advice for bands looking to record an album..

el_tiddlero

Hey guys..
some great stuff scattered and buried throughout this forum, but, having trawled through the guts of it, i haven't really come accross any advice for bands looking to record, more just guides for people who want to DIY it, rather than what to look for in a studio etc..

At present, my band (an 8-piece rock'n'roll behemoth) are shopping around and trying to find a studio to record a 10 track album in. I'm gonna give a run-down on what we're after, and what we think we can achieve, and i'd like if you guys could say whether you think it's achievable, what price (i know, how long is a piece of string etc) you think we could achieve this for, and whether you think having the same engineer record and mix your tracks is preferable to having one man record, another mix, and another master.

In terms of time in the studio, we believe we can get everything we need inside 5 days - that may be unrealistic (that's where you guys come in!!).

Our set up is as follows: drums.. bass.. rhythm & lead guitars.. lead vocals.. lots of backing vocals.. some harmonica on certain tracks.. some keyboards on certain tracks.. and one or two tracks that have weird percussion instruments (vibraslaps etc) or tin whistles..

Our ideal schedule would work like this:
day 1 & 2: drums & bass for all 10 songs (5 a day, just like fruit n veg)
day 3: lead and rhythm guitars for all 10
day 4 & 5: lead, backing vocals + sundries..

Obviously, all those tracks would then need to be mixed & mastered which is a whole other kettle of fish that i know relatively little about, so any advice on that would be appreciated too..

Oh, and if there's any more information that you might need to give me a proper appraisal of our options then just holler and i'll fill in whatever blanks may exist..

trackmixstudio

PM me if you want to discuss the project.
I wouldn't quote prices on the forum.
Your time scale is doable if you are well rehearsed.
Michael

studiorat

If you get into a decent sized room you should be easily able to keep most of the guitars as well. I'd go for 3 days for the tracking of bass drums etc. Would be good to have a little time to re-tune the drum kit from song to song, move screens etc so the kit doesn't sound the same on each song and stuff like that. If you do get them done in 2 you can always loose a day or use it for something else. Better be safe than sorry.

I'd usually try and lock off a few hours each day to record vocals too. Getting a good performance on 5 songs in a day would be very hard on any singers voice, five or six hours singing two days in a row!! Mind you I did an album last year and the second single released from it had a live vocal on it, complete with acoustic guitar spill, we did spend a while trying to get a better one.

€500 a day + VAT will get you into one of the big studios in town with a good engineer these days. Would also be a plan to maybe bring a little 8 track or something into the rehearsal for a day or so to demo the songs first, just to see are the arrangements working and the key right for singer etc.

Likewise, you could PM me and I'll see if I can make up a budget for you.

el_tiddlero

studiorat wrote: »

If you get into a decent sized room you should be easily able to keep most of the guitars as well. I'd go for 3 days for the tracking of bass drums etc.

i presume you mean that the guide guitars (that the drummer plays to) could be used as the actual thing by this - thereby stretching the whole backing (drum,bass,guitar) over 3 days.. yeah that's not a bad idea.. the last place we were in though we used pod's through the desk for the guide and it sounded kinda limp.. the difference putting them through an amp made was vast..

studiorat wrote: »

I'd usually try and lock off a few hours each day to record vocals too. Getting a good performance on 5 songs in a day would be very hard on any singers voice, five or six hours singing two days in a row

now that's the kind of thing i hadn't even thought of.. i suppose it'd mainly come down to the man himself and whether he thought he could do it over 2 days.. i guess that's where the benefit of keeping the guitars would come in: an extra day or so to play with vocals..

hmm, plenty to think/talk about.. cheers!!

studiorat

el_tiddlero wrote: »

i presume you mean that the guide guitars (that the drummer plays to) could be used as the actual thing by this - thereby stretching the whole backing (drum,bass,guitar) over 3 days.. yeah that's not a bad idea.. the last place we were in though we used pod's through the desk for the guide and it sounded kinda limp.. the difference putting them through an amp made was vast..

Set the whole band up the night before hopefully, spend a bit of time sorting out sounds in the morning and record the whole washing machine down live, get a good take or edit one together and repair any mistakes etc. and move on. F^ck that POD thing. You spend an extra €200 on a decent sized studio and it saves you an extra day in a cheaper one know whad I mean?

dav nagle

Sounds like your squashing too much in that space of time. If there is 8 in the band €500 each and go and do the album properly.If you get a deal like €400 a day that = 10 days amigo

PaulBrewer

There are a whole heap of variables there! If you were a 4 piece Indie band the path would be clear.

It really depends on your goals for the music and the project.

Having listened to your MySpace tracks it's clear you're taking a Lo-Fi approach where it's all about attitude as opposed to accuracy.
This can often mean it's easy to record from the point of view a first or second take may have the most energy, so that may not take too much time on actual performance per instrument/singer.

However, there are a lot of sounds, and a lot of layers.

Having the same, or very similar sounds on each song would stifle the originality of the music.
The plan you're suggesting could have that effect on the finished music as you've not allowed any real time for changing or creating sounds, only performance.

As we're not exactly in Steely Dan territory, a better plan could be spend more time getting everyone's sonics together and record the band as a band.

It seems to me listening to your music you're suggesting you record 'serially' when really, if you think about, it you're a 'parallel' band

PaulBrewer

If you take the 'serial' approach, there are a zillion studios you can record in.

If you take the 'parallel' approach there aren't as many. You'll need more and possibly bigger space and the ability to record maybe 20 tracks simultaneously.

But.... I bet the results will be much more to your liking in the latter scenario.

teamdresch

Absofeckinlutely.
There's a fast way and a slow way to record, and going one intrument at a time tends to end up being the latter.
Never mind being less fun for the players (in my experience on both sides of the glass).

el_tiddlero

Thanks for all your replies!! Plenty for us to think about and lots of new stuff that i hadn't considered at all before!

PaulBrewer wrote: »

If you take the 'parallel' approach there aren't as many. You'll need more and possibly bigger space and the ability to record maybe 20 tracks simultaneously.

But.... I bet the results will be much more to your liking in the latter scenario.

yeah i get ya on this... i know bands like The Bronx record in that way.. I suppose it could work well for us too..
In terms of how it works, the bigger space is needed to stop the different instruments bleeding into each other is it??
I guess what you're saying is that we should spend our time sorting out what sounds we're going to use on what songs, and have that all nailed down before we go in.. Then all our different parts are recorded at once, and it gets mixed from there.. Sounds like way less hassle, and miles more fun as teamdresch said!

PaulBrewer

el_tiddlero wrote: »

In terms of how it works, the bigger space is needed to stop the different instruments bleeding into each other is it??

Well, having 9 people in any studio simultaneously will take up some room! Then for separation etc ... it won't be to comfortable or practical in a converted garage studio or similar sized one.