How to Record Your Band

INFOGRAPHIC | ILLUSTRATION

I created an explainer infographic about the recording process aimed at young musicians (age 13-18). I was a musician and played in bands throughout high school and college. The recording process always seemed really daunting, something that you had to pay a lot of money to do in a professional studio. As I had a DIY mentallity about a lot of things at the time, I spent considerable effort figuring out the process, through a combination of online tutorials and trial and error. I hit a lot of roadblocks and dead ends before I had a decent grasp of the process. I could have used a big picture overview, which covers how things plug into each other, and the general approach to recording a live band. So I designed an explainer infographic that I could have used when starting out. My only assumptions about the audience are that they are similar to where I was at 16: non-technical (some domain specific knowledge of music and instruments, but not of recording), but highly motivated.

As there is a significant gender disparity in music, especially in the recording profession, I wanted the color, type, and illustration choices to be as “gender-neutral” as possible. I wanted to make the recording process seem as accessible to anyone, so kept the language simple and non-technical. The visual styling of the illustrations is meant to be a half-way point between technical drawings and cartoons, so it would be eye-catching and engaging, but accurate enough to be useful as visual references to the real life equipment the reader will encounter while trying to record.