Discussion Thread

My son's band is needing to add a CD to their PR kit. Instead of spending thousands on studio time, I was thinking of spending a couple hundred on a handheld digital audio recorder and recording them at practice and gigs. These kids play good enough that they don't need any sprucing up by a recording engineer. They could go into a studio when they're ready to put out a CD to sell.

Is this being too cheap?

It depends on what you want to accomplish with your PR kit.

Is the purpose behind the recording to help the band get gigs at venues (i.e. creating a booking kit) or do you intend to use this for garnering reviews and generating press (i.e. creating a press kit).

If it's about getting gigs for the band, then a handheld recording is likely okay. The purpose of the recording is to demonstrate that the band does in fact make music, plays in tune, in time, demonstrates the style so they know what to expect, etc. Remember bars are in the business of selling beer, not music: venues want to focus on your draw --- the amount of people you can bring in, not so much the style of music. In other words, they won't examine it too closely.  

If it's about getting press or reviews, then you would want to really highlight the music. They'll expect that when they pop in your music that it's recorded as best as it can. For these purposes, a handheld device is likely not going to suffice. 

Hope that helps and keep us posted as to how it goes.