Another important aspect of your production, partially covered in the preceding production checklist, is the question of the individual performances of the musicians on your demo. You might be great at playing in all the parts – or you might be just okay, on at least some of them.
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It is a really good idea sometimes to get others to join in or to replace weaker parts.
If you are a self-producing artist, inviting guests to your session can completely transform your final product. If you’re a band, inviting guests to re-do weaker parts, (while it might be a little problematic when it comes to bruising some people’s egos) may also be very beneficial – but you’ll always want to be tactful and empathetic when suggesting anything like that.
In my experience, you can shortcut YEARS if you take the above approach. Garage bands which slowly develop their chops without outside help are often sub-par when it comes to delivering a truly appealing musical PRODUCT. An open-minded and diplomatic producer can transform that with carefully weighed decisions along the lines of “let’s re-do that line, or maybe we can get Jim to play it in for you to model.” If you’re paying the producer by the hour – you just might go for the latter option!
By far the most common problem area for popular music in the studio is the vocal. Every Tom, Dick and Susan believes him or herself to be a hot singer, but if that was truly so, then there would never be any need for Autotune! Never mind artistic expression or coaching.
The truth is, even the best singers have vocal coaches. It could be that your particular music doesn’t rely “so much” on the quality of the singing performances, or perhaps you have a singer who is delightful in his imperfections – it could be. But in MOST cases, singers can use all the help they can get.
In my productions of bands and other studio projects, maybe as much as 50% of all my time would be spent on getting the most out of the singers, especially when doing pop, R&B, jazz or rock music. I worked on a classical album too, with a top-class opera singer, and believe me – there was a lot of work that had to be done there too!
The vocal is, more often than not, THE first thing people listen to. Make sure it rocks!
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| Book 2 – Chapter 3 Production Checklist |
Course Overview | Book 2 – Chapter 5 Vocal Considerations |
Book 2: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 14b, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, Overview
