Session Recording

Music recording sessions are the starting place for almost all commercial and privately released CDs. In their simplest form they are a collaboration between the performers and the recording crew to produce recorded material that with varying degrees of post-production will form an audio CD. Traditionally sessions are run in 3 hour blocks with a short break in the middle, with two such sessions per day this is the standard format laid down by the Musicians Union in the UK but does not have to be followed rigidly and we always aim to be as flexible as possible. However as a rough guide you should allow a minimum of 3 hours session time for 20 minutes of finished music. This assumes that the repertoire is well rehearsed and should be reduced to 12 to 15 minutes finished music per session if you expect to rehearse-record or anticipate tuning difficulties as might be found in Baroque or difficult contemporary music. This means that usually a full 70 minute CD will require a minimum of two days recording, but more often three days. These are usually consecutive days but this is not essential and we have systems for re-creating microphone placements and mixes so that a project can be continued after a break of many months if necessary.