How To Prepare A Studio Recording Day

June 25, 2017

This time, I introduce you my concept and the structure of my production's schedule with which I prepare every of my studio recordings. Such plans make a smooth course possible and inform all involved people at an early stage. Thanks to the schedule, every team member and the musicians are aware of the details of the individual days. Moreover, the engineer and the studio owner are informed about what equipment will probably be used during the recording which is a real time saver later in the studio.

Structure & Content

Info : PLEASE NOTE - In the case of recent "von Berg" releases (2018/2019), we want to state out that we did not record (depending on the material), edit, mix or master the final product! This project was closed by AP before completion. Read the end of this article for more details.×

Using the example of my last recording, we will go through all the different elements of my common recording plan. If you missed the article about the instrumental recording with the German indie-pop band "von Berg", feel free to read this first so you are more familiar with the actual situation.

1 Contact Details - Musicians

After a header with e.g. your logo and a clear headline I directly start with the contact details of the musicians.

These are very important for the production team if there are additional questions about the used equipment or just to remind them with a quick call to bring everything necessary with them to the studio.

2 Location

Even in our digital age, it will not hurt to include a full address and a screenshot of the surrounding area of the studio location.

3 Rooms

In this section, you clarify which studio and recording rooms are booked in the studio complex - if there are various available.

In this example the studio has different studios but only one recording room, so no additional information was needed here.

4 Contact Details - Production Team

As well as we include the contact details of the band or the booked session musicians, we should include the information of the production team like engineer and producer.

5 Production Schedule

This is the most important part of the whole production's schedule. It basically concerns to everybody involved in the production. You create for each recording day a short and crisp daily plan including all important main parts of the day.

Do not forget to plan enough breaks so the team can relax a bit and recover its energy.

6 Studio Equipment

This tech-focused section is a complete overview of the channel and the therewith probably used equipment like preamps and microphones. It makes sense to confer with your engineer and asked him about his opinion about the selection you did.

I also added additional relevant information regarding the technical aspect of the recording. In this example, I already specified the overhead technique of the drum microphones and mentioned that we will place the guitar amp in a different room than the live recording room.

7 Miscellaneous

Is external equipment required next to the studio's gear? Do the promotion guys need cameras to take some photos behind the scenes? I also put backup drives and laptops here as a little reminder.

Dispatch

Once the full plan is completed, I usually send it to all team members, musicians and the studio owner via e-mail 1 to 3 weeks before the first recording day. In addition to the production schedule's PDF, I also attach ical event files of each day to the mail. Finalise your mail with a nice motivating text and ensure that you have included your contact details for possible queries. Done! ;)