WHAT IS PRE-PRODUCTION?

Pre-production is something you probably already do to varying extents before recording a track, and while it can be a money saver if you’re paying for an engineer or  studio time, it’s also a really useful tool for talking control of your music. It's not uncommon for a group or artist to take a song to the studio and come out feeling that they, perhaps, didn’t have enough time to get everything done.

 It might be that they were able to record the song but certain elements didn’t sound how they were expecting, or they didn’t have chance to develop existing and new ideas in the session. In this blog I’ll run through some areas of pre-production that might just give you that extra edge as a recording artist.

 1. REHEARSAL

Rehearsing might sound like an obvious one, especially if you’re in a band, but when someone hits record for the 50th time at the top of the same verse it’s something you might wish you’d done more of. Learn your parts until you can perform them in your sleep and come recording day you’ll have more confidence and be more likely to deliver a stellar performance.

 If you’re in a group, or recording multiple parts yourself, use rehearsal time to listen to how those parts work (or don’t work) together. Anyone can turn up all the amps and PA in a rehearsal space and make themselves sound huge, but how does it sound when you turn down? At the end of the day, as much as you probably want your listeners to turn the volume all the way up when your song comes on, it’s more likely that it’ll be the same volume as the rest of the music they’re listening to. At a medium volume the added excitement of loudness is stripped away and each individual element of your track can be heard in haunting isolation.

 So, turn it down and listen to each of the individual parts and how they interact with the song. Then talk to each other about how the arrangement might be improved, or how you might want to have something sound on a recording - if that’s where you’re headed next.

 If you’re a solo artist, try writing down your ideas and working through them one by one until you’re happy with the arrangement. Or, have a clear idea of the direction you’d like it to take. If you’re confident in the bare bones of your arrangement before you go into a recording session you’ll be working from a strong foundation that can be developed and enhanced, rather than spending your hard earned time uncovering and correcting potential problems as you go.

 2. DEMO

This is a bit of an extension of rehearsal in my view but if you have the facility to demo your songs before going for that full ‘studio production’ you’ll pretty much never regret it. This could be as simple as a well-placed phone recording a rehearsal or run through.

 At its most basic the ability to listen back to all of the parts of your song, without being distracted by playing your instrument, is a great way of broadening your perspective. Not only can you listen to each part in closer detail but you gain a listener’s perspective of how the song sounds as a whole.

 Moving a level up, if you have access to a DAW and an audio interface you can begin to develop the ideas you might want to bring into the recording, even if they’re elements you wouldn’t necessarily recreate in a live situation. If a live performance is a photo, then a record is painting. Yes, you can absolutely capture an ‘accurate’ snapshot of a song by putting a mic on everything and playing through a tune, but you can also create a piece of art within itself that otherwise wouldn’t or couldn’t exist in a live setting.

Whether you hit on what you’re looking for or not, the act of exploring those extra colours and dimensions before going into a recording session will allow you to better communicate your vision of the finished record.

3.EQUIPMENT

If you’re recording guitars, the very least you should aim to do before a session if change your strings. Not only will new strings give you the best tonal starting point when recording, but using old strings can result in intonation and tuning issues. Also, if you break an old string mid session and need to replace it, you’re left with one super bright string alongside five flat/dead sounding strings.

 Sticking with guitar, if you’re using pedals or your own amplifier then try to work out your preferred sounds (or at least a starting point you like) before going to record. Again, you can absolutely experiment and change things around once you get started, and you may need to make changes as the track comes together, but having a good starting point will work wonders.

 As for drums, coming into a session with new skins will make recording a much smoother process, and even more so if you can tune them. There’s some great resources available on drum tuning. While it may come down to a discussion with your producer as to whether these tunings are changed to better suit the song or production style, starting off with a well-tuned freshly-skinned kit, and a grasp of what YOU personally like makes these moves much easier.

 4. GUIDE TRACK

Recording a guide track isn’t always the right thing to do and in some cases isn’t possible, but in my experience it generally makes for a much smoother recording session. In an ideal world this would be created with or alongside your producer. That way you can agree on the overall tempo and any mapping that may be needed to keep the movement of the song feeling natural. It’s also a perfect opportunity to fine-tune the structure of the song and flesh out some preliminary ideas in a low-pressure environment.

 If I’m working with a solo artist I tend to start by playing in a basic pass of the song on keyboard. Although most of the time this track won’t actually stay in the final arrangement, by recording MIDI in rather than an audio track it gives us the flexibility to easily change the tempo and key after the fact, as well as chopping up the song so that sections can be easily moved around without worrying about tempo changes. From there we can build the core arrangement using the click and keys track as a guide before moving onto vocals and additional arrangement.

 If I’m recording a band, and time allows, I’ll aim to create a similar guide track but with one or two core instruments (e.g. guitar & bass) playing to a click track. Once you’re happy with that foundation of the song you can build it up knowing you’re working from a solid foundation.  Again, those guide recordings might not make it to the final mix - though sometimes they do - but they create a solid starting point to overdub and drop into without putting pressure on the drummer (or the whole band) to nail solid consecutive takes at the start of a session.

 OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

OK, now that I’ve said all that it’s time for me to contradict pretty much everything I’ve just gone through.

1.   Live collaborative performance still has it’s place in recording. For instance, recording a jazz record from the ground up like this probably wouldn’t make sense. Creating guide tracks is a really useful tool, but where the music or musicians are dependant on interaction between each other then the recording process you choose should reflect that.

 2.   You also have the option to meet in the middle, whereby the band plays along to a pre-programmed click track. That way they can lock into the core tempo while still interacting with each other during the performance. Some would argue this is the happy medium that maintains human performances without unplanned tempo changes. 

 3.   Planning everything out before you come to record a track is great, but you shouldn’t let it hinder creativity or spontaneity. If you have the luxury then by all means, start from scratch and develop new ideas in the studio. But if that flexibility’s not quite within reach, prepare and consider the ideas you’d like to try beforehand. Chances are you’ll still have spontaneous ideas in the moment, but they’ll work themselves in around the prepared ideas you already had earmarked, giving you a much greater chance of landing on ideas you want to keep.

 4.   Pre-production is by no means a ‘fix-all’ stage of music production. Problems will always arise, opportunities will get missed, and ultimately… nobody’s perfect. But, by following some pre-production steps before making your next record, you might just be setting yourself up for success or at the very least ensuring the process runs more smoothly for you and your producer.

 SUMMARY

Everyone hears, interprets and performs music differently, and that’s how it should be. If you feel that a certain process of preparing for recording removes that unique ‘you-ness’ when the record light goes on then by all means you should try something that works better for you.

 Ultimately, whether you work with a producer or record your own music, the roll of a producer isn’t simply to press record and capture what happens at the other end of the mic. They’re there to enable the performer by whatever means necessary. That could mean creating a mood in a room that allows you to relax and perform in one take, or spending a few hours with you at the beginning… creating a guide track to relieve pressure further down the line.

 Whatever pre-production approach you choose, if it enables better results then it’s a route worth taking.