WELCOME TO CLOUDLAND

At Cloudland Recording Studio we’ve designed a space to fit the character of the musicians we work with.

With a large live room, two isolation booths and tons of vintage and modern equipment we can shape recordings to your style. We have a collection of analog tape machines that range from 1/2″ 2-track to 1″ 16-track, as well as 24-track digital recording with the best plug-ins available. Unlike other studios we have an actual analog plate reverb and a vintage Fairchild spring reverberation system, along with digital reverb plug-ins. We are all musicians ourselves, and understand the plight of the working musician, so we strive to keep our rates as low as possible.  We want to make records with you.  For the price you would pay to make a record in your neighbor’s living room, you can record in a professional studio on the best quality gear with experienced engineers.

BOOKING YOUR SESSION

Our preferred method of booking full bands is by the day. (Solo artists: see Hourly Rates)  What Is a Day? We consider a day to average around 8 hours. If we get done a few hours early, it’s still a day. If we’re on a roll toward the end and don’t want to stop, we may go a few hours later and it’s still a day. (As decided by the engineer)  Eight hours may sound like a long time to play, but remember that setting up gear and microphones takes time and should not be rushed: we want to make sure you are comfortable so you can make the best record possible.

HOW MANY DAYS?

2-4 songs: 1-2 days
5-8 songs: 2-4 days
9-15 songs: 3-5 days

These are conservative suggestions. Sometimes bands come in well rehearsed and knock it all out quickly, and sometimes bands arrive ready, but find they need for extra time to make changes or polish their work. Book an extra day on top of what you expect you’ll need and it will be put to good use.

HOURLY RATES

Booking smaller blocks of time is limited to sessions that don’t require recording a full band: solo artist recordings, adding vocals or guitar overdubs, voice overs, and other smaller projects that require less setup. This may be best for final mixing of a full band if we don’t have time to mix at the end of our full session, or if you’d prefer to rest your ears before regrouping to mix.

HOW SESSIONS RUN

We do our best to accomodate to your needs as an artist or band. If you prefer to have all members close to each other in the same room, we can do that. If you would like the separation of instruments by isolating the drums, guitar or vocalist in an iso booth, we can do that too. We can do it all live or we can track basics and overdub your complicated guitar solo or vocals afterward at your own pace.  Our main concern is to help you perform your best when we record.  We’d be happy to discuss any questions or concerns you may have before we begin, so you know exactly what to expect.

WHAT TO BRING

Your instruments, amplifiers, cables, strings, reeds, straps, batteries, tuners, et cetera. Bring extras of everything. You don’t want to have to stop your session to run to our record store to buy a pair of drum sticks.

PRE-PRODUCTION

Pre-production is everything you prepare yourself prior to your arrival in the studio. This includes song selection, arrangement, scheduling session musicians, finishing lyrics, etc. Too often a band shows up at the studio knowing that they want to dub in some extra guitar parts or add backup vocals, but haven’t hammered out the details. This can result in a pressured, rushed session and will affect the quality your final product. Polish your music, communicate with any collaborators, and make sure your equipment works. Always have your gear serviced, or at least checked over, before you arrive. Proper pre-production will take the most stress out of your time in the studio and allow you to be comfortable and inspired.

DIGITAL OR ANALOGUE

This decision should be weighed with a few considerations. We have vintage and modern analog, tube, transformer and transformerless preamps, mics, compressors and other outboard equipment to make your music warm, detailed, and of the highest quality, whether recorded on tape or digitally.

Analog – (Our Prefered Method) If you have a little extra time and a roomier budget to buy or rent tape, then you can be making records the way the classics were made. Tracks per song are limited to either 8 or 16, so there is less room for error and saving takes for comparison.

Digital – If you are limited by time or budget, you may want to record digitally. This will allow you to get more done in a shorter period of time, in turn saving you money. With digital, you could, theoretically, record unlimited takes and compare them all before final mixing.   You have unlimited tracks for all of the extra instrumental and vocal parts or layering you want to do.

PAYMENT

Payment is due at the beginning of Day One of your session. We reserve the time you schedule for you, and book around your session: once the clock is running, we can’t make up any missed time. Don’t be late!

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