Producer Tom Wilkerson offers a first hand look at the realities of producing a CD.

About 90% of the recordings delivered to our mailboxes here in Nashville are alike-sad, painful, expensive and unacceptable recordings shabbily portraying the hopes and dreams of new singers. If you're recording, your first decision is critical: do you self-produce or hire a record producer? If you have the experience to make it work, by all means, self-produce! If you don't, there's your trouble, as the song says.

Taking Inventory

Look honestly at yourself. Are you trying to impress Aunt Emma, family and friends, or trying further your career? Should you record in a home studio, a local studio, or work in a major recording center?

To impress Aunt Emma, do it yourself in a home studio. The results will be good enough, and she won't care because she loves you anyway. Recording in a local studio should get okay results locally, but the result usually can't compete with the big kids on radio. And no matter what, you're going to be compared with the big kids. So if you're recording, do it right!

Hooking Up Correctly

First rule: people, not equipment, make good recordings.

If you have little studio experience, you'll be better off recording with professionals-a producer, musicians, back-up singers and studio personnel. Working with the pros will cost more, but what will you gain when your cheap-o recording brings zero results?

Let's examine the producer's role in the recording process. A record producer's only job is to help the artist make the best music he or she can possibly make. Period. Studio work yields a new album for you, not the producer. And it's enhancing your career primarily, not the producer's. So hire a good one.

During my years as a Nashville session player, I experienced many different production situations. Some producers and artists came into the studio knowing exactly what they were going to do and how to do it. They had done their pre-production (prior to going to the studio) homework, so making the music was relatively easy.

Then there were the "producers" (this time the title being used a bit loosely) and artists who came in with a box of demos and no earthly idea of what they were going to cut or how to cut it. Those sessions were pure chaos. Consequently, the following guidelines govern my pre-production work:

Know the artist's music background and history

Have a clear understanding of the project's goals and budget

Help the artist find great songs

Help the artist find comfortable phrasing for each song lyric

Work out song arrangements and instrumentation needed

Book the best studio; hire the best studio musicians and back-up singers.

You and your producer should have a relationship built on mutual trust. He or she should have your best interest in mind while you should be open to your producer's ideas and suggestions.

It's important for your producer to hear any previously recorded work. I also like to listen to an artist live, if possible, comparing what works on stage to the possibilities of the studio.

If you have little or no recording experience, pre-production studio work is extremely important. Singing in the studio is entirely different from singing on stage, so I take new artists into a pre-production studio setting to get them ready for, and comfortable with, real studio work.

It's essential for you and your producer to have a clearly defined project goal. Is this a demo, pitching you to labels or songs to publishers? Is it a road album to sell at dates? Is it a master aimed at radio? Does the budget cover the job?

Making Super Songs into Terrific Tracks

If you choose to record anything other than great songs, you're nuts. Many good singers are out there today; what separates the cream from the rest of the crop is the selection of believable songs. When choosing your album repertoire, trust your producer, but also trust yourself because you have to sing the songs.

You must believe passionately in the songs. If you don't, listeners always know. Believability is why hit records happen, and it's the most important factor governing your career success or failure. Never forget: it ALL begins with a song!

Correct phrasing is simply a matter of getting comfortable with the lyrics so you can concentrate on just singing the song-telling the story. When the phrasing is right, it's easy to communicate the emotion of the song. When it's not right, it's difficult.

Song arrangements are foundations upon which lead vocals are built. We're not selling guitar and drum licks or back-up vocals-we're selling you singing a song, telling a story. Trust your producer. Again, when it's right, it's easy.

Instrumentation keeps music tracks fresh, interesting and subtly different. But be careful. It's also an easy way to overspend your session budget without improving master vocals.

Hiring correct musicians and singers is critical. Again, trust your producer's expertise. Wrong players and singers leave you with mediocre music tracks. Right players and singers make the music-and you-come alive!

In Billboard's July 20, 2002 issue, bluegrass great Del McCoury explained the advantages of having a producer and other career helps by pointing out the difficulties of doing his own producing, recording, booking, publicity and promotion-then working the dates-during most of his career.

It's been much easier for Del since his appearance on the successful "O Brother, Where Art Thou" soundtrack album. He's got a producer, label staff, manager and booking agent doing "all that stuff." Now he and the band do what they do best: go on stage and make music!