6 songs
fully recorded (as "recorded, clams fixed & overdubbed parts done) in 10 hours is pretty tall order, especially for the added instrumentation of a six-piece band - as already posted, the best you could hope for it to practice practice practice the six songs until *every* member of the band can get through them without
any mistakes so that you'll be able to get "1-Take Keepers" on all the tracks. That's a pretty tall order, considering that Getting Sounds is usually at least one hour (and being a six-piece makes that a longer period) and that's without vocals, which takes the longest period out of any other member.
To be able to track all 6 songs
and mix them in 10 hours is IMO impossible. The best you'll get in that situation is a good performance and crappy mix. Again, the fact that you're a six-piece band makes this a harder, longer job to do - each additional instrument brings yet another factor into mixing (i.e. where does it "fit" in the mix, what frequencies do you take from all the other instruments to make it work, etc...)
To give you a Real World example, I was hired to play on a "band of friend''s" 6-track EP/Promo CD (as they were all friends, I lowered my rate a good deal for them as it was a fairly low-budget project). We were able to get keeper Drums, Percussion tracks, and Bass tracks with very minimal fixes (perhaps 2 clams per song, and a pretty intense "punch in half the recording" song that was thrown to me by the band only one day before recording in a style that was not one I was "fluent" in) in about 10 hours, the same that you're taking about. However, nothing but scratch tracks of guitars (2-to-3 players per track, plus acoustics which take far more time to mic properly), a small amount of keyboard tracks, and lead and backing vocals were done at that time. All those took an
entirely separate session to record. This doesn't even come close to mixing, which in my experience even as a demo/EP or low budget project can take about 2 hours per song, or 12 hours for your project. That's the standard "Initial mix - burn CD, take it out to a car and judge it from a small speaker area (remember how much music is listened to while in cars and that you *need* your mix to work both on high-performance audio systems as well as a stock car stereo), back inside to "remix" based on testing, rinse & repeat a number of times for each song... and that after a certain point EVERYONE will get "Ear Fatigue" and any mixing after that point is a waste of time and money.
In my "been there, done that a number of times and even professionally for a while" opinion, I honestly doubt that what you're considering (a Six-piece Recording and Mixing 6 songs in 10 hours... and you haven't even hit Mastering, which is the sequencing of all tracks, optimizing overall compression, limiting, equalization, and volume levels for each track - basically, putting a big bow on your songs and making all the tracks sound like an album/EP/"project" and not six separate tracks) can be done and that you need more of both recording as well as mixing/mastering time. Back in my Original Band days, we did two 5-6 song demos (although with the amount of effort & money we put into them we should have gone the full nine yards financially and had them pressed as EPs to sell) and even with two members that had been playing/recording on the club-level for 8 years and had a large amount of experience, we still went over budget
simply because there are *so many* "little things" that will come to bite you on your
tokhes. Having those members probably saved us from from going over budget small-time as opposed to big. Whether it's as promotional material (for a Press Pack to try and land a Label Deal) or as "Product" to sell at shows or online, it's really not worth spending
either the $500 or $2000 you discuss if a) you end up needing more time and pay the studio's "overage" charges (typically in studio "packages" like how this sounds, any time over is billed at their "normal" rate), or b) you're somehow able to squeeze all of what's needed in, and it sounds like professionally recorded carp.
As an example of a professional studio's (I'll leave their name out, but they've recorded numerous major-label bands/artists and Gold/Platinum-level releases) "5 Song Demo CD Package" which I believe is representative of most studios out there and contains:
- Up to 15 hours for recording and editing
- Up to 5 hours for mixing and mastering your 5 song demo
- 1 cd copy for each band member (up to 5)
- Price: $1000. Additional hours will be billed at $50 each
