First time in a studio. Advice?

[Thinline]

My band has been gigging several times a month, and practicing weekly together, for about three years. Pretty good players all, we have three really good vocalists, and as a unit, we're tight when we play "live."

We also get along together great. Smart, mature guys, no egos in sight. We've written a bunch of songs; a half-dozen of them are quite good. (We've learned that writing a song is easy, writing a good song is hard.) We've booked a few days at a nice studio to record them. None of us have ever done this before. We're not using a producer. We'll be using one of their engineers.

We're not professional musicians, and don't want to be. This recording isn't meant to break us into the big-time, change the world, chart a hit, whatever. It's mainly to have fun, and peddle at gigs. That said, if you're going to do something, might as well do it as best you can. That's the baackground. Now:

Any advice? Anything you wish somebody woulda told you? What's the smartest thing we could do? The dumbest?

[garytelecastor]

First off-don't get tense. Sometimes the recording experience can be filled with unexpected events. Just relax and go with the flow. It seems that each project has a life unto itself and if you try to push it or over analyze you will end up frustrated. If any of that happens, take a break, joke with each other, have a beer, whatever.
Most of all, have fun, fun, fun.

[Tim Armstrong]

New strings, new batteries, get there early, know what songs you want to do in what order, relax and have fun.

Oh, and you can't tune too often!

Cheers, Tim

[octatonic]

Smartest: Listen to the engineer, do what he says, don't smoke in the control room and don't drink until afterwards.
Restring the instruments the day before, bring fresh strings.
Use new batteries for effects pedals, have spares.
Get new drum heads, tune them or have someone on hand who can do it.
Rehearse for two days at least the week of the session.
Bring food unless you can walk to a place that does take-out in under 5 mins.

Dumbest: Ignore the above, make mixing/tracking suggestions to the engineer, waste time by talking about music with the engineer.
Change anything to do with songwriting or arrangement in the studio- I have seen this happen time and time again. (You wrote the songs that way for a reason, don't mess it up by thinking you can improve it, you can't- all you will do is screw up the session, waste time and money and annoy the engineer).

There is probably more but this is what comes to mind.

[kludge]

Figure one song per day in the studio. Better to do fewer songs well than more songs poorly. Everyone should know the material cold so you're not trying to learn and arrange in the studio. And plan a recording strategy... what's live versus what is overdubs.

Make sure your equipment is in TOP shape... fresh heads on the drums (and in tune!), professional setups on the guitars, everything sounding clean and quiet. Little buzzes and stuff that don't bother you live will freak you out when the mics find them!

No drinking or drugs in the studio. Bring lots of water and non-alcoholic beverages of choice. Be sure to eat! It's easy to get your blood sugar low. Take plenty of breaks and don't watch the clock too much. And please, no fighting with your bandmates! And if you're gonna fight, no knives or guns! Everyone be there on time, ready to go.

And finally... CHECK YOUR EGOS AT THE DOOR. Not everyone can be the loudest all the time in every mix. Be ready to compromise. And LISTEN to your engineer respectfully... s/he's a pro at this, you're not.

[Steve McGinnis]

First time I was in the studio I had never played to a metronome or a click track. I had good feel, and played in beat with the drummer, but the click track is something that takes practice to get used to. The next time I went in I practiced the songs to a metronome and it made a big difference.

[outbreak]

always bring spare strings, was recording once (not in a studio with our own equipment) and the bassist broke a string with no spares, kinda ruined our plans0

[kludge]

Yeah, if you can practice with a click and everyone (especially the drummer) can do it well, then go for it. But if you can't play with a click... don't force it. Use a click for the count-in, though, so you're at least STARTING on a consistent tempo.

Playing well with a click takes serious practice. But if you can learn to do it, it's a terrific thing for the studio. Makes edits a lot easier.

Speaking of which... take advantage of natural stops and starts in the music. Don't try to sustain notes or chords too much. Every time you STOP an instrument (even for a fraction of a beat), you give yourself an easy place to punch in a fix. But a song that consists of endless strumming and legato notes makes it really difficult to punch things without audible artifacts.

[klasaine]

All of the above and I'll add ...

Be prepared for things to take longer than you think. "Set-up" in particular and getting a decent sound from the mic'd instruments. The 1st tune almost always takes the longest to get down - usually due to getting "realistic" recording levels, headphone mix if you're doing that and instrument tones etc. Once you get rolling though things generally go along smoothly.

Also very important and something that a lot of musicians hate admitting too and dealing with ...

Sometimes occasionally, when you listen back to a track in the control room, you realize that "your part sucks" or somebody elses part sucks or something that seemed so right at rehearsals and gigs just ain't working in the bright 'aural' light of the studio. Don't force a bad part, change it - usually something really simple will work well. This falls under; "check your ego at the door" and "if you're gonna do something, you might as well do it as best you can".

Since you're admittedly inexperienced, if you want to try a "click track" cool, but if it's not happening, don't force that issue either. Remember, you still want to have fun.

Break a leg.

[colonelrobert]

Know ahead of time what the studio provides. Drum kit etc. Unless the drummer has a special setup like W.S. Fluke Holland plays left handed, I'd use the studio's kit. It's already set up and tuned.

+ 10 to the other suggestions.

[woodman]

be prepared, just like a good scout.

then try to relax.

good luck!

[kludge]

One more bit of advice, from my experience... make an agreement with your bandmates that you won't try to fix anything they can't hear if they don't try to fix anything you can't hear. That keeps perfectionism under control!

OTOH, if you hear something is wrong, do NOT be afraid to speak up about it.

[uniphasian]

Pay close attention to all of the 'be prepared' comments above.

PLUS:

Enjoy your sound. You've probably never heard yourself (and your bandmates) as well as you will in a studio with great mics and good micing techniques. Let it inspire you.

[Stevie 202]

Don't go crazy on the overdubbing. Try to play 'live' as much as possible.

We made that mistake on our first outing; recorded a single that sounded great but we realized we could NOT play it live. Very embarassing

[Thinline]

For all the insightful comments.

DW

[Tim Bowen]

If it is a headphones scenario, personal cans mix can make or break a performance. Take a bit of time to get it such that it feels right. You've dealt with lousy onstage monitor mix on the fly at gigs, but there's no reason for you to have to settle for such in this controlled environment. Personally, there are certain types of parts that I cut best when what I'm hearing a very stark and present signal; conversely, this same approach will sometimes make a track come off as sounding cautious and tentative.

It's tough to comment on the arrangement stuff, because there's only an engineer present, and no producer. Generally, it's a good idea to not be too precious about, and locked into, your parts. Keep an open mind and open ears. On the flip side, just because there's an engineer present doesn't by default mean that he's Tom Dowd. Listen to what the engineer has to say, but if you adamantly disagree with their perspective, stick to your guns. Worth noting is that in this situation, it's still your dime.

When it comes to gain in the recording environment, less is almost always more. Some of the stuff that sounds and feels great live is going to translate to recording media far better with considerably less gain and compression.