How to Prepare for a Studio Session

Your studio time is booked, the band is hyped. But are you ready? Here’s a checklist for you to reference as you prepare for a studio session. 

At a glance:

• Practice to a ‘click’ or metronome

• Know the tempo for each song

• Know your parts inside and out

• Make sure your instrument(s) are set up well and play in tune

• Practice singing to a tuner

• Have a solid plan or written parts for any solos

• Write it down

• Have clear goals for the studio time you booked

• Level up your listening skills

• Leave your ego at the door

• Send me scratch tracks/demos/references

Practice to a ‘click’ or metronome:

The #1 piece of advice you will see on how to prepare for recording in a studio is to PRACTICE TO A CLICK. If you’ve never heard it called a click, it means the same as a metronome. There are certain cases where you may want to record without a click - I don’t mean to say that recordings will always turn out better if played to a click. Maybe the tempo fluctuates a bit throughout the song, or there’s a certain pause that is held out according to feel, not a steady metronome. If you plan to record without a click, it should be an intentional choice, and not an excuse because you struggle to play to a click. If there are different sections of the song at different tempos, that’s fine. But each of those sections should probably maintain a steady tempo, and if you return to the same section later in the song, you probably want it to be at the same tempo as before. 

There’s no reason that a click track can’t be created to match the specific timing of a song. If a song changes tempos at different sections, I can program the click to change tempos at predefined locations. If the song has a freely fluctuating tempo, I can record a “human click” along to a scratch track so that we maintain your naturally-felt tempo changes, but still have a defined downbeat. 

Using a click has obvious benefits of keeping musicians in time and consistent throughout the song and between takes. But there are other benefits you may not have considered. When overdubbing parts, it can be really difficult to play perfectly in time with pre-recorded parts compared to playing live with other musicians. By having a click that everyone is playing to, it helps define where the true downbeats are, and it makes it easier to retime/realign parts later on in the mix. Instead of wondering whether the drums or the guitar are defining the “true” time of the song, we can always reference the click. If we’re using time-based effects like reverb or delay, locking them into a quarter note, eight note, etc. can help them to sit nicely in the mix. And while that can be figured out mathematically or by ear even if not played to a click, it saves a lot of time being able to tell the delay to reference the song’s tempo.

Know the tempo for each song:

Being certain of the tempo (bpm) for the song allows us to set up a click track for you to play along to. Even if you don’t end up playing along to a click at all for the song, you can still use it to count off and make sure you start the song at a consistent tempo. After playing a song over and over again, start to lose sight of the original tempo and energy you had when at the beginning of the session. As a sidenote about tempo, try playing the song to a metronome set slightly faster or slightly slower than what you think the tempo should be. Oftentimes, studio versions of songs are recorded at slightly different tempos than what the band might play live. And you might feel that the song feels a bit more solid if you slow it down just a bit.

Know your parts inside and out:

It’s one thing to be able to play a song start to finish, but can you pick up halfway through the 2nd verse? Do you know how many times the chord progression happens in the bridge? And what, exactly, is the weird timing that happens between the solo and the chorus? Be able to clearly communicate and explain your parts so there’s no confusion holding up the session.

Let me also add that it can be helpful to know others’ parts as well. Not that the drummer needs to know how to play the guitar part, but knowledge is power. And if I’m trying to tell the drummer to do something when the guitarist comes in with that one part, and the drummer has no idea what the guitarist does during the song, we’re just wasting studio time going in circles trying to communicate. If the drummer is busy and I ask the bassist where the drummer comes in at the beginning of the song, I’d prefer not to hear “I don’t know, like pretty early in the song I think.”

Make sure your instrument(s) are set up well and play in tune: 

Recording in a studio puts a magnifying glass to everything. It’s common for unpleasant noises to show up in recordings that you’ve never noticed before: shirt buttons scratching against the back of an acoustic, a drum stick buzzing against the head after the initial hit because of poor technique/not a clean stroke, jingling jewellery, weird mouth sounds between every phrase you sing. The same is true about playing in tune. If you’re used to playing by yourself or if you mostly play in loud settings where nuance is lost, you might not notice that your instrument’s intonation needs some attention. In a studio, out of tune instruments stick out like a sore thumb, and having to retune instruments frequently can waste precious time.

Practice singing to a tuner:

Pretty self-explanatory. Are you sure you sing in tune? How sure are you? Give it a shot. Just like practicing to a metronome will solidify your timing, practicing to a tuner will help you sing more in tune. With how far auto-tune technology has come, it’s pretty easy to take an out-of-tune vocal and shape it to be what you want. But no matter what, the closer to in-tune a part is sung, the better the recording will turn out; the less work being ‘faked’ by technology, the better. Always.

Have a solid plan or written parts for any solos:

There are times when it’s appropriate to not have a specific solo written or planned out. Improv is great, and there’s a certain energy from making something up on the spot that can’t be intentionally recreated without really improvising. Just know that if your plan is to just make up a solo and see what happens, you may not like what you see, and it’s better to not leave things to chance if you’re paying for studio time.

Write it down:

Have you ever said a word so many times it doesn’t seem like a real word anymore? Recording often means playing and/or hearing the same part of a song over and over. The repetition of trying to get the perfect take, or the myriad other mental distractions that can pop up when recording can leave you second-guessing how the song is supposed to go. Coming into the studio with things written down can help keep everyone on track. Have things written out for each musician, whether that’s TABs, chord charts, lyrics, or general guidelines and things to remember. I recommend having a checklist for each song to help you keep track of what parts still need to be recorded, or if there’s any special effects or production notes you want to convey to the producer.

Have clear goals for the studio time you booked:

Know what you want to accomplish during a studio session. But have reasonable expectations - just because a song is 3 minutes long doesn’t mean it will take you 3 minutes to record, or even 30 minutes. Unless you’re truly going to come in, get sound checked, play one take, and leave, plan on it taking considerably longer to record a song. Exactly how long depends on how involved the song is and how prepared you are to record.

Level up your listening skills:

Basically all musicians are notorious for noodling on their instrument when someone else is talking or trying to hear something. But when you’re recording, it’s really important for the studio personnel to hear exactly how things sound through the mics. And the performers all need to be listening critically to playback of what they just played or sang. Sometimes a pair of musicians are trying to nail down a difficult part and making more noise on your instrument isn’t going to help. Instead, focus on playing your best when it’s your time to play, and spend the rest of the time listening. Maybe your ears will catch something no one else has. If you need to make noise while warming up, or you just don’t have anything to do, it’s totally ok to step out of the room. Recording sessions can feel like a marathon, paying hyper-attention to the same song for a long period of time. When the opportunity arises, take a break - from the song, from the room. And be refreshed and ready to play your best when it’s time for your part!

Leave your ego at the door:

It might sound cheesy, but it’s good to remind yourself that the goal of the recording session is to make the best possible recording. And sometimes that means taking a back seat for a bit. It’s easy to get wrapped up in how cool it feels to be bringing your music to a studio. But at the end of the day, acting like a rockstar isn’t going to help the recording process, and your music will suffer because of it. You might have a really cool idea for a drum fill going into the chorus that sounds awesome live, but is distracting when recorded and played back in hi-fidelity. Let the decisions made in the studio serve the song, and don’t feel attacked as a musician if you don’t get your way. Be open to trying things differently when recording. I recently recorded a song with an artist who had only ever played the song live on acoustic, but when we started recording it and adding other instruments, it turned out electric guitar sounded better. The vibe of the song changed a bit, but we both agreed it was for the better.

Send me scratch tracks/demos/references:

There are some things that I can do on my end to prepare for a successful recording session. I've already written a full blog post about this. If you have “scratch” or demo recordings, send them my way! I can get Logic Pro set up and import files, which can help me get tempos set, and I can experiment with different reverbs/delays to try to match the vibe of the song. You can also send me reference songs that you like as a good representation of how you want your song to sound. Sometimes it’s easier to say “I want the drums to sound like they do on this song” than to accurately describe how you want the drums to sound. Having a general direction for the sound you’re going for also allows me to get the right amps/pedals/cymbals picked out for the session and tune the drums and acoustic treatment in the room.