a day in the recording studio
MAY 31, 2026
diary
Today, I got to sing for a studio recording! My wonderful friend Claire, who is a talented musician,1 is recording an album and invited me to sing harmonies on some of the songs.
The days leading up to the recording flew by fast. Claire wrote the harmonies and sent them to me about a week in advance, and I spent a couple of hours learning them at my aunt's house in Korea. After a flight back to the Bay and a huge fight with jet lag (that I am still losing), I found myself parking in front of the studio.
The studio was tucked in this side alleyway? hallway? in a stout building that looked like it could have been a sanatorium. The location makes sense, though — according to the audio engineer working with us, most of the muffling (isolation) comes from the thick concrete walls.
The recording studio had a couple of other quirks. First, they had a room inside a room that they had built at some point for some clients who needed some really crazy soundproofing. Also, the studio had something like a million doors, which was funny. They're there for more isolation, but I couldn't help but feel like Pomni walking through the infinite door hallway in The Amazing Digital Circus.
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It works; the soundproofing really is good. About halfway through our booked time, a jazz band came in to rehearse, and you could not hear them at all in the recording room. (Shoutout to the saxophonist, who made their part sound so buttery.)
Also, there were these cool wooden things that diffuse sound waves:
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I learned a lot about how studio recording works. The workflow went something like this. First, Claire and her boyfriend Ian recorded the base of the song. She sang the lead vocals and he played the guitar part (both were very good.) Then, I'd sing harmonies over it. The audio engineer sets up all the equipment and whatnot in between.
One of the pieces of equipment includes a panel with a bunch of dials, which lets you adjust how loudly each of the parts plays in your headphones; for me, I had separate knobs for Claire's lead vocals, Ian's guitar part, and my own voice. I learned that if you are singing harmonies, it is important to make sure you can hear yourself clearly! I had several runs where the knob for the lead vocals wasn't working quite right. When it was too loud, I couldn't hear myself and pick out the pitches of the harmony. When it was too quiet, I couldn't match the rhythm/phrasing of the lead vocals properly.
Adjusting to studio recording was difficult in general. I was nervous and found it difficult to relax and breathe. I also had a million false starts and voice breaks and nonsense, but we got there eventually. The second time was way easier, though! It helped to make a lot of weird noises at the beginning as a sort of a warm-up. If I had already been really dumb, it didn't matter if I flubbed all the notes, you know?
Our audio engineer was very helpful on this front. In particular, he was able to pinpoint some of the problems I was having with false starts.I thought it was just a Skill Issue on my part, something about being unable to pick out the starting pitch due to nerves. But the problem was actually something else! I had learned my part off of some voice notes Claire had sent me, and in the process, I had overfit to the particular entrance timings in those recordings. Once the engineer pointed it out to me and added a click track to help keep me on track.
When we were all done, the engineer made a couple of adjustments, and we got to hear the songs. They were so good!
Afterward, Claire and Ian got me lunch — Claire quoted my own post about buying friends food so, I mean, I couldn't refuse — and we got to chat and catch up for a while.
Thanks to Claire and Ian for a wonderful day!
footnotes
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In addition to being a talented writer and baker and many other things. ↩