My thoughts and tips come to you from the lessons I’ve learned along the way when working with artists like Starfield, Goodnight Medic, Brian Doerksen, Sheree Plett, Sterr and more.

Here are a few tips you’ll need to get you on your way to finding a great Vancouver Recording Studio to record your next project in:

Make a vision and set your goals
Having a vision is a vital part to planning your recording. What is the goal of the recording? A demo? An EP? A full length release? A recording for family members? A business training recording?

Once you’ve set your vision and your goals you’ll be able to plan the rest of your recording with ease. Ensuring that each decision you make will be getting you once step closer to achieving your recording vision and goals.

Budget
We all know and agree that budget is a necesary evil when planning your recording. Things like demographic, sales plans, and investors are all things that should be considered when booking your recording. A high end studio might give you a better product than a studio that is more affordable – but will the general public notice? Remember your goals when deciding how much you’re going to spend on a recording project. If you’re just making a demo for friends and family it wouldn’t make sense to invest a lot of money into it.

Influences
If you are a band that is planning on recording or you’re planning on recording some type of music pick out some influences and styles of production that you like. This will help you with your next step of picking a engineer and producer

Producers and Engineers
Producers and Engineers are the people behind the scenes in the studio that will be responsible for directing, capturing, and manipulating your sound as best as possible. I encourage you to meet with multiple producers and engineers and get a feel for the work they have done and how you would work together. In most cases you will be working very closely with these people so be sure that you’ll get along. Without a doubt there will be some conflict at some point so be sure to look for someone you could have a good argument with and still love at the end of the day

Musicians and Talent
You may need to hire in musicians or a voiceover person depending on your recording project. Your producer / engineer will often have contacts that he/she can dip into. I encourage you to realize that players cost money and you will need to have some budget prepared for this. I cant tell you how many times I’ve had clients come into the studio saying “oh i’ll just use my friend for that” and the friend ends up coming in for free but costs the client more because it takes longer to capture the performance. Most often in these cases the performance isn’t even as good as a professional musicans performance would be. Watch for this

Schedule
Be sure to set up a schedule long before your recording starts. Booking time off work and into the studio isn’t always easy to do. The studio you choose may ask for a deposit to lock in your time slot. This is very important to do. Remember when scheduling your project that you’re involving a lot of people and having them to committ to something very important – make sure the people you’re relying on to pull off your recording are in fact reliable and exercise integrity.

Go with the flow
Even though you’ll spend so much time and effort planning your recording things might not always go as planned. Be sure to approach your recording sessions and project with a relaxed attitude. This way if something goes wrong it won’t throw you into a panicked state

If you’d like to discuss some studios and recording options with myself you may contact me by email – vancouverrecording@gmail.com or by phone @ 604.850.8168

Wishing you the best of success in the planning of your recordings,

Sincerely,

Steve Klassen