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Why a Producer? ...And what does one do?
Any person who participates in one or more of the following is acting as a producer, even if they aren’t officially called that:
- Deciding on the type and purpose of the recording.
- Arranging financing, preparing and monitoring the budget.
- Choosing what songs will be on it.
- Revising songs you want to use, but which may not be totally right for the recording.
- Arranging - what instruments will be used and what they’ll play.
- Hiring and rehearsing other musicians.
- Selecting a recording studio and/or engineer.
- Critiquing the performances.
- Communicating with the engineer and artists.
- Generally overseeing all phases of the project, including mixing and mastering.
Every recording has a producer. The question is, should the producer be you or someone else? Here are some of the things that may well happen without an outside producer.
- The recording lacks direction and focus, and fails to bring out the artist’s strengths.
- The musical elements don’t go together well, making for difficult, if not impossible mixes.
- A lot of time is wasted on superfluous takes because no one is there to tell the artist “Great! That’s it!” Artists themselves are never satisfied.
- Conversely, bad takes may be accepted because the artist is reluctant to go for it, or they may not be able to tell if there are tempo or intonation problems.
- Weak songs get recorded because there is no one there to tell the artist which songs are better than others. Artists typically feel their songs are like their children, and are incapable of rejecting any.
- The other musicians suck because the artist didn’t know better ones, or didn’t know how to get them or couldn’t afford them.
- The other musicians haven’t been adequately rehearsed before they come to the studio.
- The artist’s unfamiliarity with managing the process slows things down, thus eating up the budget.
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