It Takes Time |How To Prepare For A Recording Session | Studio 101

Feb 17, 2019

It takes time—way more time than you think. I have clients call the studio all the time, looking for 3 hours. National touring artists do not go into the studio, and 3 hours have the hit you hear on the radio. Here are the facts. Whatever your estimate is, multiply it by three.

First, there must be some session set up. All the recording instruments must be set up, tuned, and miced up. Instrument sounds keep getting adjusted accordingly to the song. The engineer must adjust the pre-amps for all of the instrumentation. So for argument's sake, let us say that it takes two hours. Secondly, all of the trackings, overdubbing, and recording of the song must occur. Let us say that it takes two hours. Next comes editing. You want your song's timing perfected, do you not? Of course. That will take another hour or two. It takes time.

It Takes Time. How Long Is This Going To Take?

It takes time. Now the engineer must mix and master the song. The song must be radio-competitive. So the time it takes an engineer to mix and master a song can vary. It takes me from importing raw files, or after a band records their music, about three or four hours if I am uninterrupted. So it may be in your best interest to let the engineer mix and master the song by himself. So you see that it takes time—more than the initial call of three hours. I stated earlier to multiply that initial ask by three. The total would be nine hours, three hours times three.  

Now we add my estimations. Two hours set up plus recording for two hours is four hours. Add that four hours to the editing, bringing our total to six hours. Lastly, add the engineers three to four hours to mix and master, and you have 9 hours at the minimum. That amount of time is the initial three hours asked for times three. It takes time. At Starsound Studios, we have a ten-hour minimum in all of our studios for this reason.