I always have days off before and after I go to the studio. That's really important for me that I know that I have days off after, 'cause then I can give my everything when I'm in the studio. I love being in the studio and being able to think, 'Okay, I'm not doing anything tomorrow.'
If you are recording, you are recording. I don't believe there is such a thing as a demo or a temporary vocal. The drama around even sitting in the car and singing into a tape recorder that's as big as your hand - waiting until it's very quiet, doing your thing, and then playing it back and hoping you like it - is the same basic anatomy as when you're in the recording studio, really. Sometimes it's better that way because some of the pressure is off and you can pretend it's throwaway.
The magic can happen in a studio. Special things can happen in a recording studio, even though it may seem like a clinical environment from the outside looking in.
I really just like making music. People call that 'work.' Like, 'Oh, you're going to the studio to work?' No, that's even what I do in my off day. I love recording.
You come to my studio, it says 'No photography on premises.' I picked that up from Kanye. We don't need all that. In the old days in the Wu, we didn't allow anybody in the studio, not even women. We didn't start allowing women until five years after our debut. ODB used to get mad.
Everything has changed since I started recording in 1972. But the very things that have opened this industry, like the digital platforms to reach more people, have also killed things that were happening before in the recording studio. Now, most of the time, there are no real musicians in the studio; it's people with sequencers and things.
I had a recording contract with Capitol Records. I loved recording and being in that studio. I made four albums.
Ain't no off days. I don't take off on no businesses I do. So I'm in the studio all the time, with so many records, and I guess it's a good problem when it come down to it.
To me, finding sounds, or even recording, is a compositional process. The studio is kind of an instrument.
Wherever I am on location, I can usually, even in the weirdest little places, find a recording studio.
We with Michael Jackson were in the studio recording some work on "Man in the Mirror" or the duet. I can't remember which it was. We did the duet in three languages: English, French and Spanish. So, I spent like a week with him in the studio doing the three songs in different languages. It was just an awesome experience recording with him.
We honestly felt a bit more at home in the TV studio than we did in the recording studio.
Our studio is kind of built into our home, so it's a place you can ramble, and we can do a pretty good recording here. The band is really comfortable her.
I think it's great that people now have access to Pro Tools and other recording software at home. I've never understood how anyone could be comfortable in a recording studio
I really love something about being around the recording studios - you know, like, those days in the '80s they'd be, like, in the studio 'til 4, 5, 6 in the morning working on these songs.
If you had a sign above every studio door saying ‘This Studio is a Musical Instrument’ it would make such a different approach to recording.