Cheap recording studios in London?

[jmstone]

Anyone have any suggestions for cheap (and preferably reasonably OK) recording studios in London? (not that I'm sure our skills really merit being recorded for posterity!)

So far we have been making do with recording the band through the build in mic on my mp3 player, but the myspace page is becoming a bit embarrassing!

James

Edited January 27, 2009 by jmstone

[urb]

[quote name='jmstone' post='393216' date='Jan 27 2009, 09:55 PM']Anyone have any suggestions for cheap (and preferably reasonably OK) recording studios in London? (not that I'm sure our skills really merit being recorded for posterity!)

So far we have been making do with recording the band through the build in mic on my mp3 player, but the myspace page is becoming a bit embarrassing!

James[/quote]

Hi James

Sounds like you'd be better off saving your dosh and getting hold of/borrowing a Macbook with Garageband on it and getting hold of a mixer, and just record in a rehearsal room or someone's house, i.e. in a room that sounds good and you guys feel comfortable playing in. Check out the thread below that I posted re my jazz funky band, the results are quite impressive for a recording made in someone's front room. Pro studios are great but with a few bits of the right gear you can do a very good job yourselves, alternatively is there a local music technology college near you? If so the student engineers need bands to practice on, so if you can find one you should be able to get in a great studio and not pay a penny.

Just a suggestion, hope it helps

Mike

[The Funk]

I think that's good advice. Save your money and take it!

Alternatively, the recording studios at Resident (Willesden) and Panic (Acton) look pretty good although I've never used them.

Edited January 28, 2009 by The Funk

[jmstone]

[quote name='urb' post='393388' date='Jan 28 2009, 08:45 AM']Hi James

Sounds like you'd be better off saving your dosh and getting hold of/borrowing a Macbook with Garageband on it and getting hold of a mixer, and just record in a rehearsal room or someone's house, i.e. in a room that sounds good and you guys feel comfortable playing in. Check out the thread below that I posted re my jazz funky band, the results are quite impressive for a recording made in someone's front room. Pro studios are great but with a few bits of the right gear you can do a very good job yourselves, alternatively is there a local music technology college near you? If so the student engineers need bands to practice on, so if you can find one you should be able to get in a great studio and not pay a penny.

Just a suggestion, hope it helps

Mike[/quote]

Yeh.. that's a pretty good idea. I really like the sound of your recording.

The problem we have at rehearsal is the drums are way too loud, and the vocals are too quiet, and turning up the vocals leads to feedback on the PA.

I did experiment with recording from the mixing desk in the rehearsal studio, but to date I haven't been too successful in balancing the sound. I must confess I didn't spend that much time on it tho.

Any suggestions to get round this problem would be very helpful.

I do have a mac powerbook (and definitely used to have a copy of garageband somewhere).

James

[Musky]

[quote name='jmstone' post='393536' date='Jan 28 2009, 11:35 AM']Yeh.. that's a pretty good idea. I really like the sound of your recording.

The problem we have at rehearsal is the drums are way too loud, and the vocals are too quiet, and turning up the vocals leads to feedback on the PA.

I did experiment with recording from the mixing desk in the rehearsal studio, but to date I haven't been too successful in balancing the sound. I must confess I didn't spend that much time on it tho.

Any suggestions to get round this problem would be very helpful.

I do have a mac powerbook (and definitely used to have a copy of garageband somewhere).

James[/quote]

That's not really a problem when recording - the idea is to capture the sound of the instruments on different tracks and mix them to your taste rather than the sound in the room.


My band has done this (powerbook/cubase/fostex usb mixer). The Fostex could only handle two tracks at a time so we ended up putting the drums down with the rest of the band playing as quietly as possible and overdubbing the rest of the instruments. There was just enough spill on the drum tracks to use as a guide without screwing up the mix.

Not my favourite way of working, but it did the trick.

Edit: Just checked and it was actually a Tascam 428, not that it makes any difference really.

Edited January 28, 2009 by Musky

[jmstone]

[quote name='Musky' post='393551' date='Jan 28 2009, 11:54 AM']That's not really a problem when recording - the idea is to capture the sound of the instruments on different tracks and mix them to your taste rather than the sound in the room.


My band has done this (powerbook/cubase/fostex usb mixer). The Fostex could only handle two tracks at a time so we ended up putting the drums down with the rest of the band playing as quietly as possible and overdubbing the rest of the instruments. There was just enough spill on the drum tracks to use as a guide without screwing up the mix.

Not my favourite way of working, but it did the trick.

Edit: Just checked and it was actually a Tascam 428, not that it makes any difference really. [/quote]

Hmm. that sounds pretty complicated. How do you monitor the drums when you are overdubbing the rest of the band? Did you do 1 instrument at a time while wearing headphones?

I really don't want to overdub each instrument separately. If nothing else, I don't think we are up to it technically.

If I was going to record each instrument on different tracks, mic'ing the amps, how would be the best way to get the drums recorded? I have the feeling that even with using something like an SM58 the drums would still bleed through onto the different parts..

James

[The Funk]

The easiest way is to use two condenser mics in the room: right and left.

You should get the singer at the other end of the room from the PA speakers, with the mic pointing away from the speakers to minimise feedback.

[Musky]

[quote name='jmstone' post='393601' date='Jan 28 2009, 12:55 PM']Hmm. that sounds pretty complicated. How do you monitor the drums when you are overdubbing the rest of the band? Did you do 1 instrument at a time while wearing headphones?

I really don't want to overdub each instrument separately. If nothing else, I don't think we are up to it technically.

If I was going to record each instrument on different tracks, mic'ing the amps, how would be the best way to get the drums recorded? I have the feeling that even with using something like an SM58 the drums would still bleed through onto the different parts..

James[/quote]
Yep, we had a single set of headphones with us.

The way it's usually done with a band all recording in the same room is to use baffles around the amps and drums - you do get some spill like this but it's all pretty manageable. The only problem for you is that most rehearsal studios don't have baffles laying around.

Though thinking about it, Zed One studios in Camden don't use their recording facility at weekends so if feasible they might allow the use of their baffles if you book a rehearsal there. In fact they use the recording studio for rehearsals then, so if you booked that room there'd be a drum booth - obviously you'd have to check with them first whether it would be ok, but I'm sure something could be arranged.

Like the Funk says, you can get very good results with just stereo mikes (I've used PZM's with execellent results) but you'll need a decent sounding room to start with.

[urb]

[quote name='Musky' post='393672' date='Jan 28 2009, 01:58 PM']Yep, we had a single set of headphones with us.

The way it's usually done with a band all recording in the same room is to use baffles around the amps and drums - you do get some spill like this but it's all pretty manageable. The only problem for you is that most rehearsal studios don't have baffles laying around.

Though thinking about it, Zed One studios in Camden don't use their recording facility at weekends so if feasible they might allow the use of their baffles if you book a rehearsal there. In fact they use the recording studio for rehearsals then, so if you booked that room there'd be a drum booth - obviously you'd have to check with them first whether it would be ok, but I'm sure something could be arranged.

Like the Funk says, you can get very good results with just stereo mikes (I've used PZM's with execellent results) but you'll need a decent sounding room to start with.[/quote]

+1 on a good sounding room - but also you can always 'turn down' a bit - I know it's a radical idea but in terms of recording stuff being loud 'in the room' is completely different to it being loud on record - and if you can separate the vocalist from the rest of the band via a baffle then that will help. You can also DI the bass to get a good clean sound - but obviously that won't work if you aren't all on headphones.

M

[jmstone]

[quote name='urb' post='393790' date='Jan 28 2009, 04:21 PM']+1 on a good sounding room - but also you can always 'turn down' a bit - I know it's a radical idea but in terms of recording stuff being loud 'in the room' is completely different to it being loud on record - and if you can separate the vocalist from the rest of the band via a baffle then that will help. You can also DI the bass to get a good clean sound - but obviously that won't work if you aren't all on headphones.

M[/quote]


Good stuff..

The studios I was looking at are around £100-120 for a 7 hr session (so ultra-cheap!). Looks like I would need to spend at least that on a USB mixer to record all the instruments at the same time, or is there a different way?

I do have a cheap USB sound card with 2 mic inputs (sterero I think), so I could maybe get 4 channels recorded at once using that. Should there be an individual output for each channel on the PA mixer (never seen them, but then I haven't looked too closely), or do PA mixers only have monitoring outputs for all channels mixed together (I assume the latter is the case)? Alternatively, I guess I could make up some cables that are 2xfemale XLR -> stereo jack.. but that seems like a lot of work for something that might not work at all well!

James

[slaphappygarry]

I totally disagree with the 'get a laptop and do it yourself' suggestions. If this is the first time you have recorded the results will be poor and no doubt be no better than you have.

Even already it sounds as if this may be a little technically out of your league (which is fine) so what I suggest you do before diving in yourself is get a little stack of cash (£200 is a good starting point) for a whole day in a cheap studio and watch how engineer set everything up, sound checks everything and runs the session (this is more important than the other two). Your simple observation in this one day will be infinitely more rewarding than a week with the laptop on your own. Ask him some questions, when he moves a mic, try and work out (with your ears) what it has done to the sound.

Once you have done all this, ask him more questions at the end. Be involved (observant if not hands on) in the mixing and, once again, try and clock whats going on.

Then, once this is all done, go get a laptop and apply this experience yourself. Expand on what was said, did and make lots of mistakes and experiments but don't expect studio quality recordings at the start. Keep at it and constantly refine on the basics and you will start getting good results.

If you try to do it all yourself at first you will find yourself worrying about all sorts of strange and nasty technical things when, in actual fact, the most important thing is playing well.

G

[The Funk]

[quote name='slaphappygarry' post='394740' date='Jan 29 2009, 05:19 PM']If you try to do it all yourself at first you will find yourself worrying about all sorts of strange and nasty technical things when, in actual fact, the most important thing is playing well.[/quote]

Good advice actually. Is it wrong to do a complete 180 on this one?

[urb]

[quote name='slaphappygarry' post='394740' date='Jan 29 2009, 05:19 PM']If you try to do it all yourself at first you will find yourself worrying about all sorts of strange and nasty technical things when, in actual fact, the most important thing is playing well.

G[/quote]

This is excellent advice.

And I hear you Garry and having had experience of both I know EXACTLY what you are saying about thinking about getting a great performance down rather than getting stressed about techincal stuff and then getting both a crap recording and performance as a result.

My suggestions were more in the area of making a better quality demo rather than a really professional, polished recording as it sounded as this band might not quite be ready for the full monty studio session - I think I was also assuming that he had some experience of recording stuff - which among the people I play with is quite common (albeit not half what a true studio expert would have).

I also think that it all depends on what end result you want - a half decent studio and an experienced engineer will get you much better overall results than a DIY approach - it all depends what you can afford and if you think you band is at the level it should be to deserve forking out pots of cash. But - for £200 like you say the experience of going into a studio is worth every penny and will be a great starting point for a band. Hope you can see what I was saying? The old adage of 'you get what you pay for' most certainly apply to studios - but then again a talented engineer is priceless... amateur or pro.

Cheers

Mike

[jmstone]

[quote name='urb' post='394787' date='Jan 29 2009, 06:25 PM']My suggestions were more in the area of making a better quality demo rather than a really professional, polished recording as it sounded as this band might not quite be ready for the full monty studio session - I think I was also assuming that he had some experience of recording stuff - which among the people I play with is quite common (albeit not half what a true studio expert would have).[/quote]

Yes. I guess it is a toss up, because, granted, the band is not that fantastically good, but we definitely sound better than my recordings so far suggest. A low-cost demo recording would be good, but unfortunately as I don't have any of the required microphones, mixers etc. It would actually turn out to be more expensive than paying for a studio, for the first few recordings at least.

I think we will probably go along the line of going down the recording studio route for the first recording as suggested, and then I will have more of an idea of what is needed to get a half decent recording. Still, my interest has been piqued with the home recording/laptop thing. I would be very interested to know what kind of interfaces (usb or firewire or whatever) you suggest to go with the mac to record multi tracks in one go.

However, it looks like my initial question still stands! I was looking at Brick Lane recording studios:

[url="http://thelondonrecordingstudios.com/rates.html"]http://thelondonrecordingstudios.com/rates.html[/url]

(most likely the Hackney site)

Anyone know anything about this place?

James

[slaphappygarry]

[quote name='urb' post='394787' date='Jan 29 2009, 06:25 PM']Hope you can see what I was saying? The old adage of 'you get what you pay for' most certainly apply to studios - but then again a talented engineer is priceless... amateur or pro.[/quote]

Yep,

I fully understand and don't disagree with a word you said, just in this case the priority seems to be getting a solid final product.

All the best to you James.

G

[Weird War]

Good thread.

My band has some reasonable but old recordings on MySpace: we want to record our current (75% new and now includes cello - sounds like a washing powder ad!) line-up and plan to record this spring. What would I like to get out of the new recordings? A faithful document of the band's current sound (which is quite clean, ie. few effects, no loops) for our own satisfaction and also to pursue better gigs/promote the band. In summary, the recordings would be engineered rather than produced (not sure if Albini is in our budget ) and 3 or 4 songs is the aim.

We are London-based but are prepared to travel for the right place; at the moment, we're following a lead re: studio in Southampton recommended to us. Can anyone recommend a recording studio in the south-east?

Thanks

Doug