What to expect from your recording session

Roughly a week before your session, we’ll organise a call to run over a plan for the session, looking over any demos and planning what equipment you’d like to use and time frames for the project. Make sure you have fresh skins on drums if you are using your own, new strings on guitars and any backing tracks have been sent in advance or able to transfer on the day via airdrop or hard drive. Knowing the BPM for tracks in advance is preferable. Please ensure you are well rehearsed, able to play confidently to the click track if you plan to do so.

There are facilities on site for cooking and making drinks but the nearest shop is a 5 minute drive away.

Sessions start at 10am unless organised otherwise. You’ll get shown around the studio and able to load in any gear. We’ll run over the plan for the session as I set up the equipment and microphones. Drums will be tuned. Set up can take anything from 45 minutes to 2 hours depending on what is being set up, if it’s a live session and if we are trying out different snares or equipment. 

If tracking separately, be prepared for waits in between instruments to allow for comping and drum editing before moving on. If the band is live tracking this will wait until after the tracking is done. With live tracking, if you’re recording to a click, editing and comping will be possible, however if you choose not to record to a click we will have to work off whole takes as matching up takes to comp is near impossible due to timing variations. 

Once the session is done, it will be left with me to finish off. If I am mixing the project, I will need to take time to finish comps, edit, do vocal tuning and mix prep. This can take around a day per 1-2 tracks. From there I would allow approximately 1-2 days to mix per track depending on the makeup of the track. This will be confirmed upon completion of recording. Expect the first mix to come back 2-3 weeks after your session unless told otherwise. We can review what you like, don’t like and revisions will be carried out on dates specified at the time. I aim to get the mix completed within 3 revisions and do not charge for revisions, however charges will apply if you would like to re-record anything or arrangements are altered and this will be done on an hourly rate of £35 per hour or half day/full day rates to be agreed at the time the work is requested. 

Credits should be agreed when booking the session. 

A non-refundable deposit of 50% is required to confirm your booking at The Ranch. If you cancel your session with enough time for another project to be found to replace yours, you will be refunded based upon how many days get replaced. Deposits are connected to specific dates as opposed to whole projects, it is likely that postponing will result in a lost deposit.

Working hours are 10am-6pm and 6:30pm-11pm for evening sessions.

Stems can be provided for a small fee