Studio Etiquette 101: Being a good studio musician November 21, 2008
Posted by ConnorSmith in : Chit Chat, Project Studio , trackbackWhether you are a seasoned Nashville professional, or tracking your first album with your band, you are a studio musician.
Being a prepared and efficient musician can save money, increase happiness (for everyone!), and help the album prosper musically. Being an unprepared and inefficient musician can cost money, decrease happiness (for everyone!), and put a negative vibe on the album.
What to bring to a session
- Yourself, on time (=early). Arriving early will give you time to meet the engineer/producer, setup, get your instrument warm, and make everyone more comfortable. Tardiness=ouch!
- A chart of the song. Unless you know the song forwards and backwards without fault, its nice to have a cheat sheet, even if its just the major chords and section changes. The less you know the song, the more detailed your chart should be. Figuring out chords/changes when you should be recording can put a damper on the session. I can’t emphasize enough that you will be in high demand as a musician if you consistently come to the studio already knowing the music well.
- If you are a guitarist (or bassist, etc) be sure to bring extra strings, picks, cables, a strap, a guitar stand(!), and a tuner. In my experience, the most often forgot items are tuners and guitar stands. Tuners are obviously essential, be sure to use them frequently! Guitar stands, while not as obvious, are also a good idea. Propping your axe up against a chair or the console can only lead to disaster in a studio full of people, cables, (i.e. things that can knock your guitar to the floor)
- If you are a drummer, bring extra sticks (of different weights if possible), extra damping (O-rings, moon gel, etc), and maybe even some WD40 (for that squeaky kick pedal, etc).
- If you are a vocalist, make sure your throat isn’t torn up from screaming the night before. Be sure to get there early to do some vocal warmups. If you know its going to be a long session with lots of singing, bringing extra water, tea, olive oil (a quick shot can really help the throat, as gross as it might seem) will keep your throat ready to rock. Also bring copies of your lyrics. This fulfills two purposes. First, you won’t forget your words. Second, the producer can follow the lyrics as you track to help decide any musical suggestions (as well as to help pick takes).
Those^^ are just some generalities, but they are at least a good start.
The most important concept here is to be prepared to play the music. Know the changes and follow the groove.
Some things to not do:
- Whether you are between takes or someone else is doing overdubs, don’t “noodle” around on your instrument just to make noise. Often this can cover up any communication between the engineer/producer and artist, as well as irritate the heck out of anyone in the control room. If you need to practice a lick a few times before the take (which of course is more than acceptable), just be sure to tell the engineer what you are doing.
- Once you are setup, try not to change things on your instrument without alerting the engineer first. Changing the gain on your guitar’s distortion pedal may mess up the engineer’s signal chain the other room, etc…
That’s it for now, more on this to come
C
The Studio Files
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