A Major Music Studio

In-home guitar lessons, now only $50.00 Call today!

Don't settle for anything less than the best vocal performance you can get, and don't expect to get it all perfect in one take. More often than not you'll have to punch in and out around phrases that need re-doing, but if you have enough tracks, get the singer to do the whole song several times and then compile a track from the best parts of each take. You can do this on tape by bouncing the required parts to a spare track, but hard disk editing is much more flexible in this respect.

Everyone has their own style, but having a beat to listen to can set a mood, which can help to order your thoughts and make coming up with lyrics easier.

Make sure the singer is well rehearsed, physically comfortable, and under no psychological pressure. Most singers perform best standing up in a room that has a comfortable but not over-warm temperature. If they are distracted by other members of the band or by hangers-on, send everyone but the engineer (and producer, if you have one) out of the studio.

One question that comes up a lot for home studio owners is whether or not mixing on headphones is acceptable. I’ll be the first to say that if all you have is headphones, then by all means don’t let that stop you from mixing. Remember, it’s not what you use, but what you do with it that matters. But all things being equal, if you can afford to spend a couple hundred bucks on a pair of monitors, do it.