Oxtrack Studio - First steps

If this is your first time in a recording studio ... relax!

Rule number 1: Music making is supposed to be FUN

It’s a rule well worth remembering when you start to feel pressured or under stress during a recording session. First of all – don’t worry! Everyone gets nervous when confronted by a microphone and the thought that every sound they make (and every mistake!) is about to be recorded for posterity. Many great recording artists only give their best performances when they feel nervous.

The notes on the following pages are designed to help you prepare for your recording session and make best use of your time (and the time of everyone else involved, too). Read them and you’ll be better prepared for your first studio experience.

Then relax and get ready to make some great music!

If you have never attended a recording session before you may be surprised to hear that the most valuable quality you can bring with you is … patience.

The amount of time taken to record just a few minutes of your finest performance can be both surprising and frustrating. Hopefully these notes will help avoid some, if not all of the frustration and open your mind to some of the extra possibilities that studio recording can bring over live performance.

Recording techniques vary greatly according to the nature of the subject material but these notes should provide you with more than a hint of what’s going on – and why!

It’s all about you!

Without making you feel big-headed, it’s worth remembering that the whole purpose of the recording session is to capture your finest performance for posterity. It’s important for you to understand that the recording engineers and others involved in the recording process share with you this common aim and, even if their actions appear mysterious and you really can’t understand why you are being asked to sing or play the same little piece for the umpteenth time they are only trying to achieve this shared goal. Hopefully their endeavours will be reflected in the quality of the finished recording and increase your pleasure on hearing the final result.

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Last modified: 30 July, 2002