material is recorded, it must be reduced, that is, the sound of each instrument should be perfectly adjusted to each other. This will be done by a professional in his field - a sound engineer. And for this process you also have to pay, but separately, the price will be the same for all songs. So the cost of a full recording in a studio will depend on the number of hours spent on recording all the material plus payment for mixing the songs.
In principle, these are all the main points that musicians will have to face when recording in a studio. The rest, more subtle, so to speak, are the pitfalls, the musicians learn better from their personal experience, since it’s simply impossible to describe many moments.
Each individual recording studio and each individual professional sound producer can have their own exclusive recording methods that musicians will encounter directly during their work. But finally all the answers to the question of how the songs are recorded in the studio will be fully disclosed only after direct participation in this difficult process.
The author - Stanislav Kolesnik
I suggest watching the video at the end of the article about how guitars are recorded at the studio:
Leave Your Comment