Think again.

A lot goes into considering where to record your next record. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that beyond the gear, the credentials and the pristine sound quality, the most important thing in the studio are the vibes. "Vibes" in the dictionary is explained as: "a person's emotional state or the atmosphere of a place as communicated to and felt by others." In other words, how well you are getting along with the engineer and how comfortable you are in the studio's surroundings.

Before I go into an example just think about this for a minute: If you had to choose between 10% better over all audio quality or 10% better performance on your next CD, which would you choose? Do you want to win audio fidelity awards or do you want an award for best new singer songwriter? I thought so. You see, in the end, the only people that really care about how totally "transparent" and "present" your recordings sound are other engineers and audio geeks . The rest just want to be able to hear your voice, feel the groove and the great vibe that was captured. Now, I am not saying that it's fine to have ragged demos (I actually like some of these), but what I am suggesting is that all you need to make is a great demo that delivers your vibe and that everything else is is waste of money.

Let's get one thing straight: I own a project studio, just so you know where I'm coming from. Let's get another thing straight: Huge studios do sound great. The large wooden rooms sound wonderful with drums and allow the nuances of the performance to sparkle. Ambient room mics in a large space can pick up the whole space and give a guitar or string track a wonderful, natural depth. Neeve and Manley gear gives that classic, expensive flavor to tracks. No doubt. So if you have the mondo budget, get along great with the engineer and can create your own vibe and atmosphere in the space then by all means go for it. Enjoy the luxury and make a recording that sounds just as good as Shawn's or John's. Just don't expect that recording to sell any more CD's than the one you could have made for way less in the project studio. No radio host is going to check where you recorded the disc before considering spinning it. No fan is going to email you about how great the drums sound (fellow musicians and producers might). In the end, the big studio session was something you did for your own experience. The fans will just care about the songs and the vibe you put out. So it serves you to figure out just where you can best capture that vibe. It just might be best sitting in your dads garage with your laptop or four track. I'm serious! I frequently mix things here in the studio that were recorded at home. My friend Johnny Kearns records his stuff in the down stairs bathroom at his parent's house). I love it, hiss and all. it's just so direct, honest and pure sounding. To me, that's what's important.

If you don't want to record at home, finding the right producer/engineer/studio owner is your most important piece of the puzzle. Take the time to see what it's like working with them by booking one day or half day sessions. Check what you need from a producer and see what they bring to the table: Can they help with songwriting? Do they play instruments and have arranging skills that can help flesh out your sound without hiring extra musicians? If you need extra musicians can they help with that? Are they comfortable using their software, are they quick or do they waste a lot of time searching through menus and manuals? Most of all, do you like the guy/woman? Can you see yourself spending several weeks with them? Don't get yourself into a situation where after 3 days you are pissed off at the engineer while you are trying to do takes. Bad vibes are way more audible than you might think!

A great demo has a lot of advantages to "pristine" recordings that were done "right".

First of all, creating a great demo is a lot cheaper. You can go into a local project studio and pay a quarter of what you might have to spend at one of the big ones. This will leave you more cash for mastering, duplication, promotion and tour support (thought about these yet?). Plus, since you don't have to watch the $ clock as much in a less expensive place you just might be a lot less stressed about the whole thing. Less stress = better performance.

Second, unless you are all about the expensive look of large recording spaces that look like someone just dropped a million bucks on just the flooring, then you should feel much more relaxed and open to experiment in a smaller place, where there is a casual atmosphere, mellow lighting, incense and perhaps a goldfish.

Third, the gear these days keeps getting better and better. Any decent engineer in a good project studio can create a competitive sounding disc that will sound just fine alongside major productions, especially if the recordings were mastered well. Most studios do have at least one or two really good mics and pre-amps for the vocals and other delicate stuff. The recording platform (ProTool, Digital Performer, Logic, etc) really does not matter. They all get the job done and have been used by pros for years.

A good example of what I'm talking about here is a recording made by my incredibly gifted mother, Sibylle Baier called "Colour Green" (google her to find some sound bites). She recorded these songs in the 70's on a little portable reel to reel recorder in her bedroom. Two years ago I found the reels in the attic, bounced them into the computer, edited them and then had them mastered. The disc was released this year on Orange Twin Records (http://www.orangetwin.com/labelnews.html) and is being received very well by fans (myself included) and critics. Here is a recording that distorts at times (my mom had set the gain too high) and sounds quite hissy, especially for modern standards. Her fans don't care about these sound issues at all!! The crappy sound almost helps the recording sound "real" and "alive". All the fans hear are Sibylle's beautiful voice and words. The fact that she is a dilettante guitarist, going back and forth between time signatures and was never able to play the same song twice in the same way doesn't matter either. The fans love it.

One of my clients, Forever Autumn had his own way of creating a vibe in the studio. He describes his music as "Acoustic Doom" and is into nordic languages, symbols and art, nature and rituals. On the first day of the session he showed up with a pick up truck full of forrest. There were bags of leaves, tree trunks, branches and twigs. We cleared out SubStation's main recording room and started to set up "forever autumn" (www.soultube.com/foreverautumnpics.html). Completed with skulls, candles, incense, chalices and and an owl, it was truly a special vibe which allowed the artist to be immersed in his own world. He was extremely pleased with the recording, and so was I. We had a blast running around in the forest experimenting with bowed distorted bass, bag pipes, striking the strings of banjos and mandolas with bones and recording the rustling of leaves. We even recorded a 20 minute long track consisting of just his breathing, plus a really slow acoustic part and some droning. It was a completely free and experimental session that yielded unconventional results.

Your fans want to hear the real you. The you that sits at the kitchen table writing your heart out, the one that lets his/her creativity flow freely in the studio. Does it make any sense to take that purity into a clinically treated control environment in order to squeeze some arbitrary sonic fidelity out of it? Doesn't it make more sense to make yourself really comfortable in a great little studio, make friends with an engineer/producer and just keep it real? Or better yet, just do it at home.

Do the fans a favor and go for the vibe.

Robby Baier is an award winning singer songwriter, lead singer of Melodrome and Producer and Engineer at SubStation Recording Studio in the Berkshires in Western MA.

Robby Baier
Producer, Engineer
SubStation Recording Studio
A Recording Studio in Great Barrington, Berkshires, Western MA.
www.substationstudio.com
Housatonic, MA 01236
413 274 9940

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Contact Music Producer Robby Baier to schedule studio time: 413 274 9940