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Deep Purple In Rock was recorded at three different London studios. Sessions began at IBC from 14th-21st Oct '69 and continued sporadically until mid Jan '70. Here Deep Purple recorded 'Child In Time', 'Speed King', 'Into The Fire' and 'Living Wreck' on 8-track, with some overdubs added later. The group had persuaded their management Edwards Colletta and record label Harvest to allow them to produce the album themselves and the engineers employed here were Andy Knight and Kevin Barry.

As the material for In Rock was shaped by Deep Purple playing live, they were keen to avoid the sterile atmosphere associated with white-coated technicians tut-tutting if meters went into the red, and were determined to capture the excitement of a live show. The next sessions were in Jan '70 at De Lane Lea studios in Kingsway, London, where 'Flight Of The Rat' and 'Hard Lovin' Man' were recorded. For these sessions the group were paired with a young engineer, Martin Birch.

He was a hands-off producer, but a skilled engineer and sought to capture the excitement of the performance by utilising the actual room sound, which at the time was anathema to some engineers.

This was particularly true regarding some engineers' desire to control the drum sound by eliminating any sort of ring or resonance. But Birch listened to the sound of Paice's kit and then tried to replicate it by finding the brightest part of the room and miking it up from there. 'This was revolutionary thinking, believe it or not', Gillan said. Sessions concluded at Abbey Road in April 1970 where they recorded just one song, 'Bloodsucker'.