Frusciante recorded the album after kicking his addiction to heroin. As with his first two albums, "Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt" and "Smile from the Streets You Hold," Frusciante recorded this album at home. But while he had taken a conspicuously lo-fi approach on the earlier albums, using a 4-track cassette recorder and even a boombox, he produced "To Record Only Water for Ten Days" in much higher fidelity. Frusciante switched to a Yamaha MD8 – a digital 8-track recorder that used Minidisc technology – to record the raw tracks, which he later transferred to analog tape for further individual track equalization. All guitars were recorded direct-in without amplification.