If you are a drummer, you can prepare yourself for the studio well in advance. The most important aspect of getting a good drum sound in your recording is having a good sounding set of drums. You can have the most elaborate mic. setup, with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of recording gear, but if the drums sound like crap when you hit them, they'll sound like crap in the control room.

Several steps a drummer can take before he or she gets into the studio include; making sure all drums have new heads. If the heads have been beaten on during live shows, they are going to have very little life left for the recording. The bottom heads also play a crucial roll in the resonance of the drum, so make sure they are fresh as well.

Try and suppress any rattles or unwanted noise your set makes when you play. Of course some of this will change when you get to the studio. but it is a lot less expensive to try to work some of this out in advance. Bring plenty of sticks, extra heads, and if possible, a variety of snare drums and cymbals.

Spend time tuning the drums, and triple check for squeaks and noises. Some of this may require some experimenting... just be prepared to work.

Does your bass have a big ground hum coming from your pickups? If so, leave it at home. Nothing is worse than an engineer chasing a bass hum for a half an hour, then the bass player says "yeah, this bass always hums". Bass amp's are cool but try to isolate them so there isn't any bleed into the other live microphones. Sometimes, it's more convenient to use a direct box during a tracking session, and then run that signal through your bass rig at a later date.

You and the drummer are the focus of the tracking day(s), so be at your best. The drums and bass are the foundation for the tunes. Once you're done tracking, there is virtually no going back. This means, fix any mistakes now. If something bothers you a little bit, in most cases, it's going to bother you a lot down the road. Once your tracks are laid, you can kick back and enjoy the recording experience.

New strings are a must, plenty of different size picks, and work on your sound before you get into the studio. Whether it's a vintage amp, a combination of stomp boxes or just a direct box, try to work it out before the studio clock is running. Again, there will be some experimenting here and there, but preparation will pay off.

During the tracking sessions your job is to keep the sound glued together. Hopefully, you'll have a chance to replace the rough tracks you laid down. At this point, you can fine tune your sound, and work on the performance.

Keys are the easiest thing to prepare ahead of time. You should be able to walk into the studio, turn on your keyboard(s) and say "this is my sound". If you have an arsenal of modules, use a mixer so you can feed the engineer a stereo output. This will assure you of having the sound you intended, and relieves the responsibility of communicating your sound verbally to the engineer. This will save a lot of time in the end..

If you are making a live recording, be sure you're very well rehearsed. Plan the arrangements of each song to be recorded before you get to the studio. There's nothing worse than a band getting into the studio and arguing whether there is a chorus or a double chorus after the solo. There will already be enough pressure at the session as it is. If you're unsure about chord changes and arrangements, it will show.

Prior to your session, set up tempos for all songs and try to get accustomed to playing with a click track. A click track works the same way as a metronome, by setting a strict tempo. If there are tempo changes within a song, program those through a computer or drum machine. If the band falls off the click track here and there, don't worry as long as the performance is solid, the track will work.

A live band should convey energy and excitement. If there are a couple of small mistakes, they can be fixed. The overall feel of the track is what is most important. Without the feel, the listener has no attachment or hook into the song.

If your band is creating midi tracks, pre-production is a must. Most of the basic tracks can be created before you get to the studio or done in so called pre-production time.