This is the question we're asked most often by our clients, so I'm trying to give everyone a little better idea here.

It all depends!

If you're an acoustic artist and track guitar and vocals only, or you bring in pre-canned music and throw vocals over the top of it, obviously it will take less time than a full band.

We usually estimate around 8 hours :  This seems to be the right amount of time for an average size band (3-5 members) to get ONE (1) song done from set-up time/tracking to edited, mixed, mastered and ready to go at industry standard quality.

This has a fudge factor of course, and each situation is different.  This is why we charge based on time, not on songs.  What may take one band or artist 4 hours to do may take another band 48 hours to do.....really....

Of course you can try and squeeze more into a given amount of time, but if you do it will not sound as good because we cannot do as many takes and overdubs when tracking, and we won't have time to do any extravagant mixing (automation, plug-in experimentation, etc.)

Just food for thought!