Unless you’re highly adept at getting the best out of digital home recording soft- ware and equipment, you may have to book a session at a professional recording studio if you want a good-quality demo. And quality studio time doesn’t come cheap.
One of the most expensive mistakes that many new songwriters make is to go into a demo studio without having a clear idea of what they want in terms of the arrangement, instrumentation, sound and feel.
If you aren’t singing the song yourself, you could eat up valuable studio time trying to establish the best key for the singer, and then have to transpose all your chord charts and other musical parts into the singer’s key.
If you haven’t already written a catchy melodic phrase or riff for the intro section, more time could be wasted if you have to wait for the guitarist or keyboardist to adlib a suitable intro.
Similarly, if you haven’t created all your secondary hooks in advance, you could lose more studio time if you have to rely on the musicians to come up instrumental, rhythmic or other sound hooks.
It is essential for time-consuming elements such as these to be carefully planned before you set foot inside the studio.
A recording studio can be a high-pressure environment, and writers who are just starting out often feel a little overwhelmed and intimidated. If you end up experimenting with ideas instead of recording tracks, the only person who will benefit is the studio owner because you’ll have to pay for the extra studio time.
If there is a cap on the studio time available to you, you could end up rushing the recording because you’re running out of time. This invariably results in a demo that you’re not 100% happy with. And, for years to come, it will always bug you that the demo could have been so much better if only you had been better organized during the session.
# # # #