Taylor Hicks returned home from France recently after preproduction work for his new album. In an important phase of creating the music that we enjoy, preproduction can vary tremendously in its scope and elements. It is where the artist and producer actually finalize the vision for the record—the tone or mood and the sound they are going for. They settle on a track list and the musicians are chosen. They rehearse and "lay down" some of the music tracks in preproduction. In fact, depending on whether they are doing a "jam" type recording, or the type of recording that almost all do now, preproduction may actually record every piece of the song.
Today, it is rare for the musicians and the vocalists to even be in the studio recording at the same time. They lay down tracks from all the different musical elements. Then the vocals are laid down. All can be done in preproduction and then they are mixed and mastered. They will lay down more tracks than will actually make it to the album, because they won't really know how they sound until the final production, so there are always stand-by tracks.(evancol/TTHC) "I can't wait for you all to hear it," Taylor blogged to fans.
