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.

Many songwriters have their own home recording studios and double as the producer, engineer, songwriter, and recording artist.  Most songwriters don’t also fall into the category of “studio drummer”, and that’s where Studio Pros comes in to save the day (or the album you could say). 

 

 Gettin' It Down: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Everyone: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 Don’t waste time struggling to knock out a midi drum track on your song when you can have our studio drummer come help you!  As many of you may have realized, getting drum tracks recorded may be the most difficult step in getting your album finished.

 Aaron Frisbee, a Kentucky based songwriter, fits the above description to a tee.  He was in the process of recording his album “ReDISCOVERY” and found the drums to be the hardest part to master from his pro recording Studio640 in Louisville.  Frisbee’s songs, simple and lyrical with textures that include organic guitars, pianos, strings, anolog synthesizers and layered vocals were screaming for organic live drums to compliment the sound.

“I found the Studio Pros session drummers after working endlessly to try to sequence drums with a “human” feel. I found working with the pros studio drummer was great.  We talked about the style and approach I had in mind for the album. I sent some songs to give him an idea, a vibe (Beck’s Sea Change meets Abbey Road). Many of the drum ideas were original and the recorded sounds were great. It really made it easy to for me to bring them into the final mix.”
 
Aaron found the pros to be very approachable in the collaboration process of his drum recordings, “I would discuss revisions with the drummer and try different versions until we got it right.  I wanted ReDISCOVERY to have a classic analog sound but with modern touches – it just made sense to record live drums on most of the songs.”
 
Once Aaron had a drum track that he approved and downloaded, he had no problem importing the tracks into his Pro Tools set up from his Louisville, Kentucky home recording studio.  “It was easy. In many cases I would continue to arrange the song even after the drums were cut because we were working with a click. I would also choose my favorite fills and move them around in the song. In the case of “Believe”, I reversed some drum parts for cool transition effects.”

“Drum parts are usually really hard for singer songwriters and getting quality performances and well recorded parts can take a tremendous amount of energy if you don’t work with pros. The problem is most people can’t afford to put together a team (drummer, studio and engineer) to get their drum parts. Studio Pros makes it easy and affordable and their live drum parts definitely raise the bar of the production allowing performing producers like me to focus on one or two input recordings like vocals, guitar and keys when finishing the songs.”
 
So follow Aaron Frisbee’s lead and send your album’s tracks on over to the Pros.  We are here to help you finish your album with a professional touch! 

To buy “reDISCOVERY” go to Aaron’s website: http://www.frisbeemusic.com/

Frisbee will be touring this year as well, so check up on tour dates and locations on his site.

Click here to order Studio Pros drum tracks.

At Studio Pros we like to take from what’s worked in the past and apply it to what we’re doing today. We have worked with many artists that request this sort of “British Rock” sound, and we know just what they have in mind.

 

 Wake Up Now: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

“British Rock n’ Roll”, as they called it, was a significant change in rock n’ roll that took place in the late 50’s/early 60’s in the UK and later spread around the world. Artists were taking from US rock n’ roll influences and giving it a British edge. This style became the characteristic sound of the Beatles , The Rolling Stones , the Who , Herman’s Hermits, the Dave Clark Five, the Animals, The Kinks , the Small Faces, the Yardbirds, and Donovan among many others. It worked. People obviously liked what was coming out of this new era and it changed the wave of music forever.

When we have an artist’s reference to the overall final sound they are going for, we are happy to help in any way we can to produce their song the way they had in mind. Of course, this is not the only sound that we can achieve with our studio musicians at the Studio Pros recording studio, but an option for those post “British Rock” enthusiasts.

To get that “British sound” we tend to use a lot of compression on our piano tracks, space out the drums (big drum sounds are big in this style) and give the overall mix a dark overall sound with compression.

We’ve just recently done a production with songwriter Finnur Bjarki called “Wake Up Now” in the style of “British Rock”:

Tell us a little bit about your songwriting and what you do with your songs once they are recorded.

“I´ve been writing songs since I was a teenager. I use my acoustic guitar to relax write melodies. Some of the songs just come to me in 5 minutes or so, others need time to develop and mature.”

What made you go for the British rock sound?

“I grew up with U2 in my ears, The Smiths and the British metal. I have always loved the British rock. Maybe because I find a lot of British bands use the conventional instruments more than most bands today so they have this live band element. I like the sound of Keane, Coldplay, Starsailor etc..

The roots are always there and they dont get caught up in the technology to much.”

What are you planning on doing with your songs once they’re all recorded?

We plan to release a new CD by spring and almost all instrumentation is done by Studio Pros. Recording this way is something totally new to me and I had to get used to it. The professionalism is great, it gives me a warm feeling to hear my songs performed and given life this way and this has saved me a lot of time.

To listen to more of Finnur’s work: www.porterhouse.is

To learn more about Studio Pros music production service.