ABSTRACT
Delineating roles and rules in music creation isn’t something I often run into in the field, working professionally in the music industry. While certain tasks are saved for certain phases of the recording process, there is rarely as wide a gulf between phases like production and pre-production as is often portrayed in music academia. Jay Hodgson discusses it further:
Mixing isn’t a process that begins entirely in the formal mixing phase of the recording process. In practice, mixing begins in pre-productionwhen the first note is recorded. To reiterate Hodgson, every decision throughout the creation process has a profound effect on the mixing process. To further explore this phenomenon, I intend to thoroughly explore my own personal pre-production process and attempt to describe how mix decisions are occurring throughout. Further compounding the confusion is modern recording technology. Recordists at all levels now have access to sample libraries recorded in rooms like Abbey Road and digital emulations of synthesizers and guitar amplifiers that were historically
inaccessible to most users. These technologies allow us to add pre-mixed content to a project at any stage of creation. The sheer quality and complexity of these tools blur lines between the creative phases of recording even further. While I will explore mix moves in pre-production, I am not positing that mixing isn’t a discrete process unto itself within the mix project, but rather that mix moves occur throughout pre-production and into record production proper. What follows is my personal definition and understanding of pre-production and a thorough outline of the process taken by my writing team throughout the development of a song.
