Studio Time?

taylor666

taylor666

Member
Oct 8, 2006
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My band is searching for a studio to record an EP at some time in the near future. My question does anyone have an approximate recording time to finished product ratio? The studio that seems to have the best prices has different rates depending on how much time you book. How much do you think we could get done in 10 hours assuming we are pretty tight? 10 hours only costs $280 and 20 is $510. Anyone mind posting how long your band usually takes in the studio and how many songs you get done?
 
That's what I figured. We're going to be recording a couple of demo of demo songs at the studio my friend takes an audio production class at but we'd really like to get an official release out. The first studio we considered has done some major bands such as Suffocation. The production on Suffocation's early releases has been terrible but the new CD sounds great to me and the stuff the producer Joe has been doing lately sounds fantastic. The other studio charges considerably less and sounds pretty good to me. They've also mixed some major bands like Nine Inch Nails. Right now we're just trying to get as tight as possible though and we recently got a new bass player so we're focused on writing and practicing for now.
 
The last band i finished took 12 days ( 8 - 10 hour days ) for tracking and i took 8 days for addtional production/editing/mixing and mastering for a 5 song EP

Setup (drums + guitar + bass) - 1 day
Drums - 3 days
Guitars/Bass - 4 days
Vocals - 3 days
Touchups - 1 days

AUD$ 4k was the final bill , including gear hire ( neve preamps/ Elabs distressor/cabs etc)

You can be tight and all , but i would suggest spending extra time setting up and testing out the cabs/guitars

like drum setup + guitar setup took us a day , but was essential we had like 4 cabs ( mesa standard / mesa oversized / marshall 1960 / framus dragon cab) and 3 heads ( Framus cobra/ modded 5150 / Mesa dual rect ) to try out from
etc etc .

I would budget at least 2.5 - 3k at the very least to get a good product

Hope this helps

Regards

Roland Lim
Aussie Assault Studios
 
A Toolish Circle said:
The last band i finished took 12 days ( 8 hour days ) for tracking and i took 8 days for addtional production/editing/mixing and mastering for a 5 song EP

Setup (drums + guitar + bass) - 1 day
Drums - 3 days
Guitars/Bass - 4 days
Vocals - 3 days
Touchups - 1 days

AUD$ 4k was the final bill , including gear hire ( neve preamps/ Elabs distressor/cabs etc)

You can be tight and all , but i would suggest spending extra time setting up and testing out the cabs/guitars

like drum setup + guitar setup took us a day , but was essential we had like 4 cabs ( mesa standard / mesa oversized / marshall 1960 / framus dragon cab) and 3 heads ( Framus cobra/ modded 5150 / Mesa dual rect ) to try out from
etc etc .

I would budget at least 2.5 - 3k at the very least to get a good product

Hope this helps

Regards

Roland Lim
Aussie Assault Studios
Click to expand...
Totally agreed, I don't see an EP getting done in 10 hours
 
Haha alright thanks for the info. I've never had real studio experience before, only makeshift studios in friend's basements. We've been making quite a bit off of ticket/shirt sales so we could probably afford to save some extra cash to put in the time needed. Thanks again for all the help.
 
BTW I did qualify what I said with 'demo level.'

We got a great 3 track recording for $300 US maybe 5 years ago. All in one day. We didn't play tight as I would have liked, but it got us some pretty good local shows, and a bunch of radio airplay.
 
I agree with the posters above when it comes to "serious" sounding releases BUT ... if you are starting out and this is you first release, I would always suggest recording a "live EP". Doesn't cost much, can be done in a weekend and can give you credibility with promoters and fans alike.

Goes like this:
Set up the whole band in the studio (without the vocals). Make sure you set everything up so that you get some guitars coming into the overheads and drums coming into the guitar mics. Play and record all song simultaneously until you have decent takes that have very few mistakes in them (don't make them perfect, you NEED mistakes!). Also record single kick drum hits. Or bass noise or something.

Then overdub the singer using an SM58 or Beta 58 or something. Also make sure you overdub him while the playback is fed to him via monitors, not headphones. Make sure he sings 95% right. Small mistakes are good here, too.

Have the engineer mix it all with a lot of live ambience and insert crowd noise in between songs. Make sure you use something that fits your status. I always use bootlegs from club gigs for this. Decide on very few, very short announcements that the singer can make. You can even fade the crowd noise after song in and out, to make it look like you took a "not-so-good" song out of the CD.

Name it all "BAND XYZ - Live at the (Insert Clubname)", put a nice live shot of your band on the cover and you got a great demo that is inexpensive, sounds good and that bookers will love because they think it's what you sound like live ... :)
 
The above sounds like the session notes for Peter Frampton "Comes Alive" :D....one of the highest selling "live-but-not-really-live" albums ever.
 
Totally depends on you, a drummer can track a song in 10 minutes, in 4 hours, or in 10 hours, depends on how good he is, how technical the song is, how long the song is, etc...
But still expect half a day to a whole day to set the drumkit, tune the skins, set the microphones...
 
One of my old bands got signed off a 3 track demo we recorded in a day - for our first EP on the label, we recorded for 5 days (7 tracks) and mixed for a week after that. It actually worked against us to have that much time pre-booked; we ended up adding loads of dumb overdubs and crap because we thought we'd finished too quickly, and ended up wrecking the songs.

Personally, I'd book as little as I think the band could get away with - say 3 days to get all the tracks down and maybe start mixing. It adds a little healthy pressure to know you have a short schedule, but you can always book more time if you need it.

Each to their own and all, but if my drummer took 3 days + a day's setup to get 5 tracks , I'd look for a new drummer.

Steve
 
I would need at least 10 hours for tracking guitar (two tracks each song) for let's say 4 or 5 songs haha!
 
Well I should specify, we're not looking for an extremely pro sounding cd. We've recorded some terrible sounding home demo but what we really need are pretty good sounding tracks to help us get some more shows and get more well know locally.
 
hm I would still calculate 1 hour for 1 minute music if you have no studio experience... dunno how much if you get everything on the first take
 
I'm in Long Island. The amount of studios out here seems really limited unless you feel like going out to the city.
 
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