This post is part of a series called Your Recording Environment, where we look at how to create an environment for the best quality recording.
Cost
This may be the deciding factor on your choice of recording location, and although it is a fairly obvious point, here are a few things to think about…
Finding a suitable room at hom, or a friends place won’t cost you much, if anything, and is probably convenient for most people involved.
Local venues, such as church or town halls will often be available for hire, and you may be able to negotiate a reasonable rate for their use. The downside is that you will probably have to cart all the equipment there and back again yourselves.
While rehearsal rooms may be acoustically treated, and will probably give you access to some equipment, they do come at a price. If you can get together enough to cover the cost of some time in the studio, this may well be the most cost-effective option. Often, rehearsal studios come with an engineer to set up all the amps, mics and foldback etc which can save you a ton of time, plus potentially some otherwise out-of-budget equipment.
Recording studios are purpose built for the job and range from the small, cheap and grotty to the big and expensive. It’s definitely worth taking a look into what’s available locally, but for the rest of this series we will assume you will be putting in some of the elbow-grease to keep the costs down and enjoy experimenting and learning the process. It can be a lot of work, but it can also be immensely rewarding.
[image via Images_of_Money]
