When you are used to playing gigs for an audience of fifty or so, reaching an invisible live audience of 1,000 can be nerve-wrecking.

The sound quality of the live studios will vary greatly so unless you know the place, don’t expect that the PA will be of better quality than in your local pub. Make sure you create all your sound by yourself and don’t rely on the sound engineer to add this beautiful reverb to your guitar.

Feedback isn’t such a problem in live studios because your PA monitors don’t need to be pushed so high, as you aren’t competing with the noise from the crowd and your own sound coming out of the main PA. In fact, the quieter level of the music might surprise you. This is your chance to sing like you do at home, without having to strain your voice to hear yourself. If you need a very loud sound to “get into the song”, then make sure you take a big guitar/bass amp with you.

Insist on getting a soundcheck, even if the sound tech is used to rock bands, or whatever genre it is you play. Because the sound conditions are rather different from a venue, you need a soundcheck to get used to the conditions.

The lack of response from an audience might put you off, so bring a few friends with you (check with the station first) to clap and act as an audience you can feed of. Play to the audience in front of you (the radio host, your friends, the studio technicians) and don’t think about the audience listening to you out there.

If you are a band, decide in advance who is going to answer the questions during the interview. You might want to split the questions - if two of you write the songs, then you might want to answer songwriting questions in turn. There’s nothing worse than band members not really listening to the questions because they assume someone else going to respond and mumbling through their answers when they realise no one else has anything to say. Avoid private jokes or talking about your friends - you’re not at rehearsals or your local pub, you are trying to present your music to an audience which until now knew nothing about you.

A good radio show host should check with you beforehand how long you want the interview to be, how shy you are and how confident you are at talking about yourself. But if they don’t, ask how long will the interview be. If it’s too short or too long, do not hesitate to suggest an alternative length. Tell the host before the start about anything you want to plug on air, be it a future gig, a new CD out or your website.

The usual length is to play 3 songs. Decide which ones you want to play in advance. If you pick new songs, make sure you are fully rehearsed. Remember that most listeners will have never heard of you and you want to show yourself in the best light. It is usually best to start your set with a song you could play in your sleep. While it is recommended to start a gig with a song that will make people want to stay at the front and put off going to the bar/toilets later, it isn’t as necessary with a radio session, because listeners will usually tune in for the whole show, so you do have 3 chances to make an impression on them. However, you want to avoid making a negative impression by messing up the first song. So your first song doesn’t need to grab them as much as it needs not to put them off. Basically, your aim is to make an OK impression on the listeners with the first song, a good impression with the second song and a great impression with the last song.