Before you come down to record here's some handy things you need to think about to make the most out of your time in the studio.
1. The Song
It's all about the song, be patient work on the lyrics and melodic themes, think about the feel make sure it's the best it can be. Spending time crafting and finishing your work before you spend your valuable time and money recording it is invaluable and will make all the difference. If the song's not ready don't think that can be fixed with any amount of production or polish.
2. The arrangement
Think about other songs that inspired you to come up with your new masterpiece. What did they sound like, what was the vibe, the instruments, was it sparse, cut down affair or a fully blown symphonic orchestral number with a choir. A clear vision of what you're aiming for will help the engineer understand your vision and will lead to the best results. We can help you add sampled string arrangements or other instrument if you feel you need them and have a wide variety of options for you to choose from or even better reach out and rope in some friends or musical acquaintances in to help give you that live feel.
As well as the instrument choices, vibe and sound, a major part of the song is how you want it to build by adding instruments into the song over time to add interest and a sense of progression, you might also want to strip things down for effect, freshen things up with a middle or the old key change if all else fails and it fits. The song structure though is hugely important though and you want to plan this in as you think about how the song and spend time making sure you have this clear in your head.
3. The performance
Ok you have a masterpiece, it's the best song you've ever written, it's a killer track, you've thought about the arrangement and can see yourself on Jules Holland with a gospel choir, next make sure you have all parts worked out and that you've rehearsed them through and can nail it every time. Practice makes perfect especially when it comes to recording and getting the most of your time in the studio. We can offer rehearsal space at very reasonable rates if you want to make some noise and the neighbours can't take it any more! We can even set things up to record your session so you can take a copy home with you.
4. The equipment
Ok you've nailed the takes ready to get the most out of your session, the last thing you want is to be half way through recording your best guitar take and ....pop, crackle(we can sometimes fix that!) or even worse no sound is coming out at all. Make sure your equipment is in good order, get some new strings on that old acoustic, clean those contants, ditch that old wonky guitar cable and for drummers if you're using your own kit get new skins on those shells, take time to make sure everything is ship-shape, it'll save time and sound great!
5. Make it click!
Once you're ready a key part of the process at Lo Headroom is to record a guide track normally a guitar and vocal ideally on two separate tracks. It takes practice to play in time to the click but set one up and record as best you can to a click (remember to let us know the BP.M!) This is key as it let's us get the structure and get a feel for the track and ensures everything is "on the grid" if we need to make edits. Don't worry about it being out of tune or if you have the odd mistake, it doesn't have to be perfect concentrate on getting the timing as close to the click as possible. If you don't have any way of doing this then if required you can come into the studio and do it but any decent phone should be able to do the job. The track will then be used to record along to and will be a great foundation for the recording. Some will hate doing it this way and there are valid reasons for not doing it for example if you want to slow down and speed up the song however 9 times out of 10 if you want the best result this is the way to go!
Good luck and happy recording!
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