Stepping into a recording studio can be intimidating for the inexperienced musician. Sure it’s always intimidating for the experienced musicians. Of course it is. That’s precisely because bands that have been over the course know that it’ll be costing them money and lots of it. For the green band cutting their first demo, that debut recording experience is a harrowing affair, a journey into the center of panic and disillusionment.
Picture the scene. You try to track those hard to write and twice as hard to play tech-death jams that somehow just won’t come together despite your six-hour rehearsals the day previous. You realize for the first time that, yes, your vocalist is an asshole and remember that he was only ever in the band because he was the only one who volunteered to grunt his guts into the mic. Your drummer has something wrong, medically; it can never work out. And then there’s the on-the-clock sound engineer; what is it about sound engineers? Are they all so ornery and combustible? If ever there’s a demographic whose emotional spectrum registers only catatonic disinterest or Nic Cage-style nuclear freakouts it’s sound engineers. They’ll judge you silently (if you’re lucky) and you will wilt in their gaze as life visibly drains from their faces. And then once you’ve cut your demo, it’s official: Your band sucks; the first professional on the scene hates it, and this epiphany has been painful and expensive.
Does this sound familiar? Have you, too, rocked up at the studio feeling all pumped and under the spell of rock’s unholy magic only to leave feeling like the prison showers would have been less of an ordeal, that your wellspring is now dried up and been cemented over?
Well, help is at hand with these instructional video from Spectre Studios [Where the likes of Woods of Ypres recorded]. For all of you coltish metal bands thinking about recording your first demo, EP or whatever this is essential viewing. Don’t, for the love of God, do anything before digesting these words of wisdom. For the rest of us, well, it’s kinda funny and weirdly inspiring.
Part One:
https://youtu.be/Lw25dOC7H9M
Part Two:
https://youtu.be/qUzEP63sH7M
