MUSIC BUSINESS
A Little Pre-Production Before Your Session Can Save You Time and Money
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ou’ve finally finished writing your song, you’ve tweaked and tweaked, changing phrases, a word here and there until it was just right. You can’t wait to start recording and get this baby out into the world. If you want to make the recording and mixing as painless as possible, a little preproduction will go a long way. Here are some things to consider before you hit “Record.” What is your goal? You should have a really good idea of how the finished product should sound. Think about the arrangement. Will there be space for the song to breathe or are you going after a wall of sound? What is the emotion and energy you
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are trying to express with this song? If you don’t have any idea what you want the track to ultimately sound like, do some homework and start listening to popular songs from the same genre. Use them as a reference. Listen critically and dissect what you hear so you can transfer it to your mix. Once you’ve got a good mix, add your own flavor to it. Take your time to get the sound right. As you’re dialing in the guitar tone, sifting through synth patches, and sorting out drums, spend some time thinking about how all of the individual instruments are going to work together. If you’ve got a guitar tone heavy in the mid-range right where your lead singer’s voice sits, and you stack an organ on top of that, mixing is going to be a challenge. You’ll be struggling to create clarity between all of the elements in the mix.
The best musicians I have worked with have spent time carefully choosing and crafting their sounds to make sure they aren’t stepping on each other. If the snare drum and vocal are competing for the same space, it’s a pretty good bet that the vocal is going to win and the snare will be somewhat lost in the mix (sorry drummers). One of my all-time favorite drummers that I had the privilege of mixing was the late Pat Torpey from the band Mr. Big. Along with being an incredible drummer, Pat was a master at crafting his sound. Mr. Big is 4-piece rock band consisting of guitar and bass virtuosos Paul Gilbert and Billy Sheehan, along with lead vocalist Eric Martin, and Pat. Billy’s bass sound is unique, more midrange than deep bass. He and Paul are both wellknown shredders, playing thousands of notes throughout a song. With all of that going on and
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