Choosing A Studio--Part Three

WHAT ARE THE PEOPLE LIKE?

To me, this is the most important aspect of choosing a studio. If you really feel at home and comfortable with the studio personnel, you can't help but put in a good performance. If they are supportive, yet firm, and insist on you doing things well, this is always far better than suck-ups who will try to tell you how fantastic you are while your sound sucks and you will be back to spend more money with them to "fix it." It is also far better to have the studio care about the demo's craftsmanship rather than feeding your ego, since they have a reputation to maintain, and they want good advertising. If they are jerks who keep making mistakes and telling you that you sucked and need to do it over and are rude, you will do a lot more takes and often be rattled and unable to do your best--these creeps are often only after the number of hours they can sucker you into buying and will keep insisting that perhaps you could "get it right" with just a few more hours of work on your dollar.

If they are seriously hyper or too laid back and act like they are on drugs or drunk, consider if this is an atmosphere you want to work in--many will feel at ease in this environment, but I've found that these folks are too prone to making mistakes and often have too many personality disorders that cause them to make these mistakes--feelings of being a God, paranoia, inability to work quickly and efficiently, insisting on doing things by rote and unable to take criticism or suggestions, etc. To be honest, I'm allergic to pot and get a stuffy head if it is smoked around me, so I won't work in a studio that condones this practice, since it means I won't sing well. Being a healthy, vibrant sort, I find my happy-go-lucky attitude really irritates depressive types and my time in their studios usually ends up being a personality clash where they spend a lot of their time trying to jerk my chain, insult me and try to make me upset so I'll mess up takes. I prefer to find similarly happy and healthy studio people to work with that really enjoy what they are doing and don't need chemicals except for maybe a little coffee or soda to keep them up during long studio sessions. The important thing is to find people with the same working style as you-ask lots of questions and keep your eyes open-most people will have plenty of proof lying around the studio that will tell you plenty.

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