How to choose a recording studio for the record you're actually making
· 4 min read
The best studio you can afford is often the wrong one. What to match on, and what to ignore.
The instinct when booking a studio is to find the best one you can afford. It's the wrong instinct, because "best" isn't a property of a room — it's a relationship between a room and a piece of music.
A world-class facility built for orchestral tracking is a bad choice for a bedroom-pop record that needs two days and a lot of patience. A small dead room is wrong for drums and perfect for vocals.
Here's what to match on.
Start with what the record needs
Answer these before you look at a single listing:
Are you tracking live, or overdubbing? Live means everyone plays at once and you need space and separation. Overdubbing means one thing at a time and you need a good headphone setup and a comfortable room to sit in for eight hours.
Is there a drum kit involved? This is the single biggest filter. Drums need a room with some size and some sound. Almost everything else can be done almost anywhere.
Do you need an engineer? If nobody in your group can competently set up mics and drive a session, you need one, and that's the most important thing about the booking. If you have someone, you're buying a room and can be far more flexible.
How long do you need it? Most people underestimate. A day gets you far less than you think once load-in, setup and soundcheck are accounted for.
Then filter on the things that matter
The live room, if drums are involved. Size and character. Photos help less than you'd think — look for dimensions and for any description of how it sounds. A room described in detail by its owner is usually a room its owner is proud of.
The gear list, specifically. Not "professional equipment" — actual models. If you need a particular sound, this is where you find out whether it's there. If a listing has no gear list at all, that tells you something too.
Whether the engineer is included. A room at £40/hour dry and a room at £70/hour with an engineer may be the same deal. Compare like with like.
Hours and noise limits. A room you have to be out of by 8pm is a different product from one you can work in until 2am, and it matters enormously if the session runs long — which it will.
Load-in. If you're bringing a kit, backline and five people, stairs matter more than the desk does.
What to ignore
Names on the wall. Records made somewhere say something about who used to book it, not about whether it suits you.
The size of the console. Almost nobody tracking a modern record needs a large-format desk, and its presence tells you nothing about the room's sound.
Aesthetics. A beautiful studio is nicer to spend a day in. It will not make the record better, and it is frequently priced as though it will.
Being the cheapest. The saving is almost always smaller than the cost of a day that doesn't work.
The questions worth asking before booking
- Can I hear something recorded here recently?
- Will the engineer on my session be the one I'm talking to now?
- What's your setup time, and is it billed?
- If we run over, can we, and at what rate?
- What's actually in the room on the day — is everything on the list working?
That last one catches more problems than any other. Gear lists go stale.
On booking somewhere you haven't seen
Reasonable, common, and worth de-risking:
Book a short first session if the project is long. Half a day tells you whether the room and the people work for you before you commit a week.
Read reviews from people who completed a booking. On SESH that's the only kind there is — a review can only be written by someone who actually did the session, which is what makes them worth reading.
Check the cancellation policy before you pay, not after. Flexible, moderate and strict mean a full refund up to 24 hours, 5 days or 14 days before respectively, and it's shown on every listing.
Understand how the money works. You pay when you book, but it's held rather than handed straight over, and only released to the studio 24 hours after your session ends. If the room isn't as described, that window is what protects you.
The short version
Match the room to the work. Prioritise the live room if there are drums, the engineer if you need one, and the hours if you're prone to running long. Ignore the wall of gold discs.
Browse studios — gear lists, rates and hours are on the listings, so most of this is answerable before you message anyone.