home studio & studio studio
3 out of 12 songs for the debut album have now had their first mix at King’s Road Studios. At this point I’ll write a bit about the process of recording and how I’ve balanced recording at home and working in the ‘real’ studio with Sanders.
All of the songs on the album have elements that were originally recorded at home as part of the demos I make when I work on a song. Creating an arrangement that I can walk around and listen to really helps me examine a song and how effective it is. It’s one thing to imagine that you will have a saxophone solo in a track, but another to actually score out the notes and experience what it feels like when it comes in.
Home Studio
I recorded a lot of the parts at home first. This is useful because I can take all the time I need to rehearse and record a variety of takes. Being able to record and review the takes at my own pace and not worry about the clock in the studio has really valuable. It’s also helped with the mixing, because I feel a lot more confident that the file being mixed in the studio studio is one that I am happy with.
Guitars
The acoustic, electric, mandolin and bass will get tracked live, usually with just one mic on DI into my computer.
Keyboards
As I don’t have the luxury of a Wurlitzer, Fender Rhodes or a real piano at home, I play in keyboard parts with my MIDI keyboard. I resist using the quantize function to tidy up the playing (unless it’s a really big mistake …).
Percussion
Most percussion is also tracked at home, with the exception of the difficult/fast parts which I let Sanders track at the studio.
Studio Studio
Vocals at usw
In the end there’s about a 60/40 split with the vocals. Some of the parts really benefited from being sung in a big room, so Finn helped me out by engineering those sessions and helping me pick different microphones to create contrast between the big, open songs and the intimate, personal ones. We also captured lots of vocal doubles in these sessions which are great for making a chorus sound and feel bigger and more exciting.
I tracked a lot of the more wordy and intricate parts at home because this let me take more time when I wanted to be very precise about inflection and phrasing. I can be particularly picky about the vocals and a different take can have a huge difference on the feel of a song.
Drums and Re-Amping at KRS
The full, live drums on the album are all tracked by the brilliant songwriter and drummer Lucas Eldridge and unsurprisingly we needed the full studio and 11 mics to capture everything. After we got the drums, we brought in the files that had been recorded at home and then ‘juiced them up.’ We do this by playing the audio file of my performance out of the studio desk and into an amplifier, EQ or compressor. We then re-record the sound after it’s been through the studio equipment. For me the files end up with a lot more presence and character after they’ve been through this process. They feel like the coloured in version, not just the sketch.
Pat of being an independent musician in 2026 is having to self-finance, manage limited time and money. I really recommend this split approach between home and studio if you’re looking to record your first album.
