Will that Recording Studio in Los Angeles Have What You Need?
Before selecting a recording studio in Los Angeles, it is important to know what you need and what you can live without. Do you need a big live room or will just an isolation room suffice? Is your project in need of a space that can record multiple musicians at the same time or will you be tracking individually? Below is what sets the pro studios apart from the home studios:
High-Quality Microphones
Microphones are necessary to record anything that isn’t midi based. Choosing the right microphone for the job is as important as the instrument that you are recording. With many microphone companies out there, it can be a daunting task to select the right one for the job. After all, a microphone that could work for one singer might not work for another. To record a Jazz drum kit will take fewer and different microphones opposed to recording a Rock drum kit. There are many microphones that do the same job. Typically, the more hi-end you go, the better the result. It is difficult and expensive to know what is exactly right for you and your project. This is why one goes to a recording studio with a well-equipped mic locker and an experienced engineer.
Mic Preamps, Plugin’s, DAWs, and Monitoring
We’ve already discussed how important microphones and instrument selection is. Further down the signal path is what you plug your microphones into. This is called a mic pre-amp. Again, many flavors for different jobs. If you are recording a quiet source like a voice over, a violin, or a flute, then one must select a pre-amp that will faithfully reproduce the sound of the source but not have any background noise or hiss when the gain is turned up in order to capture the source at an optimal level. Conversely, if you have a loud source or instrument like a drum set or a mic’ed guitar amp, you might choose a pre-amp with a more aggressive characteristic. Whatever the case may be, it is good to have many options in order to capture the best sound possible. Next in the audio chain is how you’re going to get the sound into the computer. This is called the A/D converter. It is of the utmost importance that this is as high-fidelity as possible because it won’t matter how good the instrument, microphone, or preamp is if your audio chain bottlenecks here. Let’s face it, at this point in the game, all DAW (digital audio workstations) are similar but really only one is the industry standard and that’s ProTools. Every part of the chain is as important as the next. Speaker and audio monitoring is also a big component. You need to make sure what you’re hearing in the studio is how it’s going to sound on every other system that you or your listener hears your music on.
Appropriate Environment
If you are recording a quiet instrument like a string section or a voice over, noise from the outside world is a definite thing you want to avoid. The size and shape of the room as well as the materials on the walls, floors, and ceiling will also shape your sound. It is important to avoid a space with parallel walls or 90 degree angled corners. There have been many books written on sound acoustics and the recording studio.
Silverlake Recording Studio in Los Angeles
Silverlake Recording Studios is built around a boutique and vintage front-end and a digital back-end. Our extensive mic collection through high-end vintage and boutique mic-preamps and compression into a Mac Pro running Pro Tools HD will assure that you get the sound you are looking for with any of the colors you want. With floated hardwood floors, high ceilings, and an asymmetrical floor plan, Silverlake Recording Studios’ tracking room sounds great and is a relaxed comfortable place to work. The floated hardwood floors and high ceiling of our main room make it a great place to track drums, full bands, small string ensembles, horn sections, or multiple voice over artists at once. The open floor plan is inspired by the production techniques of today’s top producers.
Contact us today to set up a tour of the studio or to book a session. (323) 404-5598 darrenelpant@att.net
