Lots of fine advice. Mostly all I'm doing is reiterating and elaborating. Absolutely make sure your guitar plays in tune. If it hasn't been set up in a while do it! If you don't do your own setup work take it to the doctor. Get your other guitar players and your bass player (most ESPECIALLY get the bass player!) to all do the same. I can't tell you how many times I've taken client's guitars and basses into my workshop to do a quick setup just so I don't have to record them out of tune. Had a guy once with a fine Ken Smith bass. He'd owned it for 7 years. It had NEVER been set up. It played almost a semitone sharp at the 12th fret on a couple of strings. Don't know how anyone could play that way but it happens! Make sure all the guitars and basses play in tune!!! Get your drummer to play his drums and listen closely for rattles and squeaks. Squeaky bass drum pedals (the notorious Ludwig Squeak King comes to mind!) and loose lugs might not bother you so much in the heat of a performance but studio microphones will pick up and exacerbate ever little extraneous noise. If the studio has a drum set it might be very wise to use it. Studio drums will almost certainly have had all those little gremlins eliminated. Finally - record your band practices and scrutinize them in painful, minute detail. Listen for parts that step on vocals. Listen for parts that step on each other. The more I record music (21+ years now as a professional) the more I've become convinced that great recordings are 10% great sound and 90% great arrangements. Study some of your favorite recordings to hear how the arrangements work and how the instruments interact with each other. If there are two guitars make sure the parts are distinct and complimentary. Keep instruments that live in the same sonic range (guitars and keys, for example) out of each other's ways. Decide who plays where and when! In particular, church groups can have the issue of "well, we have to let him play this part because he's been with our worship band for years and that's what he always does!" or "well, we have to let everyone be a part of it, don't we?" It's a delicate balancing act to find a way to allow everyone to be a part of the project but to also find a way to serve the music. A one mic cassette recording can teach you an awful lot about how your music will sound in a real studio. Listen and discuss what you hear.
Finally - HAVE FUN! If you're not having fun you won't play good music. Make sure you're set up so you can see each other. Take the time to get the headphones set so you can hear each other. Pay attention to the engineer's advice but don't let him/her push you around. Us engineers sometimes get so wrapped up in achieving technical perfection that we forget that iso booths are NOT necessarily conducive to the creation of great music. Sometimes a little leakage is even a good thing! Putting a guitar speaker cab in a closet might be a good idea. Putting the guitar player in the closet might not!
Good luck!
Gantt
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dababy
I've done some home recording on my computer just to capture a song's feel and it doesn't sound too bad, but I'm going into a real studio with pro equipment in the next month to record a CD for our church's worship band. We play some slower stuff but mostly up-tempo rock sounds. I'm stoked about it (especially since we're doing one of my original songs)
What I'm wondering is: Can anybody give me pointers to prepare myself (other than practice  ) for this? I'm stoked about it (especially since we're doing one of my original songs) |