Tips on Pre-Production

In my opinion, producing an album for a few bucks is impossible, exceptions to this are so rare you still get my point. Groups that go into producing an album with a ridiculous budget will pay for it sooner than later. What we tend to forget is that once you have the album in your hands, straight out of the factory, after months spent in rehearsals, recording, mixing and pre-mastering...

You're just one third of the way !

Indeed, if you plan on recording an album just to listen to it with your friends and family, don't bother ruining the health of all these sound engineers and studio assistants ; what a waste !!!

I imagine that's not your goal, and therefore, you must make sure you've got a decent budget to begin with. Promoting an album costs a lot of money, and more than often, seductive production budgets like "everything for $ 10 000" don't include that essential aspect. How many times have I screwed-up my health working idiotic hours to discover that several months later, the band had : split / disappeared / decided to move on to another album without giving a chance to this one / etc...

I highly recommend buying the book "Confessions of a Record Producer" by Moses Avalon (obviously a pseudo...), in order to avoid the major traps whether you're an artist, producer or record company : www.mosesavalon.com

Now that this has been said...

Finally, you've decided to record an album, or at least several songs with a professional sound quality in order to contact record companies or concert venues. Studio time costs a lot of money. I've tried to summarize all the little things that can save you half a day, even more sometimes, and help you produce the best album possible. Come back once in a while, there might be some new tips

Going to a studio without proper preparation can turn out to be a complete waste of time and money from which one might not survive.

This money would have been better invested in the promotions of the album and on touring, or, better yet, a completely delirious idea I might say : invested in a decent salary for the people you invited to play on the album or for the technicians that have been helping you as a favor during all these years ! What a crazy idea I just had there ???

With no exaggeration at all (ask the people around you, ask engineers, producers, to tell you their best anecdotes on the subject), entire days can be wasted because of some stupid little thing that would have taken 5 minutes of thinking during pre-production.

I could devote an entire web site on these wastes of time and money since, like any engineer or producer, I've been through so many of them. I can't possibly remember them all, that's not the purpose of this page anyway, but here's a couple :

	Have you heard of the one about the song structure that had to be modified in the studio because you and the band just found out that the song lasts only 2'10" ? It would've taken 2'10" to find that out with a stupid wristwatch during the rehearsal sessions (my oh my, that takes so looong !!!!) We had to streeeeeeeeeetch the middle part for about one minute with a section that demanded 5 hours, not on recording, that's another story, but on composition. Super rich groups, or guys like PRINCE *, can afford to interleave production and composing, because they have cash flowing out of their noses. They could care less, they often own the studio ! * I don't have the font that would enable me to put his actual name ! As for TAFKAP, who remembers what that meant ? (The Artist Formerly Known As Prince).
	Or the one about the guy who thought he could just press PLAY on his drum machine at the beginning of the song already on tape, in order to add an entirely new drum part, and expect it to be still in perfect sync 5 minutes later, at the end of the song ! Studio sessions involving synchronization of several components are very time consuming, and often technically complex, so they should always be carefully prepared
	The one about the oil can that spilled on the disks that had been patiently programmed by the drummer for his 'click track'. Thanks to the excellent quality of the Atari's disk drive, we were able to read the sequences, after a few hours spent on cleaning the disks, though !!!! Always make several copies of your work, and store them in different place !
	The one about the tempo acceleration at the beginning of the song, a gradual acceleration, spread on more than a minute and... never rehearsed before by the musicians : Three hours to get it right. The BEATLES, for their first sessions at Abbey Road, had three hours, no more, to record side A and B of a 45 rpm vinyl, and that includes microphone positioning and other technical issues !
	And the one about the bass player bringing three basses to the studio, and not one of them stays in tune from the top of the neck to the bottom. It's a chance that the schedule can often be reorganized in order to record other things while the basses are fixed by a technician. It's not always possible to postpone such recordings, other musicians may depend on the bass parts to record their own stuff.
	And so on... It pisses me off just remembering all this and the other. And if I'm pissed off, I become angry, and anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering (shut up Yoda !)

This is why the following tips, and the ones I grouped in categories of instruments, should help you avoid the many traps that lurk around the door of a studio. The time you won't waste can be re-injected in a good night sleep, in artistic input, resulting in a better album !

Tips in General

Time each song

A timing of each song on the album, even if it's a crude timing, will help manage room on the tapes or disk drives in the best possible way.

Always count 30% more time, that way you can record different versions of the same rhythm section, before you choose the best one to build onto. Even if you've decided not to, it's still better to spare about 30 seconds of tape between each song, in order to keep them well separated.

A 2 inch analog tape (the most common format = 24 tracks) on a standard reel (10.5 inch) offers : 15 to 17 minutes of recording at 30 inches per second (best quality), and between 30 and 35 minutes of recording at 15 ips (a slightly inferior quality, but the difference is very subtle if you record "noisy" music = SLIPKNOT / DEFTONES / SOULFLY / etc...). Cost : about $ 130 (1200 Frs) per tape.

A 1 inch (Mitsubishi/Otari = 32 tracks) or 1/2 inch (Sony/Studer = 24 or 48 tracks) digital tape on a standard reel (14 inch) offers : A bit more that 1 hour of recording (1 hour, 3 minutes, tops). Cost : about $ 270 (2200 Frs) per tape for 1 inch   about $ 150 (1300 Frs) per tape for 1/2 inch

On a hard disk drive, 1 minute of CD quality sound (16 bits, 44.1) takes-up about 5 MB (take 5,5 MB for 48 kHz audio) of disk space. But how do you come-up with such numbers ? Normally, you don't have to worry about extra time necessary to separate each song, like on a tape. Do consider having 10 seconds of extra time for each song, at least... You never know, you might play a bit slowly that day ! For a song that needs 24 tracks, and that's 4 minutes long, the hard disk should have a capacity of : 5 MB x 24 tracks x 4 minutes = 480 MB You're better off with 600 MB to cope with each software's particularities. Double that number for systems that record in 96 kHz instead of 48 kHz. and multiply again by 1,5 if they record in 24 bits instead of 16. The same song recorded in a 24 bit/96 kHz format takes-up 1 800 MB.

Choose a name for each song (even if it's not final)

Then, keep it so, at least until the mixing stage.

There, you can call it as you wish. But otherwise, if you keep changing the names around during pre-production and recording, you're going to get people confused (producer, sound engineer, assistants... and even some members of the band !).

To click or not to click ?

It's up to you. Certain musical styles need the precision that only a click track can provide. A "click track" consists in recording a percussive sound (or several) following the tempo of the song, on a track of the multi-track tape recorder, so that the rhythm section (drums/bass/guitar) can follow so that they don't drift against the tempo.

Playing to a click track is also a fashion issue. Right now, we're rather in a period of time where music is going back to it's roots : purer, simpler, where tempo fluctuations are part of this simplicity.

If you have decided to play with a click track, train for several weeks as to reach a natural way of playing, even though you're following this rigid, unforgiving guide.

The usual technique consists in programming a pattern on a drum machine (or sequencer), generally based on a "rim-shot" every Quarter Note, with maybe an accent on every Bar, or, variation, a "rim-shot" every Eighth Note, with accents on the Quarter Notes. If the song has tempo changes, these will also be programmed, of course. Any other combination of sounds is possible to build the click track, as long as the rhythm section feels comfortable playing along. You could even program exactly what the drummer has to play in the song, that way, all he has to do is copy what he hears.

The drummer then wears headphones in which he hears the sounds of the drum machine (or sequencer). This is generally enough for the other members of the band who only have to follow the drummer, now that he's not supposed to drift anymore. A variation consists in feeding the click to each musician. It's up to you.

When you head for the studio, don't forget the backup disks of these click programming's, and if possible, bring along the machine on which you've worked during the rehearsals. The MIDI language may have simplified the inter-exchange of files between different platforms and software (Mac/PC/Hardware sequencer / Cubase/Notator/Performer/Vision/etc.) but we're still far from the "plug and play" bull crap these computer geeks claim with revisions after revisions, and so called "debugged" versions. We usually waste a lot of times loading a file into a sequencer that isn't yours, assigning the notes to a sound generator that isn't yours, in order to get a click track that satisfies everyone.

Also beware of the fact that 132 BPM of "Cubase" isn't exactly 132 BPM of "Roland", for example. We are often witnesses of several BPMs of difference from one machine to another. They must not have the same notion of what a minute is.

Song structure

Try to determine the number of instruments, arrangements, that you will need, and then, establish a table of the song structure, something like this :

	Intro	Verse 1	Verse 2	Chorus 1	Bridge	Verse 3	Chorus 2	Solo	End
Drums		X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Bass	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Rhythm Guitar Joseph		X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Rhythm Guitar Robert	X		X	X	X	X	X		X
Clear sound Guitar		X	X			X
Guitar "Crunch sound"			X	X			X	X
Lead Vocal		X	X	X		X	X		X
Backing Vocal				X			X		X
Sound FX	X								X
Scratch					X

That way, you can easily visualize the things that have to be done, and the things that have already been done, during the recording sessions.

Try to sort the songs in an order suitable for the album

You're going to need to record each song, even if it's with your Olympus dictaphone. Then, I'm sure one of your close friends has a computer with some sort of Direct to Disk software on it, if you don't happen to own a computer. Even a Minidisc can do the job, since you can program playback in a specific order with seamless edits . Try to find the order of the songs on the future album, maybe you'll get stuck at some point, being unable to choose between such group of songs or another. But at least, you'll certainly find several songs that fit together nicely. That way, you, the musicians, but also the producer, the engineer, or any one else around, can come up with ideas for linking the songs ! Too often, the order of the songs is debated after they've been recorded and mixed, therefore, it's too late to come up with creative ways to link them (or unlink them).

Bring several CDs as a reference

You certainly have sounds in mind, concerning your own instrument, or the sound you'd like for the album in general. Nothing beats a good listening session with the producer, so you can discuss things prior to the recording and the mix. So bring several CDs, on which you'll have duly spotted the sections that seem to be interesting.

Print the lyrics for each song

I am not against last minute improvisation, far from it, as long as the entire session isn't based on that. But it would be a good idea to type, rather than scribble, the lyrics of each song, even if they're temporary. They're a great help during recording and mixing. Of course, by the time you get to the mix, the definitive lyrics can be updated.

Make several copies : one for you, one for the engineer, and one for the producer.

Take pictures, and videos.

How many times have I recorded bands that didn't have any souvenirs of the sessions afterwards, because they didn't take pictures, or shot some video footage. Even the disposable cameras with an integrated flash make decent pictures. The best thing is to bring in the "photographer friend", who'll do a much better job, than you can use in your press-book. Watching the videos a few months later is also a good source of laughter.

Studio behavior : a bit of psychology...

Try not to pile-up in the control room, behind the window, if you know that a rather shy musician is on the other side, in the studio. You're going to have a peculiar effect on him, a bit like brain freeze.

Also, try to keep it quiet while in the control room, behind the engineer's back. He needs (more that often !!!) to hear what he's doing !

Recording an album is not a party, it's work

Alright, I must admit, it's also quite pleasing. It's not a funeral.

What I mean is that if you approach the recording sessions with a "relax man ! Everything's cool" attitude, drinking beer and smoking pot like crazy (or worse !), staying up 'til 3:00 AM every night... I don't see how you're going to give your best performance. You're also going to waste precious time and sleep for serious people that might need it (if you think you don't).

Recording is not an accomplishment in itself, more like a middle stage.

The accomplishment is when the CD is in the biggest record shops around. There, OK : party time ! Bring in the big-busomed blondes and let's dance naked on the restaurant tables ! But there's no need to have this type of behavior in the studio. Leave all your friends and your friends' friends outside the door, all they'll do is make you loose focus.

Album cover, booklet, concepts...

Don't wait for the pre-mastering stage to be completed before you start worrying about something that, to me, is quite important for an album : the visual aspect.

As soon as pre-production, you should discuss about the concepts you want to apply to the booklet, to the CD itself and to the packaging (maybe you don't want to settler for a "jewel box"). It may seem weird, but a band that already knows what they want on their booklet helps the producer get a better feel about the desired sound of the album. Conceptual art, drawings, pictures, text, may also inspire him during the recording and mixing sessions.

Anyway, even if it's just for technical reasons, you'd better have those films ready for printing way before the pre-mastering is over :

If you manage well enough, between the time where the factory receives the glass master and the moment they are ready to deliver your CDs, you can expect about 7 work days.

Whatever you do, it takes at least 15 work days for the printing job ! It's quite strange since that technology is a lot simpler than CD replication, where the work is done at a scale of only a tenth of a micron.

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Miscellaneous :

Mains :

More and more bands choose to record outside of France, in Belgium or Switzerland, even in England (the Eurostar places London 3 hours away from Paris !). Don't forget to buy mains-connector converters for countries such as Switzerland and England. Otherwise, the mains is 230 volts / 50 Hz throughout Europe and Eastern countries. It's just the connectors that sometimes change from country to country !

Tempo --> ms conversion formula :

Always useful when you want to find the value of a delay in milliseconds so that it is in sync with the dotted quarter note of an instrument...

The formula is as follows :

x note value = duration in ms

where "BPM" is the tempo value (in Beats Per Minute) and "note value" is the duration of the note in regard to a quarter note. Example :

for an 8th note, the note value is 0,5 (half a quarter note)
for a dotted 8th note, which lasts an 8th note + a 16th note, the note value is therefore 0,75
etc...