What you have to understand is depending on the circumstances, the work can be divided into main divisions, which all have thier sub dividsions.
Also, take all the information given to you with a grain of salt, not everything you hear is true or always the case:
In record production, you have three main stages: Preproduction, Production and Postproduction (or Post for short).
If you understand the importance and priorities of each stage, you can develope a more consistent work ethic and divide your energies effectivly.
It's not uncommon for new people to be introduced into each stage or at any point of the production, so think of it as a huge team working on making an A-list movie.
Preproduction entails the events that take place before actually recording (properly known as tracking). This could be talent development, rehearsals, vocal training, cost calculations, hiring personel, testing arrangments, songwriting, finding a studio, etc. This is the most important step because this is where you tackle whatever weaknesses the artist might have. You also use this time to come up with your game plan.
Production entails the events that take place in the studio. Once you hit the record button, all the things you rehearsed in preproduction should turn on instinctually. That's why you will always be advised to have your material rehearsed before you ever set foot in a studio. In fact, more advance studios might have preproduction "suites" that are equipped more for things like song writing and cheaper rates.
Post is the stage where you organize all the millions of takes you have and start prepping them for the market.
Within this one, however, there is a bit of a subdivision. Editing, Mixing & Mastering.
Editing is the process of cleaning up your tracks (silences, noises, etc) and selecting your best takes. Crossfades, Fade-Ins, orgainizing takes, as well as other things are done during this stage. You also comp vocals during this stage (compliing different takes into one final take). This is usually done by an experienced editing engineer and this helps ensure you won't have embarrasing pops, errors or unwanted takes in your songs. The editing engineer will usually sit with the producer to discuss what takes are to be kept and what takes are marked for erasing. In the old days (and even now), you marked TBE or "To be erased" on a track sheet to show the editing engineer what tracks werent going to be used.
Mixing is simply the process of putting your songs together in a perfect sonic blend. Hence the word "Mixing". Sometimes a mixing engineer is different from a tracking engineer. Sometimes this is done at a different studio than the one recorded. Whatever the case, the person mixing and the studio where it's mixed at have to be chosen carefully to achieve the sound you are looking for.
Mastering is the unknown the alot of people. We all know that a mastering engineer is the one to "shave off the edges and dust off the dirt", but he does alot more than that. Mastering is the final stage of any audio production and is the crucial step in finalizing your work. Anything you can dream of to fix and prep your mix is done here. Spacing songs, choosing a song order (yes, that is an art in itself), entering serial numbers to tracks assigned by the record label, preping in different media styles and QC (quality control) are all done in this stage.
So after a few annoying meetings, disscussions and debates, you finally come up with a version of your album thats ready to sell.
So you see, even though this is the "extended" view of professional production, dosn't mean you can't practice this at home. I think the most important thing anyone can do is to reserve his or her energies for the certain tasks other than just jump back and forth without a game plan.
