Recording
Here’s what we do…
The Recording Facility
Our recording facility consists of a control room and a live room. Each are correctly sound treated and soundproofed with double windows, doors, ceiling and walls. The sound treatment in the live room is removable to create a variety of ‘feels’ from dampened to lively. The area assign for vocal recording is heavily treated to deaden reflections, but again the treatment is removable if required. Most of the recordings we do are carried out here, but occasionally we use other locations if we’re looking for a specific type of ambience. The shape of the room has been designed with angled walls and ceiling to avoid standing waves.
The live room is equipped with monitoring and communication with the control room.
Studio Time
- One Hour – £25 per hour
- Four Hours – £23 per hour
- Eight Hours – £22 per hour
Singing Experience
- A bespoke session for singers who want to sing to a backing track.
- Per session – £49
- For details see the Singing Experience page
Further Information
Things that will effect your recording time….
- The number one thing, that will waste your money in the studio, is lack of rehearsal.
- It will cost you time working your part out in the studio.
- It will cost you time recording it because of errors.
- It will cost you time, fixing it if there are errors.
- It will cost you quality in the final production.
**Make sure you have rehearsed as much as you possibly can and know what your part is.**
Obviously the more instruments there are, the more sound checking, balancing and recording there is to do. Drums and percussion take longer because of the setup and sound checking time needed for the dozen or so microphone signals that are typically required.
Another obvious one really. If you’ve got world class musicians, they’re highly likely to get it right first time. If you’re not a world class musician, but you want to sound like one, then it may take many takes and overdubs to get things right.
The first track will take the longest to record as all the instruments need to be set up and sound checked. Further tracks will take a lot less time. It’s much more economical to record a bunch of tracks at the same time.
You need to decide what your tracks are going to be used for. If you just want a demo or a natural raw sound, then the process is going to be much quicker than if you want a highly polished sounding commercial track. As explained next, there are many techniques used today to make artists sound like they do. Layering parts during recording is one of them. If you want to use those same techniques to get your sound really polished, then I can do that for you, but everything adds to the time. A rock band may need very little of these extra recordings (or not?), where as a commercial pop track may need many more (or not?).
This depends on ‘how polished the final results need to be’. As explained, the more layers, the more time needed. At a very basic level, vocals, backing vocals and rhythm guitars are typically double tracked at least. There may be more than just double tracking required to achieve the best results (3, 4, 5+ layers). It’s a production decision that needs to be made. Let’s take a rhythm guitar part for example. You may want a double track of it (left and right) for the main chord inversion. Then two thickening layers at a different chord inversion. Then it may benefit from layering it with a picked melody line or another instrument like piano or mandolin. It may also benefit from layering it with a cleaner or more distorted version. The options are almost endless.
Professional editing techniques can be used, and are used in all commercial tracks, to make the recording as near to perfect as required. During the recording phase of the process they are used to correct minor timing issues, selecting the best parts from each take, correcting phase issues and layering. During the mixing phase, all the professional editing techniques are employed. These methods are often used to fix mistakes made be musicians, that either don’t have the required skill level yet, or haven’t bothered to rehearse their part properly. The number one killer of studio time, is musicians that are unrehearsed. Don’t let that be you!
Terms and Conditions
- Prior to any project being undertaken, you will be provided with an agreement, that you will need to date and sign (online or on paper).
- Unless otherwise stated, a minimum 50% deposit will need paying up front, before any work is carried out on your project.
- Some projects will require a 100% deposit. This will be specified at the bottom the the relevant service page.
- The remaining 50% must be paid before the final ‘un-watermarked’ project is sent you.
- Full payment must be made immediately upon completion of the project (revisions can be made up to 30 days after that time).
- Projects that have not been paid in full, that are sent for approval, will be ‘watermarked’.
- If it’s a video project, then an actually watermark will be on screen.
- If it’s an audio project, that ‘watermark’ will either take the form of an audio sound occurring at points throughout, or it will take the form of a snippet of the project, where only the relevant part of it will be sent.
- If you have paid a 100% deposit up front, all watermarks are removed. You will receive all updates without any watermarks embedded.
- A total of two revision requests are included in the price.
- Each request could contain any number of alterations.
- Revisions are claimed after the finished project and within 30 days.
- Further revisions after the two allowed or that time period will be charged, either at studio rates or as a fixed price as stated in the information found at the bottom of the relevant services page.