The Lazy Musician’s Pre-Production Checklist: 8 Steps to Much Better Recordings

A minute of pre-production can be worth an hour of studio time. (Vinyl record notebook image by Stacie.)

Let’s face it. We musicians can be a bit “motivationally challenged” when it comes to the minutia of having a real career in music.

We’d rather play a speed-metal version of “Stairway to Heaven” at rehearsal than slog through the intricacies of our set one more time.

Most of us would rather “just jam” than face the hard work, trial and error of coming up with set arrangements that suit our songs.

Not to downplay the importance of inspiration and improvisation in creating music (it is clearly a big part of the process for most of us) but some things just turn out better when they’re planned. Crafting a detailed production blueprint for a song before hitting the studio is one of the best examples of this, and the much neglected practice of pre-production can help create such a blueprint.

Pre-production can offer a roadmap for recording in the studio and a path to realizing the vision you have for your tune. Here’s a quick, down and dirty, 8-point pre-production checklist to help get your ideas in place, get your butt off that ripped rehearsal room couch and get it into the studio with a clear plan for giving your next track the best chances of success:

Brick by Brick: Get your form down

___ Have you made your song as concise as possible?

Are there sections of your song that could be shortened or lost entirely in order to cut the fat and tighten up the song’s structure? Often, the best way to get someone to listen to your song twice is to leave them wanting more. Before hitting the studio ask yourself: Is there any section I can cut or trim down without reducing the emotional impact of the song?

___Have you put your tune’s structure down on paper and determined the best possible order for each section?

Get your tune’s structure down on paper (or onto a note in your phone) in simple broad strokes: Intro, verse, chorus, etc and see if it makes sense from a purely black and white perspective. Ask yourself “is this the best possible structure for these parts?”

Are the sections of your songs ordered in such a way that’s in keeping with the genre or style you’re working in? For example, if you’re working in the pop genre, does your chorus repeat at logical and symmetrical points throughout the song?

If you’re not sure whether your structure’s up to snuff, find similar tunes from your favorite bands or artists that work within your genre and map out their songs’ structures as well.

How different are their tunes’ structures from your song’s make-up?  What ideas, if any, can you lift from the model songs and apply to your tune?

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch Changes: Get your parts on paper

___ Have you written up a lyric sheet for your song, including its chord changes?
Having this information readily at hand will be a huge help during the recording sessions to both singers and players. Getting the lyrics down now will also afford your songwriters the opportunity to re-assess, edit and better the lyrics before recording begins.

___ Have you detailed out your arrangement?

Map out the specific musical parts that will populate your tune and decide what instruments will play those parts on the track (e.g. rhythm parts will be played by keyboards or stereo acoustic guitars, bass lines will be played by upright bass, or fuzz bass and so on).

Get all your ideas down in bullet-points, creating an arrangement check list of sorts. Once you begin recording, this document will keep your song on track in the face of any detours (welcomed or otherwise) and will help get your tune where you want it to go.

Try to come up with parts in addition to the basic rhythmic elements of drums, bass, rhythm guitar or keys and vocal. Think how you might add in some melodic lines voiced by different instruments that will artfully weave in and out of your recording, lending some color and excitement to the arrangement. The possibilities are endless, but don’t go overboard, keep things tasteful.

Songs in the Key of Life: Details matter

___ Have you experimented and picked the perfect key?

More often than not, a tune will be written in a key that may not suit the vocal range of the person who will be singing the song on the recording. Audition the song in various keys with your singer to make sure you have the perfect fit.

Pay close attention to the lowest and highest notes in the vocal melody to make sure they are easy for the singer to hit with conviction. You don’t want to find out that the key is slightly too low or too high for the singer to do their best work during vocal overdubs.

___ Have you locked down the perfect tempo?

Download a free metronome app for your phone and experiment with how your tune feels when played at different BPMs until you find a tempo that’s exactly right for your arrangement. The impact of just a couple BPM can be significant in altering the feel of the song.

If you’re unsure about where your tune’s tempo should reside, again, take your cue from a favorite band or artist’s work; Find a tune with a similar rhythmic vibe that feels good to you and tap that tempo into your metronome app to discover the model song’s BPM. Then try your tune at that tempo.

Alternately, try playing your tune at a tempo that is slightly too fast, and slightly too slow to help narrow down your range of choices. Keep trying tempos until you get closer to a happy medium and “tune in” to the perfect tempo for your song.

Picture Book: Get a snapshot of where you are

___ Have you made a demo recording?

Before “official” recording begins, it’s smart to get a snapshot of your song captured, even if it’s just a simple arrangement with nothing but an acoustic guitar or piano and a vocal—even if it’s recorded into the voice memo app of a phone.

This little exercise will help you test drive all the tweaks and choices you’ve made thus far, and will also give you a good sense of the overall quality of the song when listening back.

If the tune moves you with just one instrument and a vocal, you’ll know it’s ready and worthy of a proper recording. If it doesn’t excite anyone, better to learn (and fix) that now before you’ve recorded your 15th ukulele overdub.

___Have you rehearsed so much that the song sounds like a recording when you play it through live?

If you’re thinking about recording the basics of your song live in the studio, this step is essential. Your demo recordings should sound like a lo-fi finished record!

Even if you are building the song from the ground up in the overdub process, rehearse your band and players and make sure they can play their parts, in perfect time, in their sleep. Then rehearse them again.

If you intend to record to a click or fixed time, have the drummer practice playing along with a click during rehearsal at the song’s chosen tempo. Only when musicians are well prepared and know their parts, do they tend to stop thinking their way through takes while recording and start to actually play and truly perform.

If you can check off every single box in this checklist before going in for your next recording date, you’ll be ahead of 90% or more of the would-be musicians who walk into a studio.

Summing it Up

Even if you have the luxury of piecing songs together, bit by bit, in your own studio, take these ideas to heart. If you have your own rig, you can always experiment while the “record” light is on, but the best tracks rarely happen completely by accident. Consistently making great art requires a vision, followed by execution. Solid pre-production habits can help on both fronts.

Mark Bacino is a singer-songwriter based in New York City. When not crafting his own melodic brand of retro-pop, Mark can be found producing fellow artists, composing for television/advertising and teaching songwriting via his Queens English Recording Co.

Mark also is a Guitar World contributor and the founder/curator of intro.verse.chorus, a website dedicated to exploring the art of songwriting. Visit Mark on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.

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