In short: For your first session you only need a beat, the lyrics in any form (paper, tablet, phone), and a bottle of water. The beat can be your own or a YouTube / BeatStars track — we’ll pull it on site. At Flightcore we can also build the beat from scratch if you’d rather have something tailored. Gear, monitoring, technical handling, and warm drinks are on us. A session with an engineer is 200 PLN/h, self-engineered 150 PLN/h. The standard time per track is 2-3 hours.
A first session in a studio raises pretty much the same questions for everyone. What to bring? Does the lyric have to be memorized? What if I don’t have a beat yet but want to give it a shot? How many people can I bring along?
We answer them in order below — straight and direct.
Atmosphere of a first session
Whatever your day looked like before walking into the studio, from the door we shift into a different mode. The atmosphere during the session is loose, and small slips along the way are a normal part of the process.
We sit down together to work on the track you want to make, and the engineer walks you through it step by step — explaining what’s happening on the screen, what you’re hearing in the headphones, and why a given take is better than the previous one.
If something puzzles or interests you, ask. That’s a normal part of the process.
The people recording professionally today asked the same questions on their first sessions. A first session is the start of a conversation with your own voice.
Flightcore engineer
The conversation before tracking — why and about what?
A recording session doesn’t start when the mic gets switched on — it starts with a short conversation. About how the track should sound, what kind of effects you’re looking for, whether you’re going for a minimal cut on a simple arrangement or a more layered production with more tracks. That exchange of vision sets the rhythm of the rest of the work — what the engineer drops into the project, which effects stay within reach, how much room we leave for harmonies, doubles, and adlibs.
Every person walking into the studio — whether it’s their first track or their two-hundredth — has expectations about the feel of the session, even subconsciously.
The engineer’s job is to make the artist feel comfortable in the creative process.
That’s exactly why the conversation before tracking matters — through the exchange of inspirations, we make an early call on whether we go for more layers or for minimalism. The right setup then dictates the direction of the whole session.
Ejtenkot, music producer
Beat and musical material
Can I bring a beat from YouTube?
Yes. For a first session you can bring an instrumental from YouTube or BeatStars — we’ll pull it, drop it into the project, and check tempo and key. That lets us copy choruses around later and dial in AutoTune correctly.
Ideally your beat should be paid for, since the paid version usually comes as a high-quality WAV. If you have stems (separate beat tracks), we’ll be able to work with individual elements of the instrumental, which gives us the most artistic freedom.
When does it make sense to build a beat at the studio from scratch?
If you don’t have a beat yet, we can build one together from scratch, shaping the composition around your idea, flow, and lyrics. That way you become a co-creator of the production rather than buying a finished product.
We work with electric piano, keyboards, and synthesizers, so the range of sounds is wide.
We quote an individual production session separately after a short conversation — we’ll work something out.
Lyrics — in what form and on what?
It helps to know the lyric well enough to not read it syllable by syllable, but you don’t need it perfectly memorized. The standard in a studio is tracking phrase by phrase.
The final vocal you hear on the radio is never one take. It’s a dozen-plus passes the engineer assembles from the best moments. The industry calls this comping.
The form of the lyric is up to you: a sheet of paper, a tablet, a phone. If you don’t want to read off your phone in the booth, you can send the lyric to us ahead of time by email or Messenger — we’ll display it on the monitor inside the booth.
You’ll also see the program the engineer is working in. The whole process is transparent for you, and seeing how the vocal stacks up in the session helps you understand what’s happening on the other side of the glass.
What does the work on a session look like?
We usually start with the lead vocal. It’s the stage where precision matters most — timing, accents, intonation, a clean melodic line. This is where the most takes happen and where focus is sharpest.
The engineer adapts the way of communicating to how you work — one vocalist tracks a verse in five takes, another in twenty. Both variants are fine; there’s no single right pace.
Once the lead vocals are tracked, we move to the second part — layers, doubles, adlibs, harmonies, panning. A more relaxed stage.
This is where you can try things you didn’t plan beforehand: adding harmonies, a whisper in the back, a small improvisation. Only a vocal built from several layers gains weight and fills the space in the song.
Voice — what to drink and how to warm up?
Pleasantly warm water does two things at once: it loosens you up and helps the voice warm up faster.
If it’s your first session, 10-15 minutes of warm-up is usually enough — a few scales, humming, a fragment of the song sung at half breath.
Coffee is fine in moderation. One before a session has never hurt anyone, but excess dries out the throat and stiffens the voice more than it helps you focus.
Carbonated drinks and alcohol are technically possible, but if you care about the best final result, sticking with water is the better call. Water, coffee, and tea are on the house, so you don’t need to bring anything.
How do you unlock your voice before a session?
Most people walk into the studio with a cold voice, not yet knowing what that voice can really do. In daily life you usually use one register — businesslike at work, polite at the store, calm in front of your boss. Those habits stay with you when you walk into the booth.
If your daily work calls for a businesslike “good morning,” it’s hard to jump straight into autotune experiments. If you’re an influencer talking “hey friends” at a camera, it’s hard to drop into a lower, heavier tone.
Hence a simple trick: before the session, mess around with your voice. Bend it in every direction — hum, squeak, imitate a siren, recite the lyric once in a whisper, once at a yell. The point is range — the more sides of your voice you know, the more you have to choose from on each take. The clean sound shows up in the recording itself.
A good example are Playboi Carti and Lil Yachty — both went from one signature register to a wider sonic palette, and every shift opened a new chapter of their career. Behind that sits deliberate work with the voice as an instrument.
If on top of that you find a bit of ease in the booth, your listeners will feel it — the same way Skolim’s fans feel it from him.
Session comfort and breaks
A session splits into moments of recording and moments when the engineer works on their side — setting effects, cleaning takes, comping the vocal from several passes.
In that time you can sit on the couch, listen to the demo back in the monitors, drink something, catch a breath.
If you want to grab content for social media along the way, you don’t have to rig your own light or framing — the studio has an influencer ring, so short clips and photos from the session come out clean without an extra crew.
How many people should I bring along?
One, maximum two supporting people is the optimal setup. Someone you trust who understands the situation — has a sense of when it’s a good moment for a comment and when to leave the artist in their focus.
With a larger group there are naturally more conversations and comments in the background, the engineer’s attention starts splitting between the artist and the company, and the paid session time goes faster than it should.
We don’t stop anyone from coming — we get that the whole crew sometimes wants to be at the recording. Just worth being aware that the session moves slower with that setup, and focus inside the booth gets harder to hold.
Who is the engineer in the studio?
The engineer’s role in the studio reaches well beyond clicking in the program and watching levels. At Flightcore, engineers are people who make music themselves, know the genres they work in, and understand where you’re heading with your track.
If they see something isn’t working or that it can be done better, they say so directly. If you have an idea you can’t fully articulate yet, they help pull it out and translate it into a concrete vocal arrangement.
Contact with the engineer unfolds naturally, in a tempo and tone that fit both sides.
Pricing and contact
A session with an engineer is 200 PLN/h.
Self-engineered — the option where you track on your own and we provide the configured gear and a DAW project — is 150 PLN/h.
Plan for at least two hours per track.
The studio is at Mickiewicza 9, Warsaw, 600 meters from the Dworzec Gdański station.
If you want to drop by ahead of time to see the place, talk through a planned session, or just ask how it all looks from the inside — we’re around. We pick up the phone, answer email, and reply on Messenger. Yalla.
