Before getting into the studio with an artist or a band I try to be as prepared as possible. This usually starts with a phone call or a video call to go over all the details of our sessions together. I tend to record a lot of artists that travel here to Portland from out of town to record, I also regularly travel to Boston, New York, and Los Angeles to work. Because of the travel I usually have to work in pretty strict timeframes when it comes to studio time. This is one of the many reasons pre-production is so important to me.

Having a good grasp on the arrangements and ideas for the songs we’re going to be working on ensures that I’ll be able to have everything ready to go to make the process of recording as smooth and easy as possible. With so many artists having access to their own home studios I can have them make demos that are great representations of the songs. At the bare minimum, I can have them make a simple phone recording that works just as well.

I recently recorded a song here in Portland at Jackpot! with an artist I had never met or worked with before, he flew in just for the session, and we had a limited amount of days together in the studio. We started talking and sending emails a few weeks prior to his arrival. He sent me a great demo of the song we were going to be working on, as well as a few references tracks to inspire ideas. We talked on the phone a few times and eventually met up for a drink the day before our session to get to know each other a bit before hitting the studio. By the time the first day rolled around, I had the pro tools session prepped with the bpm, tracks, and markers made for the arrangement. I set up the studio with mics on everything I knew we would be recording so that we could bounce around to different instruments and parts quickly. I had a whole template made for myself to make sure would be able to work as fast and efficiently as possible. We had a great weekend and were able to work fast to make sure we captured all of the ideas and parts we talked about during our pre-production meetings. On the last day of recording, we finished with some extra time, we were both super happy with how the song turned out! We used this extra time we had to make a killer rough mix on the console which will definitely be a great starting point for the final mix.

The speed that we were able to work at and the fact that we were on the same page throughout the entirety of the sessions would not have been possible had we not been prepared through pre-production. We didn’t have to spend extra time deciding what guitar amp to use, which keyboard sounds we were looking for, or what kind of vibe we were going for. All of that had been decided beforehand. All of that being said the doors were very much still open to spontaneity and we were had plenty of time and space to explore new ideas. We weren’t sure If we were going to be recording bass but I still had everything patched and ready to go to record bass just in case it came up. I walked into the live room at one point to get ready for the next guitar part we were set to record and I came back into the control room to find the artist had come up with a bass part on his guitar and wanted to get it down quickly before he forgot it. Since I was all ready to go we were able to dial up a sound fast and get it down immediately.

I feel very lucky to have learned early on from a great mentor that pre-production is crucial to a great recording. It also shows the artist that you’re working with that you care deeply about the songs you’ll be working on together. Putting in the extra time and effort goes a long way. I feel that pre-production is such an important part of the process and makes for a much better product that me and the artist will be super proud of in the end. Released music is (hopefully) forever so I feel it’s incredibly important to always put my absolute best into everything I work on.