Obviously, we've never seen the man behind the scenes, but what is your theory as to how Prince operates in the studio. Form what I learned he's very quick and dilligent in recording and writing music. But how nuts does he go. I heard one time that he recorded 3 drum patterns at once on a song. He's probably on some Lee "Scratch" Perry shit, going ballistic in the studio. And why won't he reveal what goes on in the studio? They have books about the Beatles recording sessions and how they operated, but not Prince? What's up with that?

No need
Most of the time when Prince get to the studio, he had made sure the track is finished.
The musician & Him just jam on the tune till' it gets fixed properly and ready to release.

I heard he's lazy and takes about 7 years to finish an album. Slacker.

at the last celebration the engineers went on for hours aobut stories of prince in the studio, his good habits, his bad habits... etc. His pace of putting it down was superhuman.

The 3 tracks he did the drum track for in one go were the 3 tracks at the beginning of Parade. I think he'd just come off tour and was desperate to get creating new stuff.

There's been various clips of him in the studio - there's one where he is laying down the bass part to Partyman, and another where he is producing 'God Is Alive' with Mavis Staples, and on the Beautiful Experience video where he is working on Beautiful Strange before he gets a call that Mel B has arrived.

On the Oprah show, he shows her his recording studio and plays back some music from Emancipation.

Most of those were for the cameras I guess, but I have heard he often just sits at a soundboard with his guitar or bass and works through the track on his own, or an engineer sets up the mike and equipment and then leaves him alone.

On Cloreen Bacon Skin, he notes that he was just jamming with Morris Day to come up with some new drum patterns.

I get the impression that he has that rare ability to see the whole song laid out in his head more often than not, and simply records it one instrument at a time, often starting with the drums (I seem to remember reading Susan Rogers saying the drumbeat was often the foundation, starting point). Other times he just jams with friends until something comes of it.

NWF said:

A good cook never reveils his best recipes.