Work out all musical and vocal parts before coming in to the studio. Don't try to write at the studio and your friends should stay home. Know your music. Practice! Practice! Practice! At home. Not here. Get a good night's sleep the night before and don't overindulge in food or drink the night before. Bring copies (enough for every band member and the engineers, maybe a few extras) of all lyrics and notes (typed is best) with you. You should have your own instruments and amps, ours are nice, but yours is what gives you your signature sound and it is what you are used to. Guitar strings should be on the newer side, you should have extras too. Don't forget picks. Drumheads should be in good condition. Consider new ones. Do your pedals squeak? Take care of that. Bring extra sticks. Make sure you have instrument cables. You should have spare batteries for all EFX pedals and pickups. Bring power cables and adapters. It is also a good idea to bring a tuner for everyone to tune to, rather than tuning from each others' instruments. Ideally, drums and acoustic instruments should be brought in the night before if possible. Have you looked into copyrights? There is help on the links page.

Pre-production Advice:

Production:

Tracking-  The first step in the recording process is to record the rhythm and chord instruments. This is the time for set up, maximizing the sound quality of each instrument, adjusting the microphones, mike placement (drummers-this is where you will need patience), pre-amps, etc. Then the song is recorded. This is the foundation of your project, the rhythm or basic tracks. When the producer and the musicians are satisfied, we move on.

Overdubs-  Additional components of the music are added to the rhythm tracks. These usually include vocals (lead and harmony), percussion, strings, and instrument solos. These are the finishing touches.

Mixing-  After all parts have been recorded, mixing blends all the sounds together, creating magic. Special effects are applied at this time and volumes and equalization are set.

Mastering-  Many activities are involved with getting your product ready to be duplicated, some of them are: editing and sequencing the songs, balancing the overall volumes, tone, and dynamics. Any extra tweaking is done here.There is a lot to it, basically it's the voodoo we do.