• Have your lyrics memorized and even then, bring them with you to the session.

• Spend at least 4 weeks prior to your session working on making sure you are solid on all your ques (when you start and stop singing) and have some of the embellishments and interpretations figured out. Don’t wait until you get to the studio to explore how your going to interpret and perform your music. You are in the studio to “produce” a recording and your paying for time, this is not the best place to be working out all your creative ideas.

• Bring a mug and a thermos with mint tea. You will want to remain hydrated throughout your entire session. Keep drinking warm water all day.

• Bring your own monitors (“closed” headphones). Recommendation:

• Plan on “comping” your production.  Comping means you will sing your music several times on different tracks. In the production stage after you record, you will sit with your producer and select the best “takes” and combine them into one composite for the final version. Understand this process. Understand that each takes gives you an opportunity to try different ideas. Don’t feel like you have to sing perfectly the first time, you will have plenty of opportunities to sing the same line over and over again until its right (hopefully that wont be too many times because you are prepared, right?). The process does not mean you are recording over the top of previous takes.  In today’s digital studios, every take is saved.

• Track vocals with EFX mixed in our monitors (headphones). This does not mean tracking EFX straight to the signal, your producer wont let you anyways. The signal has to be flat with no EFX for the Producer to mix in post production.  What Im saying here is make sure you have some EFX in your headphones so that you can get more energy out of your performance. If you sound flat in the headphones, its difficult to have fun with the act of recording vocals.  By giving yourself some EFX in the headphones, it might bring more out of your performance. Reverb & Delay on the quarter beat with a three beat decay.

• Reduce compression in your headphones if you are a screamer or performing high velocity singing. Compression is a critical tool in recording, but when you are performing your recording, ask the engineer to back off on the compression in the headphones so you can adjust levels on high velocity notes organically.

• Pitch correction is ok, embrace it. Pitch correction is there to put polish on your final production, not to help people that cant sing in pitch. If you cant sing in pitch, pitch correction isn’t going to help you. Its only there for a few touches. Embrace the technology and make the best product you can and remember, everyone sings out of pitch from time to time… using pitch correction has nothing to do with your inability to sing on pitch. It has everything to do with producing a tight recording.

• Before you decide that your project is complete, make sure you listen to the final mix in your car stereo or a small CD player. Studio monitors can tend to make your music sound great. Sometimes, better then it actually really sounds. Understand that most people will be listening to your CD in a lower quality stereo system anyways.  You want to be satisfied how it sounds in systems that matches what people are using that purchase your CD, not what it sounds like in the half million dollar studio.

• Always work with a producer that you trust. The way to find one is to try to work with the same person for all your projects. You want to be able to groom a producer to know who you are as an artist and someone that understands what you are capable of so they can help make decisions in the studio with you. You do not want to make all the decisions on what sounds good… as singers, its difficult to be objective about your singing. Usually, singers think they sound better then they actually do. We have all been guilty of it… this is when having a qualified producer actively involved in your music. If you don’t have a producer, then find a trusted musician friend to join you when your comping.

• Regarding the final mix, add some EFX to the vocals. Don’t let someone talk you into leaving your vocals completely “flat” with no EFX. It sounds lame.

• Try to use doubling. This is a process of singing the same line on numerous tracks then in the final mix blending them. It thickens the lead vocals in the track.

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