MUSIC PRODUCTION
Think a producer is a person who just “makes beats?”
While that can be one of a producer’s roles, there’s much, much more to music production.
THE ROLE OF PRODUCER
A music producer is much like the director of a film. In a traditional, record label-funded project, a producer serves two principal roles:
1. A fiduciary and organizational role:
- The producer handles the record’s budget. This includes choosing and booking studio(s) and engineering personnel.
- TIME IS MONEY! The producer is also responsible for pre-production and ensuring the artists are adequately prepared before even entering the studio.
2. A creative and musical role:
- The producer is ultimately responsible for deciding when a recording is good enough.
- The producer must be able to get the best performances out of the artist.
- The producer must have an intimate knowledge of music, arranging and communicating with musicians of varying skill levels.
- For example, the producer must be able to hear when an arrangement isn’t working and how to fix it, or when an instrument is out of tune, the drummer is behind the beat, etc.
A REAL producer can do everything mentioned above, do it well, and do it professionally. A real producer should:
- Be a musician and/or have demonstrable musical skills. If he doesn’t know about music, how can he communicate with musicians?
- Have some kind of meaningful portfolio outside of a collection of hackneyed beats.
Beware of the average schmuck who calls himself a “producer” and:
- Has a cracked version of some DAW, a handful of pirated plugins and a single lousy mic.
- Has no demonstrable portfolio.
- Doesn’t know a thing about recording actual instruments.
- Can’t tell a major chord from a minor chord.
- Can’t tell that the vocalist is consistently out of tune.
- Can’t tell that the drums are consistently ahead of/behind the beat, etc.