Recording, mastering, and post production from my bedroom?

Are recording and audio post production studios a big waste of time?

One thing that really bakes my noodle, yanks my chain or flicks my wick is what I call ‘old school studio mentality’. What I mean by this is in the past many studios used to pull the old call of ‘We’re the professionals’ or ‘If you want a quality recording you HAVE to use a recording studio’ or ‘Don’t waste your time recording your own music, spend your money with the professionals’.. I had it happen to me when I was in bands and sadly I still see it happening these days. Now this may seem backwards coming from a studio owner but the simple fact is that I think that the above comments are complete bull pucky, especially these days with the easy access to half decent recording software, powerful computers and reasonably good and cheap recording equipment. As a kiwi with the DIY attitude deeply ingrained in my blood, I started recording myself and mates and I strongly encourage any musician I meet or whom comes to The Sitting Room to record that they attempt to record things themselves from home. Now don’t get me wrong, I definitely think there is a place still for recording, mixing, mastering and post production studios, and there always will be. The simple fact is that the studios ‘DO’ have amazing equipment and years of experience but it can only be healthy for the entire industry if artists are recording themselves, even if it’s entirely for demo or listening back purposes. It’s truly one of the only ways to understand yourself and your songs. Understand the limits of your voice or playing, hearing what you think ‘might’ sound good recorded doesn’t always. Surely, by encouraging musicians to record themselves can only GROW the local industry and music scene. As people know and experiement more, the better the quality comes out. And what is quality anyway? That is entirely subjective isn’t it? … is it?.

As an example, Brit alt rock band Elbow recently won a highly acclaimed music award for an album they recorded and produced themselves. It bet out a smattering of some very expensive and well produced studio albums…. I mean.. I have heard some amazing recordings on a dictophone.

Anyway, because of this I have decided to compile a small series designed to get people started with recording their songs.

Step 1: Write and practice your song.
This seems so obvious and it’s possible that you have already done this step, but it’s so funny how many people want to record a song and then when it comes to it they just simply haven’t practiced it enough, or they haven’t finished it and think that they will just simply finish it ‘in the studio’. My advice, get as much done as you possibly can. As you do more and more recording you will also start to understand what other ‘parts’ you might need to think about during this writing and practicing procedure, eg. You might need to write and practice backing vocal or harmony lines, a lead guitar or keyboard line, anything else you wanna add to the song, if you’ve at least thought about it before you start recording the better!  And the practice part?? Well that’s an easy one too, no one likes trying to record a song and taking 75 attempts at getting it right, practice the parts so that when you do hit the record button you are on fire!

Step 2: Get something to record to.
Now, I strongly suggest using a computer and the recording software REAPER. It’s free to use as a ‘trial’ and even though has more professional features than protools, it is also VERY easy to set up and use straight away. However there are HEAPS of other awesome easy to use programmes that you might want to use. The most common and easy to use is probably garage band. If you don’t have a computer then you probably aren’t reading this anyway, but if you don’t then just get an old tape hand held Dictaphone and hold it about 1 -2 feet away from your guitar and voice. If you use this, then you wont be able to easily multi-track (that means recording instruments one at a time and layering them up).. so you will have to play and sing all at the same time.

For those that DO have computers and have gone to download REAPER and have installed it good on you. Now that we have something for our song to be recorded on to, it’s time for the next step….. and just like that… this blog post was over… stay tuned for the next installment.

Proudly and lovingly brought to you by Tim Chesney and Ben Edwards of The Sitting Room Recording Studios Christchurch, New Zealand. The south island home of audio production, sound design, mixing and location sound recording.