Preparing Instruments for Music Recording

Video Transcript

"Before heading into the studio you need to make sure that all your instruments are working the way you want them to be working during the recording. Now, notice I didn't say that you want them to all be working at top capacity or whatever. And the reason is that sometimes certain instruments sound better recorded when they're not in tip top shape. For example, acoustic guitar strings, I personally think sound better when they're a little dead. Brand new strings on an acoustic guitar ring out a little too much and for my taste and for many other people's tastes as well you're better off having an acoustic guitar where strings have been on there for awhile. You may also find that certain strings on guitars or basses sound better live, but don't work out so well during recordings. You want to have clarity in your recording, but you also want to have a certain character. And that character is going to come across in the way that your instruments are prepared. Now, of course, no matter what you want to make sure that any tunable instrument is tuned before you go into the studio. I recently experienced a fiasco where the drum wasn't tuned ahead of time and we ended up spending about two hours playing with drum heads. Trying to get them just right. So, this is definitely something to do the night before so that you save yourself time and keep away unnecessary frustration. Drums in particular really need to be figured out before you get into the studio. Now, there are so many different ways to fine tune a drum and different drummers have different preferences on for example, how a snare should sound. How cymbals should sound. You want all this figured out ahead of time. One thing you might want to do is set up the drums. Have a tape recorder and just record them and play them back, so the drummer can say, "ooh. I really got to tune this or I got to replace the heads here." It's not stuff that you have the time for in the studio. Guitars should be set up before you go in. But, one thing you need to do is make sure that you aren't doing this too close to your studio recording time. Many alterations done on guitars need at least a couple of days before they sound good. So, I would not put new strings on a guitar the day before the recording. If you're going to put new strings on a guitar I would do it a week before the recording. That way the strings get a chance to stretch and they're not going to sound all tinny and nasty. Nor are they going to run out of tune. So, keep your instruments in good shape and make sure everything sounds right before you walk into the studio."