Guitar Forums

I’ve noticed something weird about my own playing and I’m curious if others experience this too.
When I’m just jamming or practicing casually, everything feels relaxed and musical. But the second I hit record or open a DAW session, I start rushing, overthinking, or making mistakes I *never* make otherwise. Same instrument, same material, totally different result.
A tutor once told me that recording flips your brain into “performance mode” instead of practice mode, and that recording itself is a skill you have to train, not just something you do at the end.
Do you actively practice recording takes? Or do you treat recording as the final step after practice is done? Curious how other people handle this.

When you're practicing, you keep playing through mistakes. When you're recording you let mistakes derail you.
You have to keep going. A mistake early in the take doesn't ruin the second half of the take.
You need two mistake-filled takes to comp together. As long as the mistakes don't happen in the same place, you won't need a third take.

Yes, it's often called 'Red Light Syndrome' (because of the red record button) and it affects almost everyone to some degree. That's why many bands prefer to record live together in a room rather than individually multitracking their parts, because the group play can help overcome that.