Again, before I start I’d just like to say I am no authority on this, I am just sharing my experiences and if I’ve done something wrong or you know of a better way of doing something then let me know! I am always open to learning and collaborating.
I was very lucky when it came to recording my single. At the time I was doing a college course studying live performance and music, the college I was at also did courses for live sound and tech meaning they needed people to record so that the tech students could learn. This meant that I didn’t have to pay for the time in the studio or the people to do my recording.
On my recording it is not just me, however much I’d like to be able to play all of the instruments to that high of a standard I am not that skilled. The other musicians who performed with me for our college gigs also agreed to record with me. This means I did not have to pay any session musicians either. Session musicians obviously vary on how much they want to be paid, if you’re lucky then you might have friends who won’t ask to be paid however it is a job and I personally would have loved to pay the very talented people who worked with me but at this point I’m not able to.
When preparing for recording it was quite simple, at the time we were regularly performing on our course so we’d had a lot of practice, once a week for a couple of hours. If I were to record songs I wasn’t gigging with at the time I think I’d have to do a lot of rehearsal with the people I wanted to record with.
We’d done some recording with the college on the course before I decided to record, this meant I had a kind of plan in my head for how I wanted to do it. Because we’d practised together so much, and knew how each of us worked, it meant that we managed to get a lot done with not a lot of time, it only really took one day to get the song done meaning they started the mixing and we were pretty much done for lunch.
We started with the base of the song, the bass, drums and the rhythm guitar. On this song there is acoustic and electric playing rhythm so we added electric afterwards. We then added the guitar solo and the vocals. I added backing vocals on a separate day.
Once the recording was over I had to get it mixed. I didn’t manage to get the song mixed through the college so this I did have to pay for. I was lucky in that I got a recommendation from a friend of a relatively cheap person for mixing who was amazing and then they recommended someone for mastering who was also on the cheaper side. I did this song at the same time as three others so my mixing cost £160 for all four and my mastering cost £112 for the four.
Although this was a lot of work I really enjoyed this process, for one thing it was a huge learning experience for me but it was also a lot of fun working with other musicians and creating something I am really proud of.