Chapter 6
Creating and Following a Production Plan
In This Chapter
Setting up the production plan that works best for your plan and your production
Decision making for pre-production through post production
Staying on time, budget, and plan even when it takes more time and more money
Preparing all the post-production for pre-release
The information and details in your production plan can have multiple uses for multiple people. You can use it as a guide to stay on track with time and budget. You can also add it in to your music business plan and as well as a detail and justification tool for how you are creating and recording your product. It can also be used after the fact to look at what worked, what took more time or more money, and how you may need to alter future plans.
The organization, time- and money-saving advantages that comes from flowing a solid and detailed production plan enable you to create the best product with the least stress, hassle, and issues. Think of your production plan as a blueprint to help you stay focused and on task by building a strategy that covers
- Your budget from pre-production to post-production
- Your schedule
- Where you’re recording and mastering
- Who is producing, mixing, and playing
- How you justify specific costs and how they’re covered
- When you will release your work
Pre-Producing Your Production
Your production plan, in a sense, is the pre-production strategy for your pre-production plan to lead you in to your production phase, post-production phase, and release. Peter picked a peck of pickled what?
Recording as a whole can be incredibly intimidating, not to mention incredibly expensive at any stage in your career. The unexpected costs that can sneak up and bite you on the rear can end up costing you more than you planned to spend on the whole project. When you’re deep in the thick of a recording, and you find out that this needs more time, you start to go over budget, you forgot that a certain person needs to be paid, or all these surprising and unexpected expenses begin to pop up, you can find yourself overwhelmed.
Your plan can be created by you or with the help of a producer (if you’ve already chosen one for the recording), consultant, management, or label. The pre-production plan covers and outlines everything prior to production or getting into the studio — from the rehearsals to the choices for producer, the budget for the recording itself through the mixing and mastering of the product and the release.
Setting up a timeline for the recording, a budget, and a basic outline of how the entire process goes allows for a great amount of savings in money, headaches, and stress.
Preparation for problem prevention
The preparation, due diligence, and double-checking prior to working in the studio, with a producer, and with other musicians, help to reduce the chances of problems and issues that can delay and even kill a recording altogether.
Part of the preparation includes the research on the right people to work with who can work the right way within your budget and your individual situation. This type of solid planning enables the whole process to run smoother with a better team of people on the same page.
Building, researching, and creating the right plan, with the right budget and the right people, helps to keep the scammers at bay and protect you, your music, and your plan that much better.
The amount of scammers claiming to be professional music producers, engineers, arrangers, beat makers, session players, top-notch studio executives, and so on is at an all-time high. If you don’t have a production plan together and do your research, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
Tracking yourself and your plan
The pre-production part of your production plan is the foundation that everything else is built on, including the budget, schedule, team members, and tracking. Not song tracking, but the tracking of the following:
- How to stay on track
- Where and why you might be off track
- How to get back on track
- Where you may be getting ahead of your plan
- Where to use extra time and money
- How to grab time or money from elsewhere if you fall behind
Your production plan becomes your primary budget- and time-tracking sheet for everything and anything have to do with creating your product from the inception to the pre-release. It’s your personal business plan for just your music and can be added into your music business plan to show the exact details of where every dollar is being spent for making that music.
Budgeting and scheduling the time
When you build your time frames, you build the outline that keeps you on schedule, in budget, and on point. The biggest problem that makes a production plan go over budget is the lack of scheduling and the assumptions that everything will go ten times faster than it actually does.
Schedule time for preproduction, the recording sessions, the mixing, the mastering, and the release with extra buffers. This keep you from being so rigidly locked into a schedule that might see delays you can’t control. Adding a couple extra hours for vocals, an extra day for mixing, or a little more time for rehearsals can give you the buffer you need.
If you don’t need that extra time for one place, it can be used later if something else crops up and takes a little longer. You can also add that time to your marketing and the release budget to promote your recording that much more.
Planning for extra time helps to keep you and your schedule on track. If things go a little longer, you already have the time and budget built in; if you’re able to stay under the allotted time, you can save that time and money and use it later for mixing or marketing.
By adding some room in your schedule for extra time here and there, it not only gives you a buffer, but it also shows those investing in you that you’re on track, staying to task, and keeping on budget. When a certain element takes a little longer, like an extra four hours that are needed for vocals that you were able to take from saving two hours in basic tracking and a couple hours in overdubs, then you stay on point and show that you are budgeting and spending with an attention to detail. This also shows that you can problem solve using the existing budget and schedule you have and don’t need to ask for additional funds.
The following sections show the core time costs that need to be budgeted in and scheduled for. Although each of these costs can tie into some of the team and people working on the recording, these encompass the time that’s included in your budget and the scheduled amount of hours and days for each element.
Put aside time for preproduction
By answering the questions about how much preparation time you need, you save a great deal in the production phase. This can range from vocal lessons to working with your producer to review basic tasks before the clock starts ticking in the studio.
Plan and budget for preproduction time, and make the most of it. You can save a great deal of hours and cash down the line by going over and planning for all kinds of possibilities in advance before they end up costing you down the line.
Schedule demo sessions
Especially if you are still new to the whole recording experience, demo sessions in the studio can give you a solid idea of what happens when you go to track for the main sessions. You get an idea of the process as a whole — where the microphones are placed and how things work in a more relaxed environment. By understanding the process, you can save a great deal of time when the real sessions get underway. These demo sessions can also give you some time to experiment a little more and for a little longer because you’re not on such a defined schedule inside of the actual production. Adding these sessions to the budget can save you money and time later in the actual production and, on occasion, certain rough tracks from the demo sessions can be used later.
Sometimes you can capture tracks and parts that are usable for the full sessions, too, which in turn can allow for more time to mix and play during the sessions.
Book rehearsals
Whether laying out a rehearsal schedule for the band leading up to the sessions or working to schedule rehearsals with some of the session players that you are bringing, having that plan for rehearsals makes the takes and tracking go that much better. One more step in the plan can outline what you want to cover and work on in each rehearsal.
In most cases you have to pay your session players to rehearse. Some do add a rehearsal into their fees, but be prepared to pay for rehearsals if you want them. Also note that many of the better session players won’t need that rehearsal time. The good ones can sound like they’ve been working with you forever. Still, if that preliminary connection is something you need, book them and schedule those rehearsals with them.
Make time for arrangers and arrangements
If you need vocal, horn, or string arrangements, orchestration, or sample or electronic parts arranged for your songs, schedule the time with an arranger or the time to focus just on arrangements. Planning for this before the sessions can enable you to save time in the studio and with musicians to get those arrangements that much faster. You can find out more about arrangers and their job descriptions in Chapter 3.
Book gear rentals
It’s not just about renting gear (such as drums sets, pianos, amps, guitars, keyboards, and other musical instruments); it’s figuring out how long you need that gear. This is another reason why your production plan is so crucial. Imagine you have four songs with piano to record, and you want to get a very specific piano sound with the basic tracking. By planning to rent the piano for the first day or two and also planning for the piano tuner, you can knock out the piano tracks first and get that piano returned. Many studios do not have a piano, so planning the rental time, the piano tuner, and the time spent recording can save you a lot.
The same goes for drums. If you’re tracking basics and drums for three days, schedule for four (just in case) and then get those drums returned so you don’t have to deal with any additional costs.
Track hours and days
Estimating the days for basic tracking of the foundational instruments as well as a little buffer for a little extra time is a great idea. This is where you lay the drums or drum loops, the rhythm guitars, bass, keyboards, scratch vocals, and everything else to build from. If you’re scheduling for a live band, the whole recording might be basic tracking. This is a customized task. Vocals, solos, embellishments, and enhancements come in overdubs (see “Overdubs and vocal sessions” later in this chapter”). Figuring out how much time is needed and scheduling for that depends on the amount of overdubs and tracks necessary.
There’s no template or model of tracking that works for everyone. Take into consideration how much has to be done, how long everyone needs to get it done right, and then base numbers off these estimations.
Not everyone needs to be there for basic tracking. There are a number of artists I drummed for in the studio that I never even met. I was just in the studio with other session players and the producer. Again, it’s a personal thing in how involved you want to be with your project.
Overdubs and vocals sessions
Overdubs are the extra tracks that are added after the basic tracks are completed. These include solos, samples, additions, and extra touches from vocal harmonies to percussion, strings to horns, extra guitars to miscellaneous instruments and sounds that are not recorded with the basic tracks. Schedule this time carefully to save the most money.
Keep in mind your vocalist may need to rest for a while and take breaks. Instead of having nothing going on as the clock is running in the studio, work on some of the overdubs to allow keep the production moving along.
Ask for some help in the vocal session scheduling to know just how long you need. This is one of the biggest areas where many singers think they can just knock it out of the park in a take or two, but then find themselves hours and even days later, over budget because of poor planning.
An artist I produced thought she could do all vocals in two days and fought me on the idea of scheduling six days over a two-week period. It ended up taking nine days over four weeks and going way over budget. By asking a producer or a vocal coach who has had many experiences to help you with a reasonable time allotment, you can plan more effectively.
Don’t get too carried away in the overdub phase! There are many people who add more and more and more ideas along with more and more and more possible takes. This makes the mixing process longer and longer and — you guessed it — more expensive.
Every take you keep and move to mixing has to be budgeted and scheduled to be listened to, reviewed, and then compared to the others.
Every overdub or additional vocal track you add has to be budgeted and scheduled for additional mixing time of both that extra track or tracks and the mixing into the rest of the song.
Technical mixing
This is your first mix, the cleaning up. This is the kind of mix that can be done even at the end of the early phases of basic tracking. Make sure things are cut off where they need to be, properly named and titled so they can be referenced to in the main mix, and begin to give each track a basic scratch mix to make it easier to work with down the line.
If you find that you’re losing steam in an overdub session, or the vocalist runs out of gas and you still have two hours left on the clock of the schedule that day, have the engineer spend the rest of that day and that budget with the technical mix and clean ups to be as productive as possible.
Main mixing
Think of mixing like putting the colors you want to use in a picture on your palette. Rather than painting a picture, you’re “painting the song.” In your mind, you already know the song. You have the idea of the tune, and you know the basics of what you want to hear. So now painting the exact picture is like the mix, from the amount of each color you use to how it’s drawn across the canvas. In the same way, your song is a sound canvas, and a great mix can make or break a song.
Give the engineer some! (time alone)
In the early stages of mixing, I usually recommend that an artist is not in the studio at first. This allows the engineer, producer, or both to pull together a basic mix with everything set at a decent level before the extra nuances, fades, volumes, equalization (EQ), effects, and all the embellishments are added.
More than likely, you don’t want to listen to an engineer spend all that time mixing the bass drum against the rest of the drum kit and then match it to the bass, vocals, and other instruments. My guess is that you’d rather come in when everything technical and basic is already taken care of so you can add your thoughts and creative touches.
Mix requests versus time realities
As you listen, ask for changes and work with your engineer or producer on the mix, or if someone else has mixed it alone, the end result should be a final version for you to take home, listen to numerous ways, and then make any last notes before wrapping it up and call it the final mix.
In preproduction, talk to your producer and engineer about what’s happening with all the songs and how many overdubs you’re initially thinking of. Plan also for how many takes you want to go after and keep. All of these elements factor into exactly how long you should plan for a mix.
For example: If you are an acoustic guitar player and singer, looking to only record songs live with no harmonies or other instruments, your mix time will be days and hours shorter than a group with 11 members, a horn section, loops, vocal harmonies, effects, and quadrupling guitar parts.
Final mix time allowances
You brought the mix home and listened to it on a number of devices. That means reviewing it on: headphones, ear buds, car stereo, computer speakers, home speakers, crappy speakers, and while you were in the studio.
You won’t be happy across the board, but if you address the elements you do hear, you can get the best mix possible. Although it might sound outstanding on the $10,000 speakers in the studio, the bulk of your audience doesn’t have those speakers.
Making a clear budget and cutoff point for your final mix is a good idea. If you decide to go back and forth on many different changes and many different small tweaks, it will cost you a fortune and it will never be done.
It will never be just perfect, ’cause you’re never going to be perfect. None of us are. There is an intelligent humility and acceptance that needs to happen when creating a song in the studio and it can be a challenge to look at any piece of art and say, “ok, its done!” But, by changing the thinking of “it’s done” to “this is where I’m stopping for now,” you can save a lot more time, money, and stress. Remember, you can always go back and record it again for another album or even as a single. Still, allow that closure for each song.
By setting clear time frames and budgets for your final mix and even the different parts of a mix as a whole, you can police yourself in a way to make sure you’re staying on track. If you need more time, think of where in your plan you can pull it from. This is responsible time and budget management for the studio.
Also, final mix is not what the track is supposed to sound like in the end. It’s how the mix and the levels sound; your final sound of the final song comes in mastering.
The master plan: Mastering
The mastering is the last step after the final mix where your music gets its final adjustments in volume, equalization, and overall tone along with fade in and fade outs. Remember — the mastering engineer is working with only two tracks. Changes made in mastering affect the entire track as a whole. A mastering engineer can’t pull up the drums or take down the vocal. Any effect, volume adjustment, or EQ is heard across everything. Mastering is covered in the “Mastering Your Music” section later in this chapter.
Allow a new set of ears on the mix to master the final product. Reach out to different mastering engineers and ask for before-and-after samples to get a sense of how each one approaches mastering.
Ask around and look for a price that works for your budget. It’s the last step that’s often forgotten early on, so in turn, there’s not much money left for it. A well-mastered recording has that much more of a pop, punch, and warmth to it.
When you budget and schedule your time your costs in the most effective manner, you save the money, get the most accomplished, and are at your most productive. This type of budgeting and scheduling not only helps keep you on track, it can also make you less of a risk to investors that may be covering the budget. The more you show the detail, care, and considerations of every cost, especially when it is someone else’s money, the easier it is to get those costs covered.
Setting your tracking order and plan
It’s almost like creating a route or the navigation for the map of your recording. You would be surprised how many bands go in to the studio that are very well rehearsed with their music, but completely and totally unprepared when it comes down to how to track, what to track first, what to do last, and how to get the most out of every session.
Again, this is a very personalized thing based on the artist, your attention span, endurance, frustration levels, and overall energy. Everyone is different, so following a template might work for one person but not have the same effect for you. This is part of the post-production plan and needs to have some time allotted for you to choose the order of the product that you’re releasing. This should take place before mastering because the mastering engineer creates this order, the fade in and fade outs, as well as the breaks between each song.
A good starting point is to think about how certain songs have felt in rehearsals or in shows. Maybe order seems to make everything easier, while another order makes things a little more difficult. Take stock and see what you can recall in your rehearsals, at your shows, and even when you practice alone. Be the detective and the compass for starting out with the best path through the best order for the sessions.
The following are other approaches to finding your best tracking order:
- Be flexible: The tracking order doesn’t need to be locked down. Leave enough flexibility to let things change in the studio, especially with basic tracking. If everyone is feeling a certain song next, then go for it!
- Get loud first: Begin with a song that has louder dynamics. You know the song — something where you can really test out the volumes and help the engineer or producer dial in your sound that much better and quicker for the other songs. This can also help to stretch you out for some of the songs that might record better if you are all warmed up, dialed in, and have the blood flowing.
- Prepare for the long run or long day: Realize it’s gonna be a long day and you may have to do a song over and over again to get it right. Some musicians think of the tracking order like a set list, which is one way to do it, but in a set list, you’re playing each song only once.
- Don’t leave the hardest for last: Between two easier songs, pop in that real challenging one. Coming off of a track that was easier and tracked faster can give you that extra boost of confidence to go into a more challenging tune, just as coming out of that into an easier track can almost be like a break from the time or effort needed in that harder track.
- Think excitement, exhaustion, patience, and endurance: Having a basic idea of when each member hits their exhaustion point or how you feel at different times in the day can let you know when it’s time to stop and go home. Stay aware of those around you, and sense when they might be losing their steam or getting close to blowing their top. Always budget for breaks; they help endurance in the long run.
Charts for everyone before the session
Just like a map for the sessions as a whole, you need charts for each musician for the recording sessions. Whether adding into the production plan budget for someone to create these charts or if you create the charts yourself, giving everyone charts saves time and confusion.
Having charts for a session, even if you have the songs down pat, can help every song that much more. From having a chart for the engineer to charts for sessions players you might hire, or for musicians who might come in to do overdubs later, providing basic charts help create a simple road map for every song to keep everyone going in the same direction and staying on the same page.
You can adjust the amount of detail, simplicity, or complexity for each song. The three most common charts include the lyric chart, the chord/arrangement chart or melody charts, and the production notes chart.
Lyric chart
The Lyric chart is used as a guide for those musicians who might not know how to read music, but want to follow along. It’s also helpful to have this chart during vocals to enable the producer or engineer to know what they’re tracking.
Chord/arrangement chart
The basic chord chart simply covers the chord progression of the tune, even with simple scratched lines and the chord names. This is useful for musicians and for the engineer while in production and overdubs as well as mixing.
Where the chord chart shows the chords, the arrangement (or melody) chart reflects the melodic lines so a session player can easily read it. For more complex tunes with challenging and more advanced changes, stops, and difficult parts, this type of chart makes life easier and allows you to get the takes you want much faster and with everyone on the same page … literally!
Production notes chart
This an extra chart that many skip; however, come recording time, a great deal of the stops, reviews, and discussions are part of this document. Use it to avoid, among other things, bad takes. This chart is more descriptive than it is technical or musical in a theory sense.
Table 6-1 shows what a production notes chart might include.
Table 6-1 Production Notes Chart
|
Description |
Example |
|
Key |
F major |
|
Tempo |
140BPM or beats per minute |
|
Instrumentation |
Drums, bass, vocals, backing vocals, guitar, keyboards, lots of horns, shaker, tambourine, cowbell and congas |
|
How the song starts |
Drums for two bars, then everybody |
|
How the song ends |
Fade out, so keep playing for a while |
|
Watch points |
Dynamic drop after the guitar solo Lots of harmonies in third verse, don’t get too busy |
|
Similar type songs |
Kind of a Maroon 5 feel (Like their “Payphone” song) |
|
Additional notes/vision of the tune |
I want this really soft in the beginning and end, but punchy and raw in the verses. Horns will punch hard in the choruses, no need to overly accent in the choruses because the horns will have it covered later. |
Again, the idea is to deliver the best road map possible for all the musicians involved in the song, so they can give you the best performance. The more information you can share and the more information that your producer, engineer, and other session musicians have, the better the track can be for you as a whole.
If you need help with charts or arrangements, add that into your production plan. Having someone help you clearly define the parts as well as work with you to develop the best ideas helps take your songs to a higher level.
A production plan isn’t about having everything planned out down to the exact note; it’s about making a plan so that every note, song, and idea you create in the studio is done in the most productive environment at the most reduced cost to create the best recording with the least amount of stress.
By creating all the parts of your production plan in advance of your production and hammering out all the details and intricacies that you want, you can make the sessions run smoother and allow for that much more time to create, embellish, and improvise.
Your Recording Process —Picking Your Producer, Mixer, and Musicians
Everyone has different abilities, needs, and requirements. Connecting and working with the right team, studio, and players can make or break a recording. In all cases, when finding the right studio, producer, engineer, and musicians, it always comes back to your due diligence.
Always double-check and find the reviews, follow up with past clients, and put in the time to research the people who are about to become part of your recording. Doing so helps you avoid potential issues with those who might not share your vision or work ethic.
Don’t worry about a big name producer
It is not about the big name anymore or trying to get this musician or that musician to play with or produce you. The same goes for the studio where you’re recording. Don’t focus all your energy and too much of your budget on time in the same studio where a major name recorded. Just because you both use the same studio doesn’t mean you’ll see the same results and same profits.
Think of it this way — you don’t have the same team, the same producer, the same budget, the same record deal, the marketing money and the tour support to allow that recording to become successful on the same level. Every situation is different, and if you don’t take those differences into consideration, you get a terrible product from an amazing studio that ends up going nowhere.
Comparing your situation with their results
Keep the following thought in your mind regardless of where you choose to record or whom you choose to work with, from producers to engineers to arrangers and session musicians: Make sure they have the ability to give you what you need with your budget, your ability, your team, and your time frame in mind.
Imagine if you hired a chef that required specific ingredients, a set amount of time to prepare and cook those ingredients, and needed specific cookware to do it. You then tried to get him to work with ingredients he doesn’t love, rushed his time frame, and gave him different tools than what he likes or knows how to work with. Your end result might not be what you want. Yes, he is that amazing chef, but the end results aren’t all that amazing nor are they very tasty.
It’s the same when it comes to a producer. If you try to hire a top name, but then don’t allow him the time he needs to mix or produce to the best of his abilities, you’re left with a celebrity name on a sub-par product.
On the other side of the coin, there are amazing studios that can fit all budgets with producers, engineers, and players you may have never heard of, but have stellar skill sets, great reputations, and excellent abilities. There are also the producers, studios, engineers, and musicians who might be the perfect match for your sound, style, and approach.
This recording is your baby. It’s your project and regardless of how good someone may be or how great some studio may be, if it doesn’t feel right to you, it’s not the right person or place. Trust your instincts. Music is art, creating music is emotional, and working with the right team makes everything sound that much better.
Mixing up home studio and pro studio tracks
Do you have recording skills? Do you have recording gear? Do you know how to record? Do you feel more comfortable recording at home? A mixture of recording at home and in a studio can work well for you as well as save you a great deal of money.
This again comes down to finding the right producer, studio or engineer that can work with you and tracks that you might bring in from home. Very large scale bands like Aerosmith have been known to go in to a larger studio early on to cut basic tracks and get a drum set well miced up, then get the solid basics down to allow for vocals, guitars and other parts to be done in home studios. There is no rule that all the music has to be done all at once and all under one roof.
Other options include having a producer work with you at home instead of a studio to gather as many tracks as possible and then allowing him or her to mix at their studio. The better you can be captured and the more comfortable you are while recording, the better the music will be.
Talk to your producer or the studio about what you have for equipment as well as what they have. Discuss the options of what you might be able to capture at home and how it can be easily transferred to the studio. From renting certain microphones to having the producer or engineer come to your home and check over your set up for the best sound, mixing together home studio recordings with pro studio recordings can sound as if you recorded everything in a top-notch studio.
Picking the right studio, engineer, and producer
Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe. Book a studio by the toe … okay, not funny. But the choices and options for finding the right producer and right studio can be overwhelming. Still, remember this is your project, your music, and just as art is opinion and very personal, so is choosing a producer and a studio.
A studio is much more than a room, microphones, and gear. Is the vibe of the place comfortable? There are many different formats from the Pro-Tools to Reason, Ableton Live to Apple Logic Pro and Audacity and many others. These are some of the top and most-recognized software programs used in the music business today. I personally produced with Pro-Tools and it was my favorite, but I have heard amazing albums cut on Reason and Abelton too. When it comes down to the studio, a lot of it has to do with the engineer and how he knows the tools around him.
So how do you dial it in and find the studio that’s right for you? Start by following the same due diligence that was covered a couple pages back. Ask for references, examples, and check out the reviews. Call people who’ve worked in a specific studio, and follow up to find out what others say.
Then, look at the rooms and the gear, talk about the budget, the time frames, and what you need to have done. Ask for project averages to get a sense of how long it will take from setting up to the average mix down times. Ask if they have session musicians who might work well with your project if your project requires it. And make sure you compare all this information and what’s being offered with other studios.
Using session musicians recommended by the studio can oftentimes save you that much more time and money. Because these musicians have either worked with the studio or the producer before, you get the best performances out of them, that much faster. In turn, this saves you the headache and trouble of trying to bring someone new into the fold.
Listen, don’t look
Don’t get caught up in the size of the room, or the size of the mixing console, or the number of different isolation rooms. If a studio can capture an amazing drum sound in a smaller room because it has great microphones and an excellent engineer, a small room can be just as powerful as a humongous room. Some engineers work on computer keyboards and a track pad whereas others work on a 64-channel console. The size doesn’t matter, and one is not better than the other, especially if they are both delivering the same quality result.
Digital versus tape
Time management in recording is crucial. Getting the most out of your time in the studio while staying in budget is key. Some studios still offer tape, but understand that with cutting on tape, doing overdubs, mixing, and everything else, tape is going to take a lot longer. There’s something cool about the old-school element of tape, but it’s an expensive way to go that can make a session take months longer than what you can do digitally.
Go digital with your recording. There are many audiophiles who will tell you how much of a difference that tape makes, but it’s really hype. A great engineer who knows how to place microphones and mix well can give you that thick, rich, warm sound that most associate with something being recorded on two-inch tape. I’ve seen more and more people go to digital and find the right studio and producer to deliver a sound that even the most discerning ear can’t tell the difference.
Choosing the producer, co-producer, or producer/engineer
If you choose a producer first, they often have their own studio or a studio they favor. Some producers can also work as engineers, and some producers like to have an engineer with them. You may want to cover some of the producing yourself and might need a producer only in a secondary fashion. Still, having that extra set of ears can be that much better to help you and help the project as a whole.
Again, ask the questions, listen to examples of their work, and follow up with those who have worked with them. The due diligence part is the most crucial part in finding that studio that’s the best as well as working with that producer who can help to deliver the best results. It’s a personal choice and should be based on the music, your needs, your budget, and your project.
Finding the right backup musicians or hired guns
Your friend might be a great guitar player, but is your friend someone who can handle recording at the level of a studio guitarist? This isn’t something you want to find out in the studio with the clock running, watching time waste away as issues begin to compound …
After you lock in your producer, ask them if they have a great call list of players who they know well, have worked with a number of times, and can get it done right, quickly, and on time. Look to your producer or studio to help you find those players for the best results. Even with those references, make sure you get a sense of what these musicians have done and examples you can listen to.
Members can learn parts and there are ghost session players out there who can come in and fix a part and not even take credit. I know, because I was one of them. Still, if something isn’t happening and is an issue or worry from the get-go, it’s either a song that should be shelved for a later date or the consideration of a back up player should be brought up early on to keep things on schedule and on budget without feelings getting hurt and more stress being brought to the process.
Finding musicians outside of studio or producer recommendations
If you’re looking for a musician who the studio or producer doesn’t have a recommendation for, again, go back to your due diligence. Ask for the references, examples, and the reviews, and
- Don’t get caught up in a pretty website or social media.
- Do look to see what others have posted about them.
- Don’t be overly impressed about amazing videos that show blazing chops.
- Do look for references from people who say they can play what’s needed for the song.
- Don’t get sold on how good they look or how good their gear is.
- Do get more comfortable when other producers or studios say they act professional.
After the due diligence and double checking, go with your gut. It’s got to feel good to you. The best keyboard player in the world might not be a fit for you or for your music. It isn’t on them. It isn’t on you, it is about a connection and a resonance outside of the music that can make the music that much better and get captured in the recording. Don’t let anyone’s résumé or references make you feel like you have to work with someone that you don’t work well with.
Mastering Your Music
That final step after the final mix that brings the songs and the recording as a whole all together is mastering. Often confused for mixing, mastering is really a different beast all together. In mastering the technical stuff, such as placing the track numbers as well as the track sequence, arrangement takes place. Those song fade-ins and fade-outs take place in mastering too. This also includes the spacing between each of the tracks and adding the codes for the replication process. You might have picked the order in mix, but the technical elements are added by your mastering engineer.
Mastering engineers work with two tracks. They can’t go in and lift a snare drum to be louder; if they raise the volume, everything in the song goes up. On the same note, however, a mastering engineer might lift a certain frequency that can make a snare drum or another instrument pop that much more. Make sure your mix is ready to be mastered, and stay out of the mindset that specific issues can get fixed in mastering … because they can’t.
Understanding the importance of mastering
Mastering’s main function or more of what can be heard is the dialing in of the average volumes by defining the peaks and the lows for all the songs as a complete body of work. The compression and equalization (EQ) are also worked in mastering across the whole mix. That final punch, warmth, continuity, and crack comes from mastering.
Ask a mastering engineer if you can listen to samples of a final mix and the final master of a song or of an album. It is the best way to hear those nuances that can be hard to explain. Just a simple listen between a strong final mix and a great mastering can help you understand just how important the mastering process is.
Prepare for your mastering and don’t try to master while you mix. If you add too much compression to a final mix to give it that final sound you are looking for, you’re actually tying your mastering engineer’s hands and making their job harder to give you the best mastering possible.
On that same note, many studios and producers have the mastering equipment and the ability to master, but bringing your final mix to a mastering engineer is a better choice. Give it to someone who can listen with a fresh set of ears and take it to the finish line.
Researching different mastering engineers with that same due diligence you used for the studio, the producer, and the players is a good idea, too. You also may be able to get a higher echelon mastering engineer because the process as a whole tends to be a lot faster. Prices can range from $40 a track to hourly rates of $120 and up from there. The average for the past decade put a song at about an hour, but again, it really comes down to the complexity of the song and the elements, instrumentation, and tones in the song itself. Also grabbing some extra fades and sections for other use during mastering can add a little more time but pay in great ways down the long run.
Creating all your different products
After the product is mastered and complete, make sure you ask for a couple extra pieces from that final product to use for marketing, promotion, and booking. Every single product you create from a single song to an EP to a full album can have all sorts of subsidiary and secondary products to help sell that product more as well as open up more avenues for more revenues and more opportunities.
Mastering for samples, loops, and no vocals
As the final product is completed, and even before when you’re in the studio, think about a series of samples, loops, and versions that you can use online and send to others. This includes a mixture of elements from the final mix tracks and the mastered tracks.
Loops and potential samples for others
Sections of songs that could be used by others can create more revenues from the songs you are trying to promote.
No-vocal/backing-vocal versions
As final mix is wrapping up, make sure to get a version of a no-vocal and a version with just backing vocals. The mastering engineer can use the basic mastering approach, compression, and EQ to these secondary versions that others might want to buy and potentially record for themselves. They need the original tracks, but by showing a master, you are highlighting just how good the song sounds. With the backing vocal version, you allow yourself to sing along to the track for performances at places that might not accommodate a full band.
Samples of each of the songs
The mastering engineer adds fade ins and fade outs so they can to be used for the online promotion of your music. These samples can also be used for booking as well. The rules for fades are:
- 10 to 15 second fade in and out of each song from the start of the song
- 10 to 15 second fade in and out of each song going to the end of the song
- 10 to 15 second fade in and out of each song at the hook/bridge
- 10 to 15 second fade in and out of each song at the chorus
Of course you aren’t going to put them all up online together, but this gives you simple samples that you can mix and play around with from booking demos to other solicitations.
Most people aren’t going to listen to your album in one sitting, but if you give them a mixture of samples you have from your mastering engineer, you create a fast demo that draws them in and makes them want more.
For example, if you have a recording with 12 songs that are all 3 minutes, 30 seconds long, and you send a link to all the songs, in a way you are asking for someone to listen to 84 minutes of music. If, however, you send a mixture of one track with the first 10 seconds of one song, with the second track fading in to the chorus, the third track being the last 10 seconds of the song, and so on, you just delivered 12 bite-size samples of your music, and you request only 2 minutes from the listener. This is way more respectful, professional, and has the potential to draw in way more interest from music industry mavens.
These samples can also be uploaded to social media pages and other sites to give examples yet not give away full songs that could be stolen if you uploaded the full track.
The extra time you take to create these extras can pay off in the long run. It’s also a lot more affordable to do this while you master your main product and have that time booked in your production plan.
Your Pre-Release and Post-Recording Part
After you get the masters back, it’s time to just release it, right? Wrong! The biggest mistake that happens after musicians get the final master back is that they rush to release the music and go to that mindset of “as soon as they hear it, it will sell.” Unfortunately with no preparation between the post recording part and the pre-release, the bulk of these recordings fizzle and die out before they have a chance to shine.
After you put all the time and effort into making the music, give it the attention it deserves by being patient and preparing the launch for the most effective release to give it the best chances at creating as many sales and opportunities as possible.
Setting up your release plan options
Depending on your budget and your plan, the marketing of your release needs to begin before the release date, not after. Regardless of having a major budget or a grassroots budget, working on building the momentum, optimization, information, and promotional materials before a release date helps the release date, the release, and your marketing as a whole have a longer life. You’re delivering more than a product — you’re releasing a marketing campaign with all sorts of online and physical attributes that draw people to the main product and the promotion of your shows.
Releasing materials in order
Spread out the release and the subsidiary products over a span of time. Don’t just launch a recording and then give a link to a site that can create a dozen one-off products. That leaves you with a lot more work to do in order to continually draw the interest of a new fan, while maintaining the interest of an existing one.
By breaking up a large recording into a couple EPs as well as adding some songs only for download, then releasing different products like T-shirts, cups, hats, and posters at different points in time, you’re able to keep interest up in both new fans and old ones as they are offered new elements while advertising the main product or products.
Understanding exclusivity in song sharing
Stay with the idea of sharing and posting snippets and samples of songs, instead of putting up full songs that can be stolen. At the same time, be careful what you put out for free. Although free songs can be a way to market, you most likely won’t be able to charge for them later. If you found out about a product that was given away for free for a long time, and all of a sudden had a price tag on it, would that turn you off or make you want to buy it? Think of how your marketing ideas will affect your products. On the same side of the coin, imagine you have a song that’s on the Internet for free and someone wants to license it exclusively. If they found out it was out there for free, they might lose interest.
Providing music samples, freebies, and teasers
The best route to go with marketing your product and release is with the samples of the songs from the release. If you choose to have a song that’s available for free, that can be used too. Sometimes releasing a live version without the best mix for free can draw in people to buy the fully produced and mixed version. Adding samples that are spread out over time is the way to go. Once a week, add a new sample track, instead of releasing them all at once. Use samples of the outtakes, flubs, mistakes, and bloopers, too. The more you can share over more time with samples, freebies, and teasers, the more interest you can gain and maintain in your primary product.
Make sure those samples leave them wanting more. Fade out on unresolved chords or places where big changes are taking place. Tease their ears and make them want more!
Take every production element into consideration as you create and execute your production plan with every detail addressed, the patience required, and due diligence to ensure you’re working with the right people. This ensures that your plan turns out a product that represents you in the best way as it creates the best opportunities for profit and exposure.