How many songs should we record?

[way2tall89]

I am currently in a band that plays mostly rock music. We are in a less populated area but want to make a name for ourselves. The best way we can think of is getting some of our songs on our website, social media sites, and cd's so venues who haven't heard our music have a place to hear it before they just let us play at their place. The problem we are running into is how many songs we should record.

As of right now we have 6 songs that are completely ready that we would like to record. The problem is our budget only allows us to record 3 of those songs professionally. We have looked around to many different recording studios in the area and this seems to be the going rate no matter how you slice and dice it. Sure we could pay some guy to do it out of his garage a minimal amount of money but we're scared that the quality just won't be there possibly turning off potential venues for playing.

So the question is do we record three of our best songs at the highest level of recording in order to get the best sound for a good impression or do we record six and get an average/ moderate at best recording of the six songs we were originally planning on to showcase more of our talent and variety at the cost of it not sounding as good?

[Seederman]

Why not record three professionally, and the other three with home recording equipment/software?

[Jack]

Choose your best 3 songs, record them and get professional feedback and public feedback to see what they think. If all goes well, you can give Cd's to those people who gave you feedback and will have a foundation for letting venues hear your music which could get you more gigs.

Until you save up money.

Once you have all your songs down and when or even if they are ever good enough, you will need to mass advertise as much as you can.

[Gatso]

Rehearse the songs as much as possible, then record all 6.
If you're recording them in order to play to places you might want to gig at, I think it's better to get a more 'live' sound for the recording.