How To Get Studio Gigs, Or how to become a studio musician? Options

[Alex Feather]

Hi guys! I wanted to share my experience about becoming a studio musician
Right now economy is bad and a lot of studios went out of business but you still can find a lot of work and a lot of opportunities! There is only one but! Before you will decide to take your next step and approach studios you need to be very good at a few thing!
1) your timing is the most important thing in studio recording you need to learn how to play behind the beat on the beat and ahead of the beat usually producers don't like to re record simple parts and fix timing so make sure you have it right!
2) be creative! I have been in many situations when producer or artist have no idea about what he is looking for so you have to be as creative as possible and be able to figure out part on the spot! Of course more experience you will gain easier it will get but be as prepared as you can!!!
3) learn as many styles as you can it's really important because this knowledge will give you options and you will have bigger chances to get studio work. Also usually studios don't like to change musicians very often so if you can play in a lot of styles you will be irreplaceable and you can keep your gig for a long time
4) be a nice guy! It's very common that the artist or producer are uneducated and have no idea what they are talking about you have to be able to hold yourself together and do not blow up! Also your scheduled recordings can be moved around or canceled and you have to be nice about it no matter what!
5) make sure your gear is working and you know it well! In man cases studio will provide you with guitars amps and pedals but you still need to have your gear ready just in case you need to know your pedals and guitars very well and will be able to figure out sound on the spot! You don't need to have a million guitars and pedals one good guitar and a few pedals will be enough it's better to have one pedal and know how to tweak it instead of ten that you have no idea what to with!
So if you have it all you can start looking for work!
You need to have a little demo compilations of different styles on one track you can do it at your home studio or ask someone who has one in worst case you can pay studio time to do a little recording
Make sure that you are using backing tracks and the quality is good! Also make yourself a one page resume that you will be able to edit a long the way!
Also make friends with producers and working musicians because those people will send work your way as well! Do not turn down anything even if you have to work fo free still do that! You will gain experience and will get connections! Get a list of studios in you town and contact all of them and don't forget to follow up!
When I started in the united states I had to start from the bottom so I sent out my resume and demo to about 500 Studios and I got gigs that I am still working with!
Keep connections you got I'm still sending Christmas card to people who I worked with years ago because you just never know who will give you work and holidays is a good way to remind about yourself!!!
It's is a lot of work to get yourself in to studios but it will be worth it in a long run and time you will spend will eventually pay off!
I hope it helps!!!!
Good luck!!!

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