Observations from the Studio, Day #1

After two days of travel (6 hours to West Virginia on Saturday, and 9 hours to Tennessee from there on Sunday), we arrived in our rental cabin 30 miles outside of Nashville, well after nightfall.  Upon arrival, we made two immediate realizations: one, that we'd crossed into central time (largely thanks to our iPhones being smarter than we are), and two, that spiders in Nashville are much larger than those in Jersey.

Monday, day one of recording at Radiant Studios, yielded a fair number of simple yet foundational observations which may or may not be helpful to the up-and-coming musician debating whether to go to a professional studio to record his debut album or to attempt doing it himself at home.  Speaking as a member of various indie bands who, over the years, have opted to do home recordings for EPs, things such as decent headphones for playback monitoring and proper sound-proofing were luxuries which could be done without.  Entering into a fully stocked, professional recording studio, where such things are not only commonplace but staples of the trade, I was struck by the humbling revelation that anything I may have done using Audacity at home - no matter how many over-dubs, firewire interfaces, or painstaking EQ adjustments - would never equate to the sloppy warm-up takes we did before lunch.  The studio is certainly going to be a big investment, undeniably, but so is recording in your basement - an investment of another kind.

The following are some observations that I made for the day, in no particular order:

1). Technicalities, once glossed over as acceptable "EP quality" imperfections, are in fact major issues.  This is especially true for progressive rock.

2). Setting up and mixing the drums is, predictably, the most time-consuming process of day #1.  For us, this was quite the change from simply dropping a single 57 over Joe's head to catch his cymbals, taping one to his snare, and shoving a condenser into the bass drum.

3). In a similar vein, playing white-boy basketball in the driveway while said drums are being mixed is not quite the ego-boost we might have hoped.

4). Recording scratch tracks is not glamorous, but it is foundational.  Live takes are amazing when they happen, but when they happen is never.

5). Getting that fat and full sound is less dependent upon the bucks you dropped for your guitar (although that certainly helps too) than having quality sound equipment and an experienced producer at the helm.

6). That perfect first take is idealized, but not always golden.  Seasoning comes with subsequent punch-ins.

7). You will get very well acquainted with the comfy furniture available in the recording booth.  And your dummer's shoulder.  And your own tunes, as they will invariably be stuck in your head after the day is done.

More tomorrow.