)
General Recording Tips
You should decide which material you wish to record, well in advance of the session to ensure you are well rehearsed. Don’t forget to rehearse the backing parts!
To ensure the quality of your recording, a maximum of three or four songs (depending on running time) is recommended for a weekend session.
The copyrights on any material that isn’t your own work should have been cleared with the MCPS (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society).
If you are recording music, you should expect the engineer to play commercial CD's to compare the sound to regularly throughout the entire process. Therefore, it's a good idea to bring your favourite commercial CD's to the session, even if there not in the same style as your music.
If you are recording spoken word: Speech, Plays, Talking Books, etc., you should submit a script at least one week in advance of your session.
All commercial music goes through a stage after mixdown called Mastering. Mastering is like putting the final icing on the cake. The goal of mastering a record is to make it sound good wherever you play it, and therefore enhance compatibility with sound systems. Mastering is a very important part of getting that "radio ready" sound. Without mastering, your tapes or CD's will never be as hot (loud) or as clear as professional recordings. Although we do not do full professional quality in-house mastering, we can do basic mastering and we can recommend some excellent mastering engineers both in the UK and USA.
Even with advancing technology, fix it in the mix is still a myth, for now anyway.
Vocals
If you are a singer, and especially if you're the lead singer, please get someone impartial to listen to you sing and give you an idea of anything you need to practice. Remember phonetics, pronunciation and breathing are just as important as singing in tune. Plus - there is only so much we can do with Autotune & Melodyne! It's always better to know in advance so you can practice and get a decent source recording.
Instruments
Make sure your equipment is well maintained and free of unwanted hums, squeaks and rattles.
A few days before the session you should put new strings on the guitars and tune the drumkit. You’ll be amazed by how much difference this makes.
Guitars
You should change the strings on your guitar a couple of days before recording. This is because in order to make a sound the string has to vibrate causing compression and rarefaction of the air molecules which causes a sound wave. The more you play your guitars, the more foreign objects, dead skin, etc. builds up on the strings, dampening this natural vibration and causes a duller sound. Also, when you first string a guitar the strings are not fully stretched, a couple of days gives them chance to stretch properly, so you don't keep going out of tune half way through a take!
Drums
If you're planning to record something for release, you should also put new heads on the drums and tune them, or have them professionally tuned.
The Recording Procedure
1. Write the music/lyrics, without them there's not much to record!
2. Practice, practice, practice. The better you play, the better you'll sound.
3. Book a session and record the music.
4. Mix the music, this is where you'd add extra effects, and make a mix master.
5. Mastering, this makes the recordings sound more full and even.
6. Duplication.
And Above All
Enjoy your session.