Production begins with the germ,the essential idea,the essence of the art you desire to express.The composition and authorship (If it is not instrumental) of the song.This you really want to have ready before you hit the studio.Worked out and rehearsed in every which way.So you know the tune inside and out.Most producers want to be in on this and as executive producer I am.So they have their input into the tune and are aware of what they are going to be working with in the studio.And you should enjoy this part of it.It is only costing you your time,you get together with other artist friends and your producer and brew up some good coffee and cook up the tune.A great tune manifests itself out of this enviornment.Starting with the most basic structure of it with a piano or acoustic guitar.This part of it used to be hidden yet you should even film this part if you can as it will be of interest later on when compared with the final production and suprisingly,how close it really is to the final production.This gives you great advantage when you go into the studio.You are confident about what you are going to do.You have done a full pre-production.Because now it is all going to change the minute you put on a pair of headphones,what was all together is now going to be separated.it is crucial at this point that you understand how your headphone mixer works.Unless you are a bassist who can lay down a track without hearing the drums.Once you understand how this works you are okay.at this point it is not so much about the producer as it is the recording engineer.Who with their assistant is going to first set everything up and lay out the EQ on the console.The recording engineer is in charge of getting the production committed to a recording of it with the highest level of sonic fidelity possible.As dry and basic as possible also.This role is so crucial and this person is due much respect.I see a lot of musicians come in and start ragging on them which is a stupid thing to do.They have no concern at all for your petty bitches.They will not argue with you.They will go to the producer who will straighten you out.They are lifelong studied on things such as proper mic placement according to the room.Which type of mic has to go where and if they ask you to muffle the kick drum they have a reason.The kick may sound great on it's own but lousy on a recording because it is going to cause an annoying ring on a recording that is going to phase cancel something else going down.They will hear the little squeak on your pedal and send the assistant out to put WD-40 on it.That tiny squeak could ruin the entire recording.On the guitars you want a fresh set of new string streched out and in tune.Maybe you have gt a good set that is holding on but if you have funked over strings that are not producing frequencies that can be recorded it cannot be brought up at mixdown,it just is not there.It is both expensive and frustrating when you go into mixing and have to go back to re-record.Over a 15 dollar set of strings.Vocals,you MUST do a full half hour warm up before you begin to composite.This pays off in spades everytime.You can concentrate on putting your feeling into your singing and not be dragging flat or pulling sharp.It makes you to be relaxed.The reliance upon the autotuner to fix things is just ridiculous.that is a very fine device that was designed to trim in milli-seconds,millionths of a second,It is not going to make a crappy singer sound good,it is a device designed as a last resort to trim a small speck on a recording.