If you are about to rent a music studio for the first time, there are some things you should know. Music studio rentals are not cheap, so you want to make every second count when renting the music studio. If you’re on a budget for your music costs, you’ll want to make sure not to waste any time being unprepared for your music studio time. This article will give you ten tips for renting a music studio. Many people renting a music studio for the first time will find that money is wasted because more time is spent in the studio than necessary. What could have taken 10 hours to make a good demo cd could end up taking 30, because the musicians were unprepared and didn’t use the time wisely. Don’t let this happen to you.
Here is a common scenario. You and your band decide you want to make a demo cd of your music. You rent the music studio for three hours, thinking that you
you can bust out a professionally recorded cd in no time at all. You bring a case of beer and some pizza, and go into the music studio. You spend the first half an hour eating, and then you talk for another half an hour about what songs you might want to put onto your recording. You play around for an hour, checking out all the cool sounds you can make with the equipment. You decide on a song, and mess around with different ways to play it. The music studio owners come in and tell you your time is up, and you haven’t even recorded one song yet.
1. Be realistic. Talk to other musicians who have been in the music studio before. Find out how long it takes in general to produce a good recording for one song. Don’t think that you can get a perfect demo of a song in an hour if other professional musicians have all taken at least three hours.
2. Decide ahead of time what your goals are for using the music studio. You may want to get three songs onto a demo cd, for example. If you have a goal, it will be easier not to deviate from it once you get there. This way, you can stick to the goals and not spend more time. Time is money when you rent a music studio. Each hour costs. If you have ten hours for the three songs, spend no more than three hours on each song. This way, you get to all of your goals and have time to complete them.
3. Choose the songs ahead of time that will go onto your demo cd. You can’t go in not knowing what you will do. If you choose the songs ahead of time, you will be sure to work on only these songs, and not waste time with other songs. It’s easy to get into the music studio with your buddy musicians, and enjoy the quality of the sound and trying out new things. You can waste precious hours by trying out songs that you’re not even going to record. Or, you can get off track and never really accomplish much of anything.
4. Practice the songs you will record and make sure they are perfect before you go to the music studio. If the band can’t get through the whole song flawlessly before going into the music studio, it’s not going to happen there.
5. Come up with some rules for the recording session. For example, you may want to say that everyone will eat before the session starts, so you don’t waste part of the time consuming food. You could make a rule that no alcohol is allowed, because it might get everyone off focus. A rule could be made that you will spend one hour on each song, and make the best recording possible in that hour. Once the three hours are up, you have three songs recorded, even if they aren’t perfect. You could then go back and edit them.
6. Have something worked out with the music studio in case of not being able to use the time. You want to find a way to be able to get out of the dates and changes them if there is a need. Try and work this out in advance. For example, you may want to make sure that if one of the band members has the flu, that you can reschedule. If you sign a contract that doesn’t allow for any illness or emergencies, be prepared to show up no matter what and do your best.
7. Choose a music studio that meets your needs. If you are going to be recording your first real cd that will be sold and marketed, and will help you to become a top band in the country, you need a recording studio that has the ability to give you the most professional sound possible. You can’t rent out someone’s garage studio to make your professional cd. Go through the grapevine to find out which studios are the best and will produce the sound you need. In the same respect, if you’re just making a demo cd to help you enter a karaoke contest, you don’t want a music studio that costs $10,000 per hour.
8. Understand what a music studio can do for you before you get there. Don’t get there and not know about how sounds can be altered and which types of alterations you will do with the music you are recording. You need to get a good idea of what the music studio can offer, and decide which things to use that will enhance your musical recording. One common problem encountered by a first time music studio user is not knowing about special effects, and wasting precious time in the studio trying to learn about them.
9. Have everything set up ahead of time, before your studio time starts. If you know exactly what you need, you can have the music studio be ready for you when you arrive. They will know which room to put you in, based on your acoustical needs. They can have the equipment you need, such as certain mixing boards for particular desired sounds.
10. Have everything you need with you. Imagine a rookie musician going to the music studio, only to realize that she forgot her guitar picks. The last one broke last night. Or, perhaps a singer needs Dasani bottled water to get a certain quality to his voice, but forgets to bring any water to the studio at all. If you don’t know exactly what you need and have it organized, you’ll waste time once you arrive.
