Brief Summary

If you have unlimited access to a studio but you don’t get as much done as you would like, maybe the answer is to try recording somewhere else, and get someone else to do it? Not all projects have deadlines, but nothing motivates like time pressure and spending money!

Going Deeper

I’m in a band, it’s not the way I or anyone else’s involved makes a living but it’s still important to us. I know I’m not alone in being in this situation. Considering my background one might imagine that we record regularly but we don’t and rather counter-intuitively I think I this might be because of easy access to recording technology rather than in spite of it. I’ll explain.

What makes something valuable? Supply and demand tells us that it is scarcity which drives up the value of goods. Diamonds aren’t as rare as you might think but DeBeers make sure that there aren’t too many around. When the price of oil drops, before long OPEC pull back production stopping it dropping further than the producers would like. What has happened to the value of time in a recording studio in the last few decades for anyone with a computer and a DAW is that, rather peculiarly, ‘studio time’ has lost value completely. Fundamentally the problem is that if you have too much of something you don’t value it in quite the same way. A thirsty person doesn’t view water the same way as someone with a burst pipe!

My band are very lucky to have unlimited access to a large practice space, I have a Pro Tools Carbon ready to go in a flight case and a selection of good quality mics. Yet we hardly record at all. Why?

“Anytime” Often Means Never

The reason is we have too much potential studio time. It’s supply and demand all over again. Because we can record at any time, there’s never a reason to record today. We are all busy people, we have families, over half the band run their own businesses. When we don’t have gigs to play there’s always a reason to postpone a practice, let alone arrange a recording session. It’s a fun band after all and jobs, life, family… You get the idea.

However we’ve got two gigs this weekend and we’ve had three practices in the last 7 days. When there’s some urgency it all changes. Maybe if there was more urgency about studio time we’d get more recording done?

What do you need to make a good recording? Beyond good material and competent players you need the necessary equipment, a suitable space and someone with the skills to capture and mix it. We’ve got all that covered but I can’t help thinking that there is a case for going to a studio and recording there. Sound like a waste of money but actually it’s about perceived value, focus and urgency.

A Recording Session Is An Event

If we booked a couple of days in a studio we would prepare for it. We don’t think twice about mistakes and iffy performances in front of each other, but there is a certain pressure we put on ourselves to at least appear competent in front of someone new. We’d also have the focus we so often lack - a goal and time pressure. Another factor is that we’d have invested financially in that recording and therefore we’d do something with it. We’d have to. We might lack focus but we abhor waste!

If that sounds contradictory it’s because it is. Having a band, a recording space, the gear and the skill to record and not to use them is a waste of potential, but none of it directly costing money. Paying someone for something forces us to think in a different way. I have recorded the band but because we can do it any time, we listen to those recordings, focus on what could be better and regularly don’t do anything with that recording because it’s only one of a potentially infinite number of recordings we could make. So why concentrate on this one?

A recording date at a studio would mean we have a recording we were motivated to prepare for and then to use as a definitive version of that material, because not to would be a waste not of potential opportunities but of real money.

Should You Try To Be Engineer And Musician At the Same Time?

There is also the matter of ‘hats’. When I’m playing with my band I’m the keyboard player. I’m not the engineer and I’m definitely not the producer. When I record the band I have to change roles, and that’s something which changes the dynamic in the band. Part of the process of recording at a ‘proper’ studio is deferring responsibility to an expert. We’ve probably all met the techie person in a band who feels it necessary to compete with the engineer. Someone who isn’t secure enough to change hats and let someone else to assume their techie role, not because they are better but because If they do it you are free to wear the hat you’re supposed to be wearing in the session.

It’s not about how much time you have, its about how well spent that time is and that’s worth investing in!