Nashville Recording Industry

“It was just like a dream. I could have ended up with an album that’s not all that different from anything else coming out of Nashville. Mutt made the difference. He took these songs, my attitude, my creativity, and colored them in a way that is unique.” — Shania Twain

The Nashville recording industry, and recording music in Nashville are two different things. There is a relatively small group of session musicians, studio owners, engineers, and producers that are individually and collectively involved with a large part of the paid recording work that happens in Nashville. Then there is everybody else, fighting for table scraps. While this elite group of professionals within the Nashville music industry has had a corner on the market for decades, this doesn’t mean that some paid recording sessions can’t happen for others.

Historically speaking, the Nashville recording industry has been a conglomerate that includes major record labels, major recording studios, A-team session players, producers, songwriters, publishing companies, and major recording and touring artists. Under this old business model, major album projects and demos alike were spit out with extreme efficiency, almost daily, for decades. That old model also included a group of smaller studios in which another group of lesser-known session players referred to as the B- team recorded many of the demos.

While this old model still exists, it downsized greatly during the early 2000s. Although there are still some big time recording studios here that regularly record major artists from Nashville and beyond, a whole new crop of home-based project studios have been part of a new wave of recording in Nashville. The affordability of home recording is perhaps one of the greatest gifts the post-digital revolution has given to the freelance musician.

While it is the world of home recording that perhaps offers the best opportunities for the up and coming session players of today and tomorrow, there will always be a need for high-end studios with their majestic sounding live rooms and superior consoles. And the level of musical and technical ability needed to record in that environment will never go out of style.

A few things you should know about recording in Nashville:

Songwriter demos account for a large part of Nashville recording, so if you want to record professionally, know some songwriters.

Most recording sessions are done to a click track.

“The Nashville number system“ is widely used for charting songs, so know it, or you might blow it.

Recording sessions in Nashville are all about having a good vibe. It's easy to fix a mistake, but Pro Tools can’t fix a bad vibe.

Obtaining paid recording work is a hard nut to crack and can take a long time. So be patient, and try to carve out your own niche.