… there are some considerations to take on board before booking an on-location slot:

Choose your recital space well!

The venue must sound good! If you regularly perform out and about, you’ll know the experience of walking into a venue and immediately being filled with joy because everything sounds great and you’re not ‘fighting the space’ in any way. Or, at the opposite end, being filled with dread because the venue itself sounds dreadful. Your recording will only sound good if the acoustics of the venue sound good.

For recording purposes, the venue must be noise free! As you place that final beautifully poised note, traffic speeding past outside will put paid to the moment! Same applies to noisy heating, air conditioning, nearby school playgrounds and overzealous wildlife. Microphones pick up everything!

If your on-location recording is a recital in front of a live audience, be aware that placing microphones/microphone stands around for recording purposes may interfere with line of sight somewhat. Efforts will be made to make that as inobtrusive as possible, but it should be taken into consideration.

The benefit of recording outside of the recording studio mostly applies to performers of classical music/choirs and folk groups, where a larger venue can give the music more room to breathe. Studio recording is more suited to microphones being placed closer to the musicians to give more flexibility in the mixing process. Whereas classical music (solo and ensemble) generally suits the microphones being placed a bit further away from the artist to incorporate the acoustic of the recording space into the recording itself.

On location is nice for video purposes. For example, if you a string quartet performing at weddings, video footage with great sound works well as promotional material. (Whereas great video with bad sound sucks!)

As you search around for a suitable performance space, I would suggest looking at hotels which are wedding venues and will therefore have a function room large enough. (Check for noise coming in from outside)

Local churches. The acoustics in churches are generally good. But! … is it noisy? Double glazing is not commonplace in places of worship.

Some scenarios which would suit this approach are:

String quartets/ensembles who play at wedding ceremonies and need some audio/video for promotion purposes.

Classical music singers/instrumentalists accompanied by piano (please see below)

Small ensembles: woodwind/brass/folk groups

Acoustic guitarists (solo or accompanying a singer)

Choirs/vocal groups

Poetry, storytelling performers

If you are a singer/instrumentalist accompanied by an acoustic piano (grand or upright), the piano must be top notch, well maintained and regularly tuned. If it’s not? … then use an electric piano (with apologies to the purists out there!) When push comes to shove, the results will be far superior to an old, seen better days acoustic piano that’s been round the block too many times!