PLANNING AN ALBUM

As any other project plan, creating, producing, and releasing an album or LP needs a chronicle organization to be well done.  Pre-production, production, and post-production must be breakdown in order to be done right and on time. A good project manager must have an excellent staff member in order for them to commit and deliver the best of their abilities to produce a quality job. The best project managers are those who are committed to their staff, and have an outgoing personality that encourages their employees to do an excellent job.  The best way to manage an album project is using measurable facts that can be tested and verified by both the project manager and staff members. Decisions must be based on logical objective analysis on feelings and values.

The production of an album consists of three stages. These three stages are making the album (pre-production), preparing for the album release (production), and its release show and post-release (post-production). On the first stage of the album is important to have the elements completed. These elements are pre-recordings, planning steps, recording steps, mastering and post-production steps, legal steps, replication and digital distribution steps, artwork and design. Pre-recoding and planning steps consist of deciding what kind of album the project manager and staffs are making. This can be either one album or a series of album. Most series albums are known as mixtapes. Pre-recoding and planning steps also consist in choosing the songs of the album, the place of recording either a home studio or a professional studio, rehearsing the songs, and fine tuning the gears and instruments. Recording steps consist of making mixes, listen to them, getting feedbacks from other colleagues and peers, and making final mixes. Mastering and post-production steps consists of choosing a mastering house, possessing the rights formats, and deciding the order of the songs on the album. Legal steps consists of documenting who owns the songs and sound recordings, getting permission to record any cover songs, samples or loops, clearing the legal status of all the artwork and text, and getting permission for guest musicians. Replication and digital distribution steps consists of replicating and duplicating of CDs, to determine how many CDs will be made and their costs. Afterward, deciding which type of packaging and the type of booklet, getting the artwork design templates from the CD manufacture, and determine the formats required for album art and text, are part of the steps. Artwork and design consists of choosing a name for the album, getting an upc barcode, working on the artwork, and replication of the CD.

The second stage of an album is preparing for the album release. This consists of picking a release date for the album, preparing for online sales, preparing audio for promotional purpose, planning a CD release show, listening party, and tour dates if the artist or band have a booking agency, getting the album merchandise and promotional material, planning, preparing and starting the publicity campaign. Preparing for online sales consists of picking a CD or digital distributor and signing up. Preparing audio for promotional purpose consists of making MP3s from mastered wavs, tagging and naming MP3s correctly. Having t-shirts and merchandise related to the album, and promotional materials like posters, postcards, stickers, and flyers can help get the album merchandise and promote. Planning and preparing the publicity campaign consists of a PR campaign, setting up a Google alerts with the new album name and songs titles. Updating music resume documents, preparing PR documents such as press releases, and compiling the target PR lists is also part of the campaign. Starting with it consists of working with the staff members and fans, updating the artist or band website, updating the artist or band web presence, and writing a mailing list.

The third and last stage of the album is the album release and post-release. The album release and post-release consists of submitting the CD for online sales, adding the CD to Gracenote and Freedb, and updating the artist or band website and web presence. In order for a project of this magnitude to succeed will depend much upon the positive energy, attention and skills the project manager and his staff apply in its initial planning.