Hi fellow stick players,

A few weeks ago, I met a young german drummer in my hometown which quickly became a friend and the musician I felt I had one of the quickest and strongest connection with.

We decided to book a recording studio to record a few tunes I wrote. I feel excited by this project, and a bit anxious too, but at a very moderate level TBH.

As I've never been in a recording studio before, I was wondering what could be a daily routine prior to that due date : technically/instrument/state of mind speaking... What were your experiences at that point?

I wish Greg could be there to share some of his own experiences...

Can't wait to see the replys on this one.
Spare strings. DO NOT change before studio. Too many variables, plus the Grand Piano Sound. New battery if you have an ACTV2. Spare wire(s).
Anecdote: I went in the studio for a friends recording. Bass duties on Stick. Started by plugging into PODX3 LIVE. WAY too noisy. Went direct in to board. (real board, real eq). ACTV2 went schizo. No 9V in the house. Owner handed me his bass. 5-string, not set up the way i like it. Played parts that were like the ones I would have played on Stick...except upside-down and backwards. I hadn't picked up any of my own basses (which I didn't bring. Because this was a STICK gig) in a year. No calluses.
Friend loved it, studio guy says "Can I call you when I need to track bass?"
Breathe. Stretch your hands, and your body. Lotsa coffee! Good luck!

Good points! I already felt that I should not change my strings just prior to those days, i don't love the excessive brightness of new strings, and moreover, it usually takes a few days to reach a certain stability.
Hopefully, after so many gigs and rehearsals this year, my effects rig is gig-approved. So with luck, I should not struggle with equipment on D-day.

I have not been on a studio date since the early/mid 1990s, but for me, if I was a hired gun, I'd make sure I know the material well enough, by listening to the tunes on a Sony Walkman while out on a walk, I'd practice to make sure I could do the technical things required with my fingers, and I'd figure out what gear I would be bringing, along with instruments.

I agree with Andriod, no changing of strings, I just make sure it works.

Strangely enough, I don't really ever remember having a tuner with me, I mean I must have, but I always tuned off the person who brought me in, as the last thing I would want to do is start a pissing contest of who is in tune/who is not in tune.

Extra batteries are a good idea, strings too...

If in Connecticut and I was driving, I would bring one or two instruments, and what ever amplification set up I was using, since I insist on having the amp/speaker sound as opposed to a DI sound [which is another story for another day]

If it was in NYC or Brooklyn and I was taking the train in, one instrument, maybe two [in gig bags..] and just one or two effects pedals, and maybe one of my GK RB400 heads if I was unsure on equipment on hand.

I'd have everything packed up the night before, and relax with a few pints to ensure a good night's sleep and try not to think too much about it.

*in the old days my un-official rider included a 6 pack of Guinness Extra Stout, to kind of mellow me out some, but today I would never do such a thing, I'd have some tea instead.

I think somewhere I read where Keith Levene [RIP] stated that there's no point in doing more than two takes, you either nail it or you don't [or something like that], nobody is going to notice the difference anyway and that's a philosophy I completely adhere too.

I do know that Keith/Pil saw no point in rehersals for the same reasons.
That I don't agree with.

On a side note, as an engineer - if some one starts insisting on doing takes over and over and over, I wouldn't even bother rolling tape because the person would have no idea which take was better than the other, usually it's always the first or second one, maybe third... but by then the energy and soul is all gone.

I personally prefer a real wild take that's played with real spirit that is not necessarially correct over something that's technically perfect but boring at the same time.

But these are my own opinions.

GOOD LUCK - REMEMBER TO HAVE FUN !!!!

Be relax, like if you were in your living room and having fun with another musician.

Sounds good. I'm sure we will have definitely some fun there.
And I agree about the two first takes. Without properly recording while at rehearsals (only with phones, just for remembering arrangements for the next rehearsal), the first "takes" were the better (on the next ones, we just focused on small snippets, just to check out some tiny details/articulations).
Hope it will be the same at the studio.
We decided to record both instruments (drums and stick) at the same time, playing in the same room, hoping the takes sounding the most natural this way. We won't use clic track, as the music sometimes require some breathing/ tempo slowdowns. We will see how it goes...!

Done!

Well, that was both funny and interesting. Even if it was a premiere and a very short experience, I discovered and learned a lot. Here are my first impressions, i maybe add some later :

Two days are definitely a very short time, especially if you like to have some spare time, which have always been something important to me in a working or creative process. We managed to record 4 tunes within more or less 12 hours of presence in this place. Recordings are not perfect : sometimes if you listen with some attention, you can hear some small mistakes from both of us, but we decided to keep them, as those recordings are not for a commercial purpose (anyway who would want to buy some stickist music?) , and rather for some local promotion purposes. Due to this very short time frame, we didn't have time to experiment a lot, so I guess the next time, we'll probably book that studio for a longer period, just to have more flexibility on that matter.

One thing I found to be very important in this kind of process is the trust you need to have in your partner(s). The drummer I play with, in addition to being very skilled at music, is equally skilled about recording process, and he's a very soothing person. He handled the whole technical process, such as mikes placement on his drum set, computers and softwares uses (the studio is actually just a room with some mixing table and soundcards, so he had to bring his own laptop and softwares/plugins). The only thing I had to do was just recording with him as soon as he was ready to play! I've never been able to record anything at home, because handling both playing and technical roles has always been too much for me. So being in that situation of playing is the only thing you are asked to do was very "calming". That was really a "zero stress" situation.
We spent quite some time to prepare the recording process (nearly the whole first day), just to be sure that the instruments recordings will need a very few post recording adjustments. And it seems that we got it right, because except a bit of mix, some additional minor reverb/eq/compression adds, my mate won't do a lot of post prod work. I just hope we'll be to remove some white noise we couldn't get rid of during the pre-recording process (but hopefully, it's only noticeable during the "silence moments" of the tracks).
The only thing I found a bit disturbing is that we played together in the same room but with headphones on. So the sound of the Stick was not very "nice" or "flattering", and I was a little bit confused with the direct sound of the drums and the drums sound from the headphones at the same time. It was like a 3D sound right into my ears, with an unusual and un-natural sound of the Stick on top. But once record done, I quickly realiized that the recordings went quite nicely, as the Stick sounded how I use to hear it when playing live (and I spend a lot of time perfecting "my" sound) : smooth, deep, not harsh at all. Good surprise then.

Well, I hope we could publish this material before the end of the year and I'm now quite eager to enter the studio the next time!
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