Sometimes we have artists request that we record them ‘live’ – effectively doing an album’s worth of material in a single day. In the majority of cases we will refuse this request, which people may find difficult to understand, but there are a variety of reasons for our policy on this issue.
A live demo will not sound like a modern release-quality album. Ever. It doesn’t matter how good the performers are, or how good the engineer is at mixing on-the-fly. Modern commercial releases are simply not made this way, and if you have heard otherwise on a rockumentary, interview or article you have been misled.
As large as our live room is, we don’t really have the space or the isolation facilities to do this type of recording well enough. A drum kit is very loud at 2m away and will spill onto every mic around it, and guitar amplifiers aren’t usually much better.
That’s not to say that a live demo will be useless. It’s not always easy to hear things properly in a rehearsal room, so to do live demos for pre-production purposes, or simply to get a better understanding of where you are going right or wrong as a band can be very beneficial.
But if you are intending to sell the demo, use it to get gigs, send to record companies, or basically play it to anyone outside the band (except perhaps your mom!) we would always suggest you think again. Like most recording studios, the vast majority of our business comes from word of mouth. People like what they hear and ask where it was recorded. If we know we cannot meet our minimum standard of quality within the timeframe set by the client, we would rather turn away business than put out a record which would be a poor representation of what we are capable of achieving.
If you want to do a live recording to perfectly capture the way you really sound live, we will come to your gig and record that for you. We are not against live recording per se, but a gig has a completely different sound, and atmosphere then something played in a controlled studio environment. People know what to expect from a recording made at a gig.
To summarise – Live demos – make them for yourself, but don’t make them for anything else.