There are probably as many ways to finance recording as there are bands to record. Some people just do it in small, digestible chunks. Pool together $500 or so to track basics and then work on the overdubs and mixing bit by bit, week by week.

Another option is to just work within your budget. If you can only scrape together $300 to record, then rehearse yourselves silly (which might make you a better live band, as well) and spend a day tracking live to 2-track in a studio that has the right setup for you to get killer sounds right off the bat.

If you think about it in terms of "oh my god, it's going to cost us $10,000 to record and we'll never have that much money" then you're psyching yourselves out before you start. You seriously can record a great sounding CD with whatever budget you have. I've done commercially released CDs for full bands for $150.

To answer some more regarding paying for it, some bands have to break it all up member-by-member and pay with credit cards or some money here, some money there. It's sort of like asking how you pay for a car.

I'm sitting at the studio as I type, waiting for my morning session to start. This is a client I've been working with over the course of 7 years, doing $200 sessions once or twice a month. If you added up all the money she's spent and thought about that figure when you were BEGINNING to record, you might flip out. If you look at it in $200 chunks, it's a hell of a lot more manageable.

Roger

Oh Brooks. If you only heard what I just said about you and Alex in a interview I just did, you'd take that back.

I should charge you DOUBLE!

:)

Roger

1. Save the money you make at gigs instead of pissing it away on booze.
2. Get a credit card
3. Lay out a budget
4. Rehearse and demo the songs (i.e. tape deck, ipod, etc.)
5. Hire Roger
6. Pay back credit card with gigs

It's worked for us.

why Not in Worcester?!

ahhhhh.... that's what I thought but it didn't make any sense to me because the clubs in Worcester have always paid us the best. Playing in Boston, Providence, and Western, MA usually doesn't even cover gas and parking.

I can't imagine anyone being desperate enough to pay for sex with us...

The 1st Sayhitolisa CD came about after John made 20k on his stock options, when his company got bought out. He dropped 10k of it on our CD. I'd imagine most people don't have this for an option.

The 2nd Sayhitolisa CD was paid for by John & Rob saving their pennies. I didn't pay for shit, except beer.

The ill-fated Huxley CD was mostly paid for with gig money. We had less than $1000, and it was recorded mostly "live in the studio."

The James O'Brien CD was done in a studio owned by James' manager. Didn't cost us a thing.

The Gutta CD is still in the works, but it's been worked on piecemeal for a couple years, and paid for in bite-sized chunks.

The 1st Luxury CD was recorded largely in Jason's bedroom, and it sounds pretty good. The 2nd one is being done in the basement studio that we built, and it's turning out insanely awesome.

I will add that in the cases of the 2nd Sayhitolisa disc, the O'Brien disc, and the 1st Luxury disc, we had outside parties footing the bill for the CD duplication, to be recouped at a later date.