Sound Advice
Saving Money In The Studio
When you enter a recording studio you are introduced to something called chargeable time. Basically you pay for time by the minute. You may be charged by the hour or in blocks of several hours but it all comes down to how you spend the minutes. Find out if some off peak hours are offered at a lower rate. If this time works for you it may be worth booking it. Especially if this is your first time in the studio. Generally you should try to pick a time when you are at your best. If you or someone in your band sleeps till noon don't buy recording time at 8:00 a.m. The time you'll loose with mistakes and low energy will burn away any money you would have saved by coming in at this time.
When budgeting your studio time double the amount of time you think you'll need. Bands aspire to be the band of legend that can record a CD in 24 hours. The truth is most bands will never reach this goal. In fact they will spend 2-3 times more time in the studio then they anticipate. When the session is over many bands wonder where the time went. There is one way to track your time in the studio. Bring a DAT tape to the studio and set it up on a machine that will keep running from the time you enter until the time you leave. This becomes your reference tape. You will see and hear where you wasted time and money. Which mistakes can you avoid in the future?
You can also save money by using half the tracks on a multi-track tape for each song. Song one may be on the first 4 tracks and song town on tracks 5-8. This will not give you the best quality or the best harmonics but it will get you a demo of a reasonable quality that you can use to shop for gigs.
If you live near a major city you'll have multiple studios to choose from but you can often save money by going outside of the city to record. The money you save can be used for a better quality studio or more time.
When you hear the clock ticking and see the dollars adding up your natural reaction is to begin to rush so you can get it all done. Don't. The time you spend will show in the quality of your final product. In the end that's what really matters.