Sound Advice: The Musicians Guide to the Recording Studio

Designed expressly for musicians, record producer, engineer, teacher, and consultant Wayne Wadhams uses real examples drawn from over 20 years experience to offer tips and suggestions to help them work productively with studio engineers to make professional-quality demo and master tapes on their own.

The first part of the book examines the basics of professional recording, the design parameters and limitations of studio equipment, how studio components are interconnected, the considerations that guide many engineers to select specific brands of equipment and the behavior of musical sound. Wadhams discusses studio equipment in the same order as the flow of musical signals. There is also a brief history of the multi-track recording studio.

The second part of the book demonstrates the crucial differences between studio control-room acoustics and real-life environments. It includes material on planning a recording session and and communicating with engineers, and it introduces information on milking techniques and electronic devices.

Part Three, 'Recording Individual Instruments and Sections,' is the heart of the book. Here, the the author devotes separate chapters to recording specific instruments, from drums, guitars, and vocals to brass and woodwinds. The last section of the book describes the mixing process and details the process of producing demos and master tapes. The author provides tips on mixing techniques and introduces musicians to the role of the producer is encouraging the musical energy necessary to record a successful song.