Old Dude, it's good to be curious... it wasn't that long ago, that people didn't have the kind of freedom of choice that's available today... and you're right about pre-production... you can work out most of the ideas at home on the cheap, and either take some trax to a bigger facility to be transferred, or start from scratch, but at least being well-prepared...

I remember some sessions for the 2nd Ville Emard LP... we'd walk in the control room, get handed a hunk of hash, get set up and 'prepared' and just jam ...see what happens... the record turned out great, just 'smokin' , you might say, sold quite a bit too... but I'm glad I wasn't producing..