| Perhaps the most important phase of any recording | | | | scratch vocal playing to the click track. This will give |
| project is the one that most people breeze by, or | | | | me the skeleton of the song. |
| avoid all together - Pre Production. Skipping this phase | | | | Having this skeleton is critical for building the song in the |
| is a fool-hearty way to screw up a good project. And | | | | big studio when the time-clock is running and dollars |
| it is a great way to waste precious project funds. | | | | are actually being spent. While the scratch tracks are |
| So lets look at some tips for how to use your Pro | | | | being recorded I will use the memory location tags to |
| Tools rig for preproduction. | | | | make notes of where song parts are. You can |
| In most of the projects that I produce I will spend | | | | access these memory locations by pressing the enter |
| considerable time with the writer (or writers) of the | | | | key during playback. |
| project mapping out how songs will be structured and | | | | I will make memory locations in the obvious places: |
| what instrumentation will be used. While we are doing | | | | beginnings of choruses, verses, bridges, pre-chorus, |
| this exercise we explore where the tempo should fall, | | | | re-intros and outros. |
| what key best supports the vocalists power range, | | | | Pleasant Surprises |
| and even song structure. | | | | While we are setting up the bones, as it were, |
| These are the fundamentals of pre-production and | | | | discussions will often arise about instrumentation, vocal |
| they used to be handled by taking copious notes. In | | | | parts, or creative effect ideas. These are great ideas |
| today's world they can be done right inside the | | | | that should not be lost. |
| ProTools environment. Here's how I do it. | | | | How do I capture these? |
| This Is How We Do It | | | | I use the tracks and memory locations inside Pro Tools |
| I will set up a session with a tempo ruler in the edit | | | | to note the ideas. |
| window. View>Edit WIndow>Rulers>Tempo. | | | | Say the artist shouts out and says, "yea I was thinking |
| This will give me the ability to work with the song's | | | | of putting a glockenspiel on the out of the bridge." I will |
| tempo. | | | | simply make a new track and label it "Glock" [for the |
| So I will sit down with the artist and an acoustic guitar | | | | bells not the gun] and then make a note in the |
| keyboard, and this blank window open. I will have the | | | | comments section of the track saying, " Descending |
| artist sing, scream or rap his lines while performing the | | | | chromatic pattern at the end of the bridge. Use |
| song in its most stripped down manner. This follows | | | | glockenspiel sound from sampler." |
| the old adage that if a song doesn't work on an | | | | I do this for every unique idea from instrumentation, to |
| acoustic guitar (or piano) it simply doesn't work. | | | | vocal harmony parts, to lyrical doubling and even |
| So during this time we will explore tempo and key. | | | | special effects. It makes production simple since now |
| Once we have those two elements locked down I will | | | | all you have to do is open an session and start filling in |
| set up a click track [new track>click track] and lock | | | | those empty tracks with actual sounds until the entire |
| it down. I will then record the acoustic instrument and a | | | | project is complete. |