Before Big Bang's major debuted, each member had his own degree of success and popularity in the entertainment industry. Leader G-Dragonand lead vocalist Tae Yang have already been with YG Entertainment since they were both twelve years old, both known as GDYB back then (Tae Yang's real name is Young Bae).

Member T.O.P was well known as an underground hip-hop rapper while Seung-ri was first introduced to the entertainment industry through the show Let's Cokeplay Battle Shinhwa.

After the lineups for the group was finally made, the television network M-net released an eleven episode documentary that showed the members in training before their debut as an official group. The first six episodes detailed each individual member's background and motivation for becoming a singer.

The documentary portrayed the arduous process of training by showing their dancing and singing practice sessions. Beyond being just a behind-the-scenes reality show, the series also eliminated various candidates unfit for Big Bang. Two members, SO-1 and Seungri (Lee SeungHyun) were considered for elimination, but they were given second chances to showcase their abilities in singing, dancing, and performing.

However, this eventually resulted in Yang Hyun Suk (the CEO of YG Entertainment) dropping SO-1 because he lacked stage presence and was "too shy". On the other hand, Seungri was able to successfully impress Yang with his dancing and singing skills, thus making the group. This documentary made the group members even more known before their debut in the Korean entertainment industry as Big Bang.

Before deciding on an official namefor the group, the members had suggested several names, such as "Apex", "Stump," and "Diamond" before deciding upon "BigBang".

To celebrate the end of the trials and the official lineups, producer and founder of YG Entertainment Yang Hyun Suk gave each the member a custom pendant. Big Bang made their official debut at the YG Family concert, held on August 19, 2006 at the Gymnastics Arena in Seoul Olympic Park.

Big Bang released their first single, "The First Single Album," on August 29, 2006 with the song "This Love" getting high requests among radio stations. Their second single "Big Bang is V.I.P." was released a month later on September 28, 2006. Again, it was a success. On November 22, 2006 they released their third single entitled "B I G B A N G 0 3". In December 30, 2006, Big Bang had their very first concert titled, The Real. The concert was a success, filling all 12,000+ seats. They also released a music video of their cover song from Israel "My Girl", with Tae Yang as the soloist, bringing much of the attention to him. The following month, their first album "Since 2007" was released, with a total of 110,408 copies sold.