So you have everything ready to go for your big day in the studio. The songs are written, the instruments are tuned and your drummers finally managed to set up “his” cymbals that are apparently critical to his performance.

The next thing you want to do is make sure that you are being efficient with this extremely expensive studio time you’ve got yourself. After all we are assuming that you are a small band trying to make it big. So let’s take a look at a few tips for using your studio time effectively.

Plan what you are going to record and its priority

Obviously you are going to want to have some kind of idea in your head about what the overall aim of your recording studio is. Are you hoping to release an EP or mixtape of some description? Or are you just looking to have some more materials to send to record companies?

Either way it will help a great deal if you coordinate with the rest of your band about what songs are going to be recorded first and how much editing work each one of them is going to need, make sure your sound engineer is aware of everything you are doing.

Try not to infuriate your sound technician

This is the person who will dutifully sit behind that sheet of glass with his headphones on, scanning through each track both during and after it is recorded. He will be the one advising you guys on how to get the very best possible sound out of the high tech equipment on hand and usually the one who you will be working with for a fairly decent chunk of your time and nits important that you get along even if it is only for a few hours.

Just treat them like a human being, don’t act like their boss and try to remain cool and collected if something does go wrong.

Make sure you know  what you’re paying for

Is the mastering of your tracks coming included in the price or is that an additional charge? How much does it cost if you overrun? Do they supply your tracks on a cd or do you have to bring your own flash dive? To avoid all of this effort and trouble then its advisable to find all of this out BEFORE you actually pay for anything. This will mean that you know what your getting and it doesn’t cause a problem with the engineer you will be working with on the day.

Its important that you follow these guidelines to get the best out of your session with many up and coming bands having to book new sessions because of problems arising from things like these.