About a month ago, I did a recording session in the barn behind my house with a group from Kalamazoo, MI called Who Hit John? They are an old-timey string band, and recorded half of their album live that weekend. We had previously done the same thing back in May. Both times, we took 3 or 4 days (Fri-Sun the first time, and Fri-Mon this last time). I think that doing an album this way is my favorite way to record. Whether or not you track everything live is less important than scheduling multiple days in a row.

When you book multiple days somewhere, you save on time that it takes to tear down and setup gear. More importantly, however, no one is paying attention to the time. This creates a much more relaxed feeling session. When you know that you don’t have to worry about going past a certain time, no one is pushing for things to be done quickly. You’ve paid for the whole day, whether that day ends at 8pm or 4am doesn’t matter, at least when you’re working with me. If something isn’t going well, it’s not a problem to put it away and move to something different.

Ideally, if you work with a band whose members you easily get along with, going to a remote location to record is great. I did this back in January for the basic tracking for the as-yet unreleased Airborne or Aquatic album. One of the band members owns a cabin in the middle of a forest in Northern Michigan. We spent 5 days up there. 9 band members, myself, and a couple friends of the band, one of whom was a chef. Working this way promotes comraderie among the band and engineer, which results in a low-stress recording. In my experience, spending a week at a cabin with a band and some recording equipment turns the week from a recording session to hanging out and enjoying a lot of music that happens to be recorded.

We have done this nearly every time Airborne or Aquatic works on their album. Although since then, I don’t recall a session where every member of the band was there. Most of their sessions, however, we will go somewhere in Northern Michigan (either back to the cabin, or to a private studio in Big Rapids) and spend a couple days there to get whatever work done that we can.

That said, it’s especially important to not get lazy on those types of sessions. You still have to pay attention to what is going on, and making sure that the sounds you want are the ones you are getting. It does take some extra time to do setup for a session like that, compared to going into a professional studio. Make sure that you have everything you need for the session. For the Airborne or Aquatic session, I was 3 hours from home. If I had forgotten something important, we would’ve lost most of a day while I drove back home to get whatever it was I had forgotten.

The two biggest problems with leaving for a week-long recording session are finding a week where everyone can get together, and finding a place to do the recording. Airborne or Aquatic and Who Hit John? were both lucky in that they had a place where they can work that way. Nonetheless, when possible, it’s my favorite way to work.

Tags: Airborne or Aquatic, Remote Recording, Sessions, Who Hit John