StudioPros

At Studio Pros, we provide you with professional players, producers and engineers for the production of your songs. When it comes to recording the vocals on your song, it’s your time to shine and sing on tracks that our Los Angeles based studio musicians have laid down for you.

You have 3 options for vocals before we mix your tracks at Studio Pros:
1. Hire one of Studio Pros’ professional vocalists to sing your song.
2. Record your vocals at your home recording studio.
3. Record your vocals at a local recording studio.

If you’re planning recording your vocals at home, or at a local recording studio, here are some tips to get the best quality recordings:

Recording Vocals at Your Home Studio:

A few things to consider when you’re recording at your home studio are the environment you are recording in and the overall acoustic sound of the room you’ve chosen for your tracking room. If the room produces a lot of reflections, you may want to consider treating your room acoustically to absorb the reflections and deaden the sound. Remember that we are always adding our own processing and effects to your vocals.

Singing your tracks dynamically is good, but only up to a certain point. If the volume of your tracks is going from piercing loud to quiet as a mouse, this will make the mixing stage very difficult for the engineer. To get the maximum sound out of your vocals, control your dynamics by paying attention to volume and stepping away from the microphone if you’re singing louder than in quiet sections.

Sound quality is determined by the overall chain of sound which is your microphone, pre-amp, convertor/soundcard, then the recording software you’re using. If any one of these links in the chain is not up to par, you might want to consider taking your tracks into a local studio and have an engineer help you get a quality vocal take.

Recording Your Vocals at a Local Recording Studio:

If you wouldn’t consider yourself a technological wiz and don’t have a home recording studio, don’t worry. Save yourself money and time on home recording equipment and take your productions to a local recording studio to track your vocals for our productions.

When you’re choosing a local studio, make sure you’ve done some background checks on the engineer and facilities you’re about to use. Don’t book studio time without checking out the studio and getting referrals from friends, listening to demos or reading reviews. Get some rates from the studio and make sure it fits in your budget while still delivering a quality result. The average rate you should expect to pay for a vocal session is $50-100/hour.

Once you’ve chosen the engineer and studio to record your vocals, bring in the keyboard preview mp3 from the production as the instrumental backing track to begin recording your vocals. Once your recording is complete, you’ll then export each individual wav file of your vocal adding the 2 bars of clicks as described below.

How Do I Send the Vocal Tracks once they’re finished?

Once you’ve completed recording your vocals, export or bounce each vocal track as an individual mono wav file at 44.1 khz, 24 bit without any processing or effects. You’ll need to copy and paste the 2 bars of clicks from the keyboards preview onto each individual vocal track. Then, archive (zip) all the vocal tracks into one zip file. Log in to view the production order within your account, and upload the file.

To read more about Studio Pros vocalists.

To read more about Studio Pros Full Music Production.

Mr. Dylan said it best, “The times are a changing”. So are the ways of getting your music recorded. Back in the day you could only go into a recording studio to get your songs recorded. Now, there’s the option of Studio Pros.

Some people may be turned off by this. Sending their music off into cyberspace seems unrealistic and threatening to the songwriter. The truth is each “studio musician and producer” you are collaborating with across the web has a face and a name. Not only are they living, breathing, and laughing people but they want to collaborate with YOU as a songwriter. Recording online is just a way to make recording more convenient for the songwriter.

Studio Pros is the perfect example of this. You can send your song off to Los Angeles to get it produced. Of course all of this is done via the internet, and the next thing you know… BAM, your song is produced and ready for the radio.

Hold up. What happened here? Do you want to be more involved in the production of your song? Sure you do! We have the tips that can make the online recording process the most creatively involved process for YOU as the songwriter.

Tips for Getting Songwriters Involved in Studio Pros Music Production Service

1.  Make sure your song is complete before sending it off: You must first be happy with a bare version of your song before you start adding layer upon layer of instruments.

2.  Be Involved: Give your vision of your song from the start to Studio Pros, reference tracks of artists you feel are similar, let the players know when they are doing a good job, positive feedback is always encouraging.

3.  Get To Know the Production Manager: Be friendly with the people in charge of the operation. After all, they are “producing” your song for you. You want to have open communication with them.

Learn more about Studio Pros music production service.

Brenna Whitaker is a talented singer that has worked with Studio Pros over the years. She’s also had years of experience performing around the country and studied and had her own bands around the country from New York, Vegas to Los Angeles.

Do you have any tips for vocalists out there who are trying to record in their home studios?

First of all, find a comfortable spot to set up your studio in your home. Next, have a basic set up to where everything is accessible to you while you’re recording. Make sure the outside noise is quiet and you are getting the best sound with what you have to work with. It helps to cover the windows to reduce noise and hang blankets or tapestries on the walls to soften the echos. Be creative with what you have in your home recording studio. There are no rules for recording in your own studio.

Do you have any particular vocal warm ups you do before you step into a recording session?

Depending on how big of a range the song is, I usually have to warm up my voice for about 25 minutes. I like to go through a series of ooh’s and aah’s, scales are always helpful to get my voice going. Also, just singing harmonies to a song on the radio is a fun way to get ready to record in the studio.  Do you do all of your vocals in one take?
Every once in a while I have that lucky song. But most of the time, I have to perfect things by punching into the song. The trick to punching in is finding a spot in the phrase that doesn’t effect the fluidity of the song. You never want to punch in the middle of a phrase or word.

What’s the best way to make multiple takes sound as if you were singing the song straight through?

I like to be nice to the mix engineer in this case. But there are things you can do to make punched in tracks sound fluid. Fades at the point of the punch in are a great way to make sure that there aren’t punch in sounds and weird transitions between takes.

Learn more about Studio Pros vocalists.