Planning a recording session

A recording session is a short project with a start time, a noise floor and a person who will later need the files. Planning is the cheap part. This checklist is the one we use on the desk. It does not include a rate, because rates belong to the room you are actually booking.

A week out

Songs. Finish structure. Print a form chart with bars, keys, tempos and repeats. If a song is still a mood board, it is a writing date — book it as one.

References. One or two mixes per song to describe tone and density, labelled, not a 40-track playlist. Tell the engineer what you mean (“dry vocal, close kit”), not “make it expensive”.

Roles. Write the names:

• Decision-maker (only one)
• Performers, with who is tracking live versus overdubbing
• Engineer
• Producer, if any
• Assistant or take-logger
• Who is paying the invoice
• Who may say the session is over

Room. Match the loudest and quietest sources. Ask about isolation, headphone mixes, parking, load-in, and whether another session is through the wall. If you are at home, do the same questions honestly: fridge, street, computer fans, housemates.

Paper. A short agreement or email that covers fee or trade, cancellation, who owns the multitracks, whether the studio may use a clip in a showreel, and how long files are kept. The Arts Law Centre of Australia is the briefing. Do not invent a “standard producer point” here.

Health. Sleep, food, strings, sticks, reeds, spare cables, hearing protection. A session is physical work.

Two days out

• Confirm start, end, and whether overtime exists as a concept.
• Send the stage plot or seating plot if more than two people play at once.
• Agree sample rate, bit depth, and session software. Do not debate this while the drummer is in headphones.
• Name the songs in the order you will actually attempt them. Put the hardest live tracking first if ears and energy matter.
• Check parking and access for the largest object (drum kit, amp fridge, cello).
• If anyone is a contractor coming in for two hours, give them a window, a chart, and a parking note.

The morning

• Arrive able to make noise at the time you booked, not at the time you parked.
• Label your own cases. Studios are full of black rectangular objects.
• Put phones on a mode that does not buzz into a quiet take.
• Walk the headphone mix. A player who cannot hear the click or the vocal will invent timing.
• Make a test recording and listen back in the control room and in the room. If the kick drum is a rumour, fix it now.

During

Take logging. song_section_take_why is a gift to night-you. “Audio 14” is a curse. Note whether a take is a comp candidate, a safety, or a joke that should not be released as a “studio outtake” later without consent.

Decision pace. The decision-maker calls the take. Committees in the talkback kill feel and money at the same rate.

File hygiene live. Do not rename tracks mid-song unless you must. Do not change sample rate because a plugin complained. Do not record over a take you have not confirmed is expendable.

Breaks. Ears compress. People get polite and then suddenly cruel. Schedule water.

Visitors. A session is not a party unless you booked a party. Extra bodies add noise, opinions and liability.

End of day

• Bounce or commit a rough so everyone hears the same memory of the day.
• Two backups in two places before the room is swept. One of them leaves with the person named in the agreement.
• Photo of the drum placement or vocal position if you must match tomorrow.
• A written list of what is actually finished, what is a scratch, and what must be redone.
• Confirm the next date while you still remember the problems.

After

• Send the take list the same night if you can.
• Do not promise a mix date you have not booked.
• If the project dies, the agreement still says who may sit on the files. Dead projects are how “lost albums” become legal letters.
• If the tracks will be released, jump to releasing before mastering so writer credits exist.

Home-studio variant

The checklist does not disappear because the room is a spare bedroom.

• Tell the household the hours.
• Treat the computer as a noise source: fans, MIDI through speakers, notification chimes.
• Use headphones for tracking when isolation is poor; check the mix on speakers later if the room can take it. See gear.
• Do not skip backups because “it is all on the internal drive”.
• If you engineer for someone else at home, you still need the ownership email. Friendship is not a licence.

Remote and hybrid sessions

If a player is sending files from another city:

• Agree tempo map, pitch reference, file format, and naming before they record.
• Send a rough with the click clearly audible.
• Agree whether they are delivering a performance or an edited stack.
• Agree a kill date so you do not wait politely forever.
• Check that their environment does not include a television in the next room. You cannot de-reverb a sitcom.

Education version

Run a mock session in class with no microphones: students fill the role sheet, the form chart, the take log, and the backup plan. Then add one microphone and discover how many of those papers were fiction. That write-up is a guest-post we would take.

The companion process essay — a rewritten heritage URL about recording process — is here. Use both: this page is the checklist; that page is the culture of the room.

Food, blood sugar, and the unromantic middle

Sessions collapse when people get hungry and polite at the same time. Put food on the call sheet. Put a finish time on the call sheet. A room that “we might just keep going” is how engineers make mistakes at midnight and how singers lose tomorrow.

If you are the decision-maker, your job includes ending a song. Perfectionism that cannot name a take is not standards. It is fear using electricity.

Assistants and take logs as career work

Logging takes is a real job. If you have an assistant, brief them like a colleague: the naming pattern, where the notes live, when to interrupt. If you are the assistant, you are allowed to ask those questions at 9:31am rather than at 9:31pm. The careers map includes this work on purpose.

What “finished” means on the call sheet

Write the finish line: “verses and choruses tracked, scratch vocal replaced, two backups, rough bounce emailed.” If the finish line is “we will see how we feel”, you have booked a hang. Hangs can be beautiful. They are not what this checklist prices in hours.

Send the finish line to everyone the night before. People play differently when they know the last song is the last song.

When the session is a school or a community hall

Add: child-safety rules, a neighbour letter if needed, a finish time that respects a caretaker’s keys, and a PA that cannot fall on a child. The education setup guide is the sister page. Do not run a “studio day” that is actually an uninsured concert.

The checklist still applies. The room just has more people you are responsible for.

Remote files that arrive late

Write the kill date on the invitation. If the file is not there, the part is not on the record. Endless courtesy is how albums stall and invoices sit unpaid. You can be kind and still end the window.

When the file arrives, listen before you say thanks. A beautifully named folder can still contain the wrong key. Send one clear note: use, redo, or unused. Unused still gets the agreed fee if the agreement said so.

Playback systems in the room

Listen to the take on the speakers you will mix on later if you can, and on a cheap pair if you cannot. A hero take that only works in the expensive cans is a take with a secret. Secret takes waste the next day. Write which system you trusted when you said “that’s the one.”

Hard drives as named characters

The drive that leaves the room has a person’s name on it in the agreement. The drive that stays has a retention date. If both are “someone’s USB”, the session will be a folklore. Buy two modest drives if you must; do not buy a myth about the cloud without a second copy you control.

Call sheets that fit in a pocket

One page: address, parking, start, first song, decision-maker, finish line, backup owner. If it needs a novel, the session is not planned. Put the page in the case with the leads so it arrives when the people do.