Perhaps the most important part of pre-production is the rehearsal, an often overlooked but necessary part of the music production process. So what does it involve?
So what is music pre-production? Composition, rehearsal and arrangement of your songs are all part of pre-production. On higher budgets producers may be involved in offering advice on arrangements and instrumentation. On smaller budgets, bands will often 'produce' themselves.
Rehearsal time can be a source of income as part of a Session Musician contract. UNESCO’s model contract Hire of Artist, Musician or Backup Singer for Live Performance includes a requirement upon paying the musician to attend a rehearsal in advance of a performance.
In its simplest terms, pre-production is the musicians having learned their parts in the agreed keys and arrangement. Rehearsals are important in preparation for making a recording too. Two hours spent in the recording studio going through the arrangement, parts and sounds are wasted when they can be more easily addressed in a practice room with a lot less pressure.
Preparation
Even for the well-prepared band, playing a gig can be a stressful experience. Thankfully, it can also be one of the most rewarding. One way of keeping the stress to the bare minimum is to know exactly what you want to achieve before setting foot in a practice room.
"Rehearsal is where the musicians show up already knowing the songs, and you run through them together" Worship Online
If we define a rehearsal as an activity that involves musicians practicing together to ensure they are adequately prepared, then the technical challenges of a subsequent performance should be made easier.
Perhaps one way to look at it, is that it is similar to a football practice, where you work on the fundamentals so when you are in the game you perform well. Remember though, too much practice can wear out the player and take the edge away come game time.
Regular rehearsals
For many musicians regular rehearsals help to build up your group's setlist and sound. A musician describes his regular rehearsal schedule on the Talkbass web forum:
We rehearsed weekly, on the same day of the week and at the same time, in one of the member's basement. We increased to two rehearsals a week when anyone new joined the band, but usually only needed to do so for 2 or 3 weeks. Using this schedule… we normally had new players ready to go in two weeks with the 35 songs or so necessary to squeak through a gig. Within 30 days, we were always able to acceptably play any of the 55 or 60 songs in our rotating repertoire.
And during rehearsals: …we would typically work on 6-8 songs per rehearsal to reach about 95% of the proficiency level at which we'd eventually perform them - which was always at a level acceptable to an audience... we used regular weekly rehearsals to fine tune the remaining 5% of the songs (add/tighten harmonies, refine breaks and accents, tweak beginnings and endings, modify arrangements, learn new songs, etc.). There was always plenty of refinement to do... if everyone can sing and play the song in the same key as the recording, the process goes much more quickly and easily.
And the outcomes of rehearsing: We usually add two songs a week. Practice consists of reviewing last week's songs, everyone having gone home and polished their bit using the recordings we made during practice. We then work on the new ones, and finally choose a couple for next week. Typically we're ready to perform a song after two rehearsals. But of course, they get better the more times we play them. We have years of experience and individually know several hundreds of songs, and some nights we can add more than two songs to the list. Song writing is not part of band practice, but takes place outside of that setting. One or more members collaborate apart from the practice time.
This musician in this example on average spent the following amount of time on his music:
Band practice 2-3 hours per week
Personal practice of band material 2-3 hours per week
Personal practice for own advancement (new techniques, elaborating on existing songs in the set list, etc)
Writing - whatever time the ideas keep coming
Performance - 1 night week
Rehearsing regularly aids in preparing for recording sessions too.
Song development
Being able to perform the songs as a band prior to recording is important. Pre-production can involve their development and arrangement. By knowing what you are supposed to be playing by rehearsing as a band means you will not lose valuable time later on trying to work out or remember parts.
A band can sometimes spend so much time over at each other’s houses, messing about with a DAW and making polished demos, that they use that process in place of a traditional rehearsal. What then happens is that they come to the studio unable to play the track as a band — all they’ve ever done with it is to overdub parts, edit and effectively write the song in the computer, Jack Ruston, producer (May, 2017, Sound on Sound).
When you track in a professional studio, you won't have unlimited time to figure out how all the equipment works and to try different song arrangements. So the best thing is to rehearse together so you are best prepared to adapt to the recording environment.
"The goal of pre-production is to prepare as much as possible in a low-cost environment so that once the band hits the studio, no time is wasted on last-minute changes which can often lead to lengthly debates under the pressure of the studio clock Hardcore Music Studio
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