The room where Christchurch bands get studio ready

Since 2021, DIG THE GIG has been travelling the country getting to know New Zealand's tertiary bands. One problem came up everywhere. Bands walk into a recording studio underprepared, spend real money, and walk out disappointed.

That is what DIG THE DEMO is built to fix.

It runs out of DIG THE GIG HQ at 179 Tuam Street in central Christchurch, in three hour blocks, with an in-house engineer at the desk. You book the room and the time, and you use it to get your songs and your sound sorted before the studio clock starts.

There are two ways to use a block.

Record your live set.

Play your 45 to 60 minute set start to finish. We record the lot and go through it with you afterwards. It is an honest snapshot of where the band is at, and the quickest way to find the parts that need work.

Build one song properly.

Pre-production on a single track: tighten the arrangement, dial in individual sounds, then record a demo of it. You leave with a version you can hand to a label, a venue or a festival programmer, and with the song ready for the day it gets recorded for real.

The backline is here. Drums, cymbals, amps and bass heads, Shure and Rode mics, an Allen & Heath desk straight into Pro Tools. Bring your guitars, your pedals, your sticks if you are fussy, and your songs.

Sessions run seven days, two blocks a day. Take a single block or take the whole day.

See the room, the gear and the session times, and book in, at digthedemo.co.nz.