There will come a time when you will want to record yourself or your band. In the traditional sense, this means getting a good, professional or at least “prosumer”-quality audio recording, either of a demo single, an EP, or maybe even an album. In today’s world, getting a good video of your band is essential. As my friend Richie Castellano of Jon Anderson and the Band Geeks and Blue Öyster Cult told me years ago, if you don’t have a YouTube video to promote yourself, you’re dead in the water. And it’s true – venues, booking agents, chambers of commerce and anyone else who hires bands and musicians will want to see a video, and if you don’t have one, game over.
But here I’ll focus on audio recording. I’m not going to delve too deeply into the tech. There are numerous websites, publications like Mix and Tape Op, and books to give you solid advice on what hardware, software, mics and so on to use, and how to operate everything. Instead, I’m going to mostly talk about the mindset of getting prepared for going into the studio, and what to do when you get there.
A little history: back in the day, from around the 1950s through the early 1970s, musicians had only had two choices: record on a low-fidelity home reel-to-reel or cassette deck to get a rough idea of what your band sounded like, or spend the time and money to go into a professional recording studio.
In the early 1970s TEAC introduced the A-3340 four-track reel-to-reel recorder, followed by the iconic A-3340S, which enabled overdubbing. These allowed well-heeled musicians (the A-3340S retailed for $1,150 in 1974, about $8,400 in today’s money) to produce excellent-quality recordings at home. It was a huge breakthrough for those who could afford it. (Note: a “track” in this article can either refer to one channel of a multitrack recording, or an entire finished song.)
The introduction of the TASCAM Portastudio in 1979 revolutionized home recording. It used cassette tape, but with all four tracks running in one direction at a higher tape speed than the standard 1-7/8 ips (inches per second). This improved the fidelity enough for musicians to produce very good quality recordings – Bruce Springsteen created 1982’s Nebraska on a Portastudio. Soon, portable multitrack recorders from Fostex and others joined the fray. But still, you had to go into a professional studio to get the polished sound of a pro-quality production.
A TASCAM Model 244 Portastudio from 1982. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/CountrySkyStudio.
With the explosion of computer and digital technology in the 1980s, it was only a matter of time before computer-based recording became available, in recording studios in the 1990s with the advent of software like Pro Tools and Cubase, and at home with portable digital machines, later followed by software that could be used on home computers. In 2004 GarageBand became available for Mac users at no charge, and later for PC. While rudimentary at first, today’s version is remarkably capable and sophisticated.
As hardware and storage prices continued to drop over the next two decades and audio quality increased, the ability for home musicians to make professional-sounding recordings at low cost became a reality. Today, all you need to make a great-sounding home recording is a computer, laptop, or even a tablet or phone, some good mics (this is an article in itself, but you can’t go wrong with a good old Shure SM57 or SM58) some low-cost or free software – and some talent. Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell famously recorded her first album at home in a bedroom.
That said, making a recording can be daunting. There is a psychological magnification effect of seeing that red light go on when you realize that you are now laying down a track, and it is being captured with intent in a recording situation. If you’re in a professional studio, it can be extremely nerve-wracking, especially if it's your first time. When our band the Lines went into the studio in 1980 to record our EP Statues, we were so tense that at one point our drummer threw his headphones at one of the other guys.
You become hyper-aware of everything you’re doing, from the strum of each chord on a guitar to the inflections of everything you’re singing. Even if you’re recording at home, the pressure to get it right looms like the Sword of Damocles. This can at worst result in a lifeless performance by playing it too safe. A little confidence goes a long way. I have boundless admiration for studio professionals who can come up with perfect, creative parts on the spur of the moment, or the jazz cats of the 1950s and 1960s who laid down history-making tracks in one take. On the other hand, if you're sitting at home sketching out an idea on an iPad, the pressure's off. In fact, recording at home, even if it's for practice, can help greatly for when it's time to go into the studio when the pressure will most definitely be on.
A lot can depend on your goals and mindset. Are you looking to produce a commercial CD, or just a demo to put on social media? Do you want absolute perfection where you’ll be doing multiple takes until you get it right, or just want to get a demo done to give to the other band members so they can learn a song. Do you want to simply get a good representation of a live performance? How picky are you and the band members and if you have one, the producer?
What are your time constraints and budget? If you’re paying for studio time, it’s a much higher level of pressure than recording at home. The days of Seventies excess with bands like the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac spending months on recording aren’t here anymore. Time is money.
You will have many artistic decisions to make. Was that guitar solo good enough? Do you really need that synth overdub?
I see the process of recording as a series of choices or even dichotomies. Do you want to get things done quickly, or take the time to make sure everything’s perfect? Will band members have an equal say in approving their parts, or is there a musical director or band leader with final say? (The latter approach tends to be more efficient. And some bands aren’t democracies.) Does the band have a tight arrangement for a song, or want to do some sonic experimentation? Do you want to capture the raw sound of the band as it is in live performance, or craft an elaborate studio production with many overdubs? You can easily get mentally frozen.
This can be remedied by what I’m going to say next:
Like so many other things, the key to successful recording is preparation.
While there are artists who write songs in the studio, for most of us, my advice is to be well-rehearsed and work out as much of the arranging or what Beatles producer George Martin called “routining” as possible…getting the structure (intro/verse/chorus/verse/solo break/bridge/chorus etc.) down, figuring out the basic arrangement and rhythm, and nailing the vocal harmonies and everything else in place.
Make sure your instruments are ready to go. Guitars should be freshly strung, set up, and intonated as well as possible (guitars by nature are imperfectly tuned; I’ve heard of some people tuning to individual chords and recording them one by one). Any string buzzes, dead notes, and so on will be magnified by the recording process. Drums should be tuned as well as possible (there may be some studio tweaking required), and free from rattles or mechanical noises. That first time the Lines were in the studio, we spent what seemed like an hour tracking down a squeak. There’s a reason the old Ludwig Speed King bass drum pedal was nicknamed the “Squeak King.” (You can hear this on John Bonham’s pedal on certain Led Zeppelin songs like “Since I’ve Been Loving You.”)
Vocalists should be warmed up and ready to sing. Reeds should be prepared and in the horn. Check cables, pedals and batteries beforehand. Don’t wear shirts with sleeve buttons that will bang on the top of an acoustic guitar. You get the idea, but honestly, some of these kinds of details, like sitting in a position that will minimize the buzz from single coil electric guitar pickups, will not be picked up until you’re actually in the studio.
Mentally, be well-prepared. If you’re anxious, which most of us will be to some degree, there are calming and focusing exercises you can do. And if you blow the first take, it’s not the end of the world. While many musicians feel that the first or second take are the ones with the most feeling, Jimi Hendrix notoriously would have the band play dozens of takes (to the annoyance of Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell) until he had one he was satisfied with. Sometimes trickery might be involved. When Iron Butterfly went in to record “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” at Ultrasonic Studios in Hempstead, New York in 1968, engineer Don Casale had the tape machine running for what the band thought was a rehearsal run-through. It wound up being the final take, which is a story in itself. You can always punch in parts and edit flubs.
Today's professional recording studios offer incredible recording, editing and mixing capabilities. Here's screenshot of Pro Tools 2026.4 recording software. Courtesy of Avid Technology, Inc. press release.
Be organized, but allow for creative expression and magic to happen. After all, the best recordings have indefinable X-factor magic. I once spoke to Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, and he told me that some of the Beatles’ best recorded moments were mistakes or accidents that the band and everyone in the studio decided were brilliant. (He also told me that a lot of what you read about the Beatles in books is nonsense.)
It’s easy for a song to become overly stiff and mechanical sounding, especially with today’s production standards of everything being locked and quantized to a rhythmic grid, cutting and pasting individual syllables, and other potentially vibe-killing techniques. With endless tracks available, along with a practically infinite number of sounds and effects, option paralysis can become very real. I read that Aerosmith once recorded 400 tracks for a particular song. In metal music production, it’s standard procedure to resample the drums – use the actual drum tracks to trigger prerecorded drum samples – to get a totally consistent sound. (Is it any wonder why so much of today’s music sounds soulless?)
On the other hand, you don’t want a song to be a sloppy, shambling mess. Sometimes it works, like Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35,” but usually if a song doesn’t have a strong groove, it’s just not going to sound good.
Here's a video that gives insight into how Nashville pros do it:
As implied before, sometimes it’s good to have a leader. Someone has to be the producer of the song or album and make decisions, especially if you’re making it for commercial release. If you’re Todd Rundgren, you can do it yourself. Most of us are not Todd Rundgren. An outside producer is often the best idea – they’re detached from the band and can be less emotional and more objective about things like the length of a guitar solo, whether vocal harmonies are working, determining the song sequencing for an album release, or whether a song itself is in fact any good.
Music and vibe are often intangible things. When does a song have “feel,” or not? The Rolling Stones would speed up and slow down, but the groove just wouldn’t be there if they didn’t. Kraftwerk, categorized by some as being “cold” or “mechanical,” used human percussionists. Phil Collins once said a drum machine has feel. But a drummer that can’t keep a beat is the kiss of death. And a jazz drummer has to swing. Playing along with a click track is common in the studio (to the detriment to a lot of today’s country music). Should a drummer play behind the beat or ahead of it? It’s ultimately a judgment call. Ultimately, feel can’t be quantified (but it can certainly be quantified away).
Time to bring up the subject of alcohol and drugs. Let’s not be naïve – so many great recordings were made by musicians under the influence. But my advice would be…don’t. Especially if you’re laying down basic tracks – drums, bass, maybe a guitar or keyboard to get the feel locked in. And especially if you’re new to this. I’ve seen people smoke a joint and become unable to even tune their guitar.
While getting the basic tracks down is demanding, once you get them in place, it’s somewhat easier to lay down the overdubs. In the old days of mono recording, there was no room for error, but with multitracking, musicians get a second (or 400th) chance to get their parts down. This can really take the pressure off, and allow for some crazy experimentation with sounds, tape loops, vocals, and well, the sky’s the limit. If you make a mistake but the rest of the take is good, you can punch in an overdub. And it’s common practice to “comp,” or compose, solos and vocals from multiple passes. It certainly worked for Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour on his solo for “Comfortably Numb.”
As in live performance, the more you spend time recording, the better you'll get at it, and the more comfortable you'll feel.
When you’ve finally decided that you’ve got a song or album “in the can,” it then comes time to mix and master it. And make no mistake – ultimately, you, or the producer, or someone has to decide: this is it. The recording is done.
Then comes mixing. This involves taking the individual tracks of a multitrack recording and setting their relative volume levels, panning them from left to right in a mix, and adding effects like reverb, compression, and other secret sonic sauce which can make the difference between amateur and professional-sounding recordings. This is a skill that can take a lifetime to master, and the best way is to learn by doing, and to read about and take advice from the pros.
As with producing, very often it’s best to leave the mixing to one individual. Otherwise you get the “more me” syndrome – everyone in the band wants to hear themselves louder than everyone else. And if you make everything equally loud, the mix turns to mush.
Mastering is a bit more subtle – this is where the final mix is tweaked with compression, EQ and other processing (or not, in the case of some audiophile recordings), the volume levels of each track on an album are matched, and the track sequence is determined. Although there are mastering plug-ins (software add-ons) like iZotope Ozone 12 that are available to home users, good mastering can be an art as much as a science, and I’d consider using a professional for this step, especially if you plan on releasing your recording commercially.
Here’s an age-old tip that applies to home recordists as much as pros: don’t just listen to your mixes on the speakers you use in your recording studio, or basement, or desktop, or whatever. Listen on a high-end system (if you have access to one), in the car, on crappy speakers – in short, through a variety of speakers. Not only might your system not be accurate in terms of frequency response, it’ll give you a sense of what your music will sound like out in the real world.
And remember, rules were made to be broken. While there are accepted standards for getting good results at home or in a recording studio, some of the most memorable sounds on record were made by defying convention. Fuzz, a sound that dominated 1960s rock, was “invented” as the result of a bad transformer in a mixing console, while engineer Glen Snoddy was recording Marty Robbins’ “Don’t Worry.” The sound effect at the beginning of Pink Floyd’s “Money” we created by splicing together a 20-foot tape loop and running it through a Revox A77 tape deck. Engineer Sylvia Massy put a mic at the end of a garden hose. Eno once said that you should record synthesizers through amplifiers rather than the conventional technique of patching them straight into the mixing console, to get a more dimensional sound. On “Ain’t No Sunshine,” Bill Withers forgot the words and repeated the words “I know” 26 times, which became the song’s defining moment.
Never sacrifice passion for perfection.
Header image courtesy of Pexels/George Milton.
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