Recording sessons: Remote vs. Live

 

Van Gelder Studios; Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey; USA

Prior to the Covid pandemic, almost all my recording sessions were live in a recording studio. I and my collaborators would all be in the recording studio together, and the compositions for that project would be recorded.  This is the standard approach for recording sessions.  Or it was.  

During the Covid pandemic, I didn't want to take any kind of a break in recording activity, so many of my partners and I decided to do remote recording sessions and projects.  In this manner, one of us would record our part for a piece, and send those recordings, or "tracks," to the other person.  That person would then add their parts, and the tracks were sent to my mix engineer who then mixed and mastered everything for album release.

Live recording and remote recording are two very different approaches and disciplines.  There was a time wherein I'd never consider remote recordings.  I thought that the live interplay was only to be achieved when everyone was together in a studio.  After a few remote projects were finished in 2020/2021, I realized that I liked remote recording projects.  I don't like them better than live sessions, but they have some advantages not possible in live sessions.  For example, you can take more time to think about and consider your parts.  You're not limited to whatever occurred in the studio on that day.

It may be that live sessions have more energy and more of a real-time compositional exchange, but I'm not entirely sure that's true.  At least not in my experiences.  

Since 2020, I've done a few remote recording projects with my partner Carl Clements.  Prior to that, we'd recorded a few albums that were all live in the studio recordings.  For the past four years, all our recordings were remote only.  Then, last week, we gathered in a recording studio to record our next album.  It felt great.  In two days, we tracked enough new material for two new albums.  Being in a studio with partners certainly does have an energy and immediacy to it that may be lost in remote projects.  But again, remote projects bring their own advantages that aren't possible in a live session.

All that said, I no longer know if I have a preference for live or remote sessions.  I may like both equally, but for different reasons.

-kk