Maybe see you at the Black Swan, then, Nick?

Don, yes, I know it's completely possible to record an album using home equipment. There are several reasons why I prefer to use a studio, however, chief among which are the advantages in having an external "pair of ears" in the form of an engineer who isn't me or my husband, and having someone who may well know short cuts to do something we can't or who might have the imagination to do something I wouldn't have thought of. It's not a question of my intelligence or lack of it. I've been recording albums now for over 20 years, (this will be my eighth solo CD) and I personally would far rather concentrate on my own performance than on whether or not I know how to use the technology or can use it to best effect. We all make choices - many performers enjoy the freedom and cheapness of recording themselves. I'd rather stick to what I'm best at. There's the additional problem with recording at home that we are generally busy with lots of other stuff and it's far easier to block the time in the diary to go out than attempt to do stuff staying in. We've recorded a number of voice-over projects at home and I'm well aware of the advantages and disadvantages.

I should point out, though, that the percentage of my budget that will go on studio time isn't the whole story. As I've said earlier, I do intend to pay my friends for playing on my album, which seems only right to me, there may be travel expenses to sort out and there will be costs involved in artwork, manufacturing and packaging. Packaging is an interesting one - my last album didn't involve a jewel case but was an eco friendly digipack (not sure that's the right word for it) which is far cheaper to send around because it's far lighter. It cost me more initially, but it's been worth it.

At the moment, whether the album costs me £5,000 to record or £500, however, is immaterial as I don't have any spare cash. At all. So if I'm going to set about raising some money I may as well think creatively about raising enough to do it the way I'd prefer to do it. If I set my sights on £5,000 and only achieve half of that I'm sure I can still get a good album out of it, but I may just get the amount I want and then have enough in the budget to do some proper marketing for a change. Which might just help to raise my profile and get me more gigs and sell more CDs.

As I said, we all make choices. I didn't start this thread to ask about how cheaply I could make an album - I knew that already. I was simply curious to know whether anyone had tried the "advance payment" method.

Anne