Finding a studio
Part 1
Over the past couple of years, I've noticed a number of area bands hitting up local/regional studios to record their music. More than once they have come out with a sub-par product, having paid too much for a service they could have undoubtedly done themselves. However, just because you can do it yourself, doesn't necessarily mean you should.
Let's begin with what you expect the outcome to be. What is a reasonable goal? Don't think to yourself, "I'm going to record locally and it's going to sound like a million bucks drenched in the warm thick sounds of Europe's most prestige studios such as Abbey Road Studios." It’s NOT happening here. I’ll repeat, it’s not going to happen here. There are no studios in Augusta, GA that produce elite, high fidelity recordings. In order to get that kind of production, it requires far more money than 99% of area bands will ever make in sales to recover their expenses. This is largely because there just isn’t that kind of demand here for studios like in Atlanta or Nashville. The most successful business model here for a studio is for doing voice overs, radio commercials, and perhaps even recording local church groups. Recording a local band’s 5 song demo or even a full-length album won’t pay the bills. They just can’t charge enough. No one would bother because there’s always Guy Man Dude down the street with a computer and will do it for a fraction of the price.
So how much does good studio gear cost?
1. Microphones-- An excellent quality vocal mic can cost near $10,000. How many mics does it take to mic a full drum kit correctly? Depending on the genre of music, it could take 12-14!
2. The building, room, and acoustics-- One aspect that makes most professional recordings sound so great are the rooms they are recorded in. I’m not talking about throwing up some egg-crates or that cool looking foam you see all the time. I mean you design and build the room from the ground up to have the best sounding acoustics. It’s expensive, by design.
3. The heavy gear (preamps, etc)-- This is where you plug all those expensive mics. The mixing desks in a studio are not the same ones you use for live sound. These are designed to perform well in a controlled environment. The preamps have tons of headroom, a high signal to noise ratio (meaning you can turn the gain up and hear even quiet breaths without picking up much noise), and they might even “color” the sound in a certain way. The consoles you might see in a great studio probably cost over $100,000.
4. Monitors-- These are the main speakers you mix on. They are extremely expensive. Great monitors can run up to $20,000 per pair. What could be more important than the speakers on which you are making every decision while mixing a band’s album?
5. Accessories-- Good headphones, headphone distribution amps, cables, and miscellaneous instruments are all necessary in even the most basic studio. And let’s not forget about the guy behind the board.
Now all this expensive gear will do nothing without someone that knows how to use it. The same goes for the small studios, and there are a lot of them. Some sound amazing considering the equipment they have, and that’s because the person running the show knows what they are doing. You can definitely make great sounding records on equipment that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. However … (and this is very important for anyone thinking of going into the studio) … THE BAND/PERFORMER ALREADY SOUNDED GREAT BEFORE HE/SHE/THEY STEPPED INTO THAT STUDIO. That goes for your performance and your equipment. Most high-end studios have great gear on hand that they can use because they don’t trust that the musicians gear will be setup properly for recording, and most of the time it won’t be. We’ve all heard it a million times, and it’s very true when it comes to recording... you can not polish a turd. Moreover, a small project studio WILL NOT fix all your mistakes for the amount of money you are paying them. The people recording Shinedown or Dream Theater go through a lot of time editing and fixing mistakes. This is actually common knowledge. These guys are good, but they are not flawless. The studio engineers make them sound perfect, but you aren’t paying a project studio enough money to fix all your mistakes. So they’ll leave them. There’s no incentive whatsoever to get you to redo it or for them to spend the time fixing it. Why not? You are probably paying them per song (or some sort of package deal) instead of by the hour. If you were paying by the hour, they would probably have you do as many takes as it takes to get the parts right.
But there’s a great solution! Remember I mentioned you most certainly CAN get a great album without paying a ridiculous amount of money? You can do that by LEARNING YOUR CRAFT. Before your band goes into the studio, each member should be able to play those songs backwards and forwards without mistakes. The studio is not the place to learn proper technique to be able to play what you’re intending to play. Do that on your time when it’s free, not in the studio!
That is all for now... later there will be more detail on finding a project/small studio that fits your needs. This was mostly for perspective. Stay tuned... or in tune.
By:Eric Rinker
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