Proper pre-production is key to saving time in the studio. Make sure everyone knows the start and stop points for all the songs. Recordings done today are to a click track, it is not meant to keep you rigid, but meant as a guide so you don’t lose, ‘the groove’.
Let’s start at the top. You’ve written a new song and you bring it to the band. You have a good idea of the tempo and groove. Know that BPM, Beats Per Minute, the exact tempo that feels good in the rehearsal room before you record in a studio environment. Frequently bands and singer songwriters don’t know the tempo of their songs. They wait until they get into a studio environment to settle on the tempo, (BPM). Unless you have a lot of studio experience you most likely will be playing the song a little faster than you did at home or in rehearsal. Rehearse with a metronome, there’s no pressure in a rehearsal room and then lock in ‘the groove’ of your song!
Next, we need to work with a click track, or at least the drummer needs to work with a click track. A click track can be anything that helps keep the time/feel. A cross stick or hi hat, cowbell, anything that’s comfortable to play along with. DO NOT WAIT until you get to the studio to try and use a click track! I have seen drummers that have been playing their whole life wait until they get into the studio, try to play to a click track, and fail. The drums in any genre are the building blocks of a song. If the drums and bass are tight and ‘relatively’ close to the click, 1 or 2 clicks in either direction, then you can put anything on top and it will still have a ‘good groove’. Groove is everything and the impressive bands are rock solid time machines individually, and have enough live experience, as a band, to be ‘in the pocket’ long enough to make an entire crowd of people dance! Otherwise, why are you playing music?
How good do you want your tracks to sound? Answer, the best sonically possible. If not, they’re just demos and not for “release”. Invest in yourself and the band. Have new heads for the drums, beater options, hi hat options, snare options, cymbal options. Learn how to tune your drums. Have new strings for the guitars, get the guitars intonated. Bring extra sets to the studio. Make sure the guitars don’t buzz, check the grounding on the amps. Bass players, do you have round wound or flat wound strings. Bring an extra set just in case. Singers, bring an extra set of lyrics for the engineer so they can make notes, double spaced. Keyboard players usually don’t have a problem other than noisy cables. Brass players, do you have your mutes? Bring different types of horns for sound aesthetic. WARM UP! Woodwinds, have your reeds and know your instrument performance in ‘cooler than normal’ facilities. Due to the electronics and heat we keep our studio space fairly cool.
These pre-production steps apply to all the instruments in the band. Spend a little extra on your instrument then you won’t have to spend more time fixing it in the mix. Invest in your entrepreneurship and don’t let anything stop you from making the best quality music you can dream of!