Studio time is valuable. Every hour spent working out the basics of a song—things like tempo, lyrics, or melody—takes away from the creative work of producing and capturing your best performance. One way to make the most of your sessions is by creating simple “guide tracks” at home before you ever step into the studio.
Tracknotes
Make the Most of Your Studio Time: Preparing with Guide Tracks
Guide tracks (sometimes called scratch tracks) are rough recordings that give you a clear roadmap of your song. They don’t have to be perfect; they just need to lock in the essentials so that when you get to the studio, you’re focused on production, not pre-production.Here’s a simple way to create them, even with just a laptop and free software like GarageBand:
Start with a Time Reference
Turn on a metronome or click track. This keeps everything steady and ensures your future takes will line up cleanly.
Record a Rough Run-Through
Play your instrument and sing the vocal together in one take. Think of this as capturing the heart of the song—its intent, energy, and flow.
Layer the Instrument
While listening to that rough track in headphones, record just your instrument part. Save this file separately.
Add the Vocal
Finally, listening back to your original run-through, record just the vocal part. Save this as its own file as well.
Name Your Files Clearly
When you export, name the files something like:
• SongTitle_Instrument_90bpm
• SongTitle_Vocal_90bpm
Including the tempo in the file name is a huge help in the studio—it means your engineer can immediately set up the project at the right BPM without guessing.
Advanced Tip: Drum Loops Instead of Clicks
Some musicians struggle to play to a plain click track—it can feel stiff or unnatural. In that case, try using a simple drum loop instead. Most recording programs, including GarageBand, come with a library of built-in loops that can easily be dropped into your session file.
You don’t need to export the drum loop separately like your vocal and instrument tracks, but including it can be helpful—especially if you’d like your bandmates or producer to hear the groove you were working with while practicing.
Why This Matters
Especially when a song is freshly written, having these guide tracks will help preserve the original feel that made you excited to record in the first place. They’ll also help you remember your lyrics and melodies when the pressure’s on.
Most importantly, by bringing guide tracks into the studio—cleanly separated into instrument and vocal files—you free up your time (and budget) to focus on arranging, experimenting, and capturing great performances, rather than ironing out the basics.
Johnny Thomas is picture working on a scratch track with Ron Flack at Realgrey Records.
