Europe's No1 Hi-Tech Music Recording Magazine | ||
|
| ||
| ||
| ||
|
|
This month he looks at the different types of record producer in the music business.In the course of my work I meet literally hundreds of young people who want to get involved with music and sound engineering in one way or another. When asked what their ultimate ambition might be, "To become a record producer" is probably the most common reply. But out of every hundred people who want to become record producers, perhaps only one has the raw talent. Out of a hundred people with the raw talent, only one will have the determination. And out of a hundred people with the raw talent and determination, only one will ever get the opportunity! Only a small proportion of people who ever get a production credit go on to make a serious and lasting career as a record producer, so why is it such an attractive option? I have to say that the vast majority of people I meet who want to become producers don't seem to have much idea of what the job entails. They are attracted by the glamour of the record industry, by the possibility of socialising with the stars, and by the prospect of a fat pay cheque at the end of each successful project -- the three myths of record production, one might say. To take care of each of these myths in turn: the glamour in the music industry is created by a massive publicity machine for the benefit of the public at large. For the people working in the industry it is just an everyday job -- an immensely satisfying and enjoyable job perhaps, but certainly not glamorous. The idea of mixing with the stars may be initially attractive, but once you have met a few, you begin to realise that they are mostly pretty ordinary people. They may happen to have an extraordinary talent in one way or another, but they are still normal human beings in every other sense. As for the final point, there are certainly a number of people who make a lot of money out of music, but the vast majority probably don't make as much as they could in an 'ordinary' job. For instance, if you were among the top 10% of songwriters and composers, you might still not earn enough money to call it your living.
I think the best way to discover exactly how a record producer earns a living is to look back in history to a stage where a recording was seen as a live performance captured on vinyl, rather than the studio constructions that are now the norm. (I should note at this point that while the jobs of record producers and music producers are very similar, I will be thinking about the record, or more likely nowadays the CD or cassette, as the end product, rather than the music produced for film or broadcasting for example.) In those days it was pretty much taken for granted that an act that was worth recording could perform, and nothing more than the performance was needed for the record. All that was necessary was a studio, and perhaps a little musical help in the form of an arranger, musical director and session musicians. The project was overseen by the A&R (Artists and Repertoire, or Artists and Recording) department of the record company to make sure that everything was progressing as it should. Effectively, the A&R manager was the producer, and to a certain extent modern A&R departments still have a significant influence on how a record is produced. Gradually, the process of recording became more of an act of creation in its own right, rather than the replication of a live performance, and producers began to split from record companies to become freelance workers, or set up their own production companies. George Martin was the first producer to follow this route, leaving EMI Records in the mid-sixties to set up Associated Independent Recordings (AIR), and leasing his services back to the record company he had just left.
I have discovered a number of distinct types of record producer and think it is worth covering each of these in turn.
• ENGINEER PRODUCER
One of the great
myths about record production is that you need to be a genius with studio
equipment. This is absolutely not true, because the equipment is only a means to
an end. If you can achieve your musical goal with a little bit of technical
knowledge, then why should you have to know every last detail about every piece
of equipment in the studio? Remember that equipment is designed by electronic
and software engineers, not music recording engineers, and although most
manufacturers do their utmost to ensure that their products are exactly what
recording engineers need, inevitably most modern pieces of equipment offer a
range of functions far in excess of real life practicality. The key to
engineering is not technical knowledge, it is knowing when something sounds
right, and what's more, knowing what to do to make something that sounds almost
right, exactly right in its musical context. So, if you know how to route
signals around a mixing console and can operate the basic outboard equipment,
the rest of it is really down to listening. Your ears will tell you which
microphones to use and where to place them, they will also tell you when to use
EQ and compression, and which settings to use. As you develop your experience,
you will instinctively know when a musical idea is working and when it isn't. I
don't believe that you need to be a musician to develop from an engineer into a
producer along this route. Any engineer will start by learning the basic
equipment operation and how to spot technical faults in a recording, such as
excessive noise, clicks or distortion. The engineer producer who lacks
conventional musical skills will probably work with a band that can supply all
the necessary musical knowledge, and translate their work from a brilliant stage
performance into an equally effective studio recording.
• MUSICIAN PRODUCER
As long as you can
communicate effectively and have a basic awareness of what the studio equipment
can do, you don't actually need any technical knowledge at all to produce a
record. This point is more easily understood if you think of the director of a
TV commercial. He will be very visually aware, and will know what can be
achieved with telecine and digital video effects. He cannot be expected to be a
technical expert, but as long as he can communicate clearly with the telecine
operator and digital artists, the result can be visually amazing. So, the
musician producer needs to know what can be achieved in the studio, but someone
else will be pushing the faders. A musician is obviously in a much better
position than an engineer to know how to put together a piece of music for a
recording from scratch, but the one thing that successful producers from either
field have in common is that they have a clear image in their mind of the
importance of the final product.
• EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
As well as the
engineer producer and musician producer there is a third type, which I shall
call the executive producer. The executive producer doesn't know anything about
engineering or about music, but knows the right people with the necessary
technical and musical skills to handle all the elements of production, and most
importantly, knows when something sounds right. Executive producers don't need
to be present all the time in the studio, they just need to hear work in
progress occasionally. Their instinct will tell them whether the product is
marketable or not. DJ's often find their way into production along this route as
they are in an ideal position to know what will, or will not please an audience.
The difference between something that sells and something that ends up on a cut
price market stall may be incredibly small, but the DJ will usually be able to
tell.
• FREELANCE PRODUCER
Any type of
producer may work as a freelance producer. In this situation, a record company
might have signed a band or act and be scouting round for someone to co-ordinate
them in the studio. Obviously, all the producers know the record company A&R
people, and the A&R people know who the key producers are. Matching an act
with a producer is an important A&R skill. Sometimes the decision will be
made on a 'flavour of the month' basis. If a producer has had a series of
successful records, then he may be seen as being on a roll and the next
production will be a big seller too. The act and the producer must also be
compatible in some way, though. Perhaps they will share the same musical vision
and have a deep understanding of the style of music in which they work. They may
get along well together because they are musically in tune, or the band could be
wilful and potentially difficult to work with. The producer must be capable of
exercising a degree of control to shape the band into something that will work
on CD as well as it does on stage. Maybe an older and more experienced producer
will have more respect in the band's eyes, or maybe they need someone who is
able to share their vision and will simply smooth over the rough edges. The
freelance producer will be paid by the record company (who will get that money
back from the band's share of the eventual profits), and he is then free to go
on to work for another record company.
• ENTREPRENEUR PRODUCER
'Entrepreneur
producer' is a title I have invented to cover the type of producer who initiates
a project and then sells it to a record company in the form of an act with
writing, recording and management already in place, or as a partly developed
idea working towards the same end. Either way, the producer will be at the top
of the food chain and will receive the lion's share of the rewards. The project
could be a band in which the producer takes the roles of songwriter and
musician, with a front man or woman to handle the vocals and provide a focus for
the marketing machine to work on. Alternatively, the producer might be an
engineer or musician who takes on the role of A&R scout and looks for a band
or singer to work with. There will probably be a certain amount of investment
involved, since the band will need studio time and promotional material. The
entrepreneur producer will need to be able to promise the band or singer the
earth, and give the impression that he is capable of delivering it. A track
record of success will of course help! One of the advantages of working in this
way is in the payoff. Not only is the entrepreneur producer entitled to a larger
slice of the financial cake, he is also in control of an ongoing project, rather
than staggering from one to another.
By now I'm sure I have put off anyone who is attracted to record production for the wrong reasons, but for those of you who are still interested, I hope that by the end of the series you will have a better understanding of the steps you should take in order to follow a career as a producer. In Part 2, I will be discussing the selection and development of material, pre-production, and rehearsal.
Stephen Street is a producer with both a musical and an engineering background. Bands he has produced include The Smiths, Blur, and The Cranberries.
• MUSICAL VERSUS ENGINEERING SKILLS
"I
would say that to be a producer you have to be 80 to 90 percent a musician.
There are people who are especially good at knowing how to balance sound and I
suppose their career really should be more in mixing rather than
production."
• THE SSL MIXING CONSOLE
"I reckon I
only use about 60 to 70 percent of what it's capable of, but that's enough for
me to know what I what it to do. Ergonomically, I think the SSL is a very well
laid out piece of equipment and I think the computer is very easy to use. I have
learned it well enough to know how to do what I want to do."
• GETTING WORK
"Normally acts come to
me, but the one exception was Blur. I heard their first single and said to their
manager, 'I love that band and I would like to work with them if they are
looking for anyone'. They were going to carry on using the same guy they had
used for their first single, but in their next session it didn't quite work out,
so I got a call asking if would like to have a go. I went in with them and it
was a success straight away, and I have been with them for four albums
now."
M People don't use a producer. Co-writers Mike Pickering (the band's founder) and Paul Heard produce themselves, starting in their home studio working out ideas and laying down basic tracks, and moving to Studio One at top London studio The Strongroom for recording.
• INVOLVEMENT IN PRODUCTION
Paul Heard:
"I was the bass player in Orange Juice (with Edwyn Collins) for about two years
and I was working more and more in the studio with Edwyn. Because I was
comfortable in the studio and had some good ideas, I started becoming more
involved in production."
Mike Pickering: "I got involved when I was with Factory Records -- I was in a band and we couldn't afford producers. The first real production I did myself was for Happy Mondays. It's a process of finding out and learning in the studio."
• M PEOPLE
Mike Pickering: "M People was
my project initially. I was doing so many productions and remixes, I wanted to
be more on the creative side. I wanted to do an album of songs with people I
liked. Heather (Heather Small, M People's vocalist) was one of the people I
wanted to work with and it just clicked."
Paul Heard: "M People is completely self contained -- we write and produce everything ourselves. We have never worked with a different producer. The last 10 years have been a learning process. The more you are in the studio, the more you learn."
• RECORDING TECHNOLOGY
Paul Heard: "We
have been recording for a number of years and have built up a team where
everyone is comfortable with their roles. We have an engineer and a programmer
who we often use. They know our sound exactly -- what kind of equalisation and
what kind of compression. They work towards the sound they know we want to hear.
It's important to know what the technology can do, but I'm not that interested
in being 'hands on'."
Mike Pickering: "I understand what the equipment can achieve, but it doesn't really suit me and I don't really bother with it. I prefer to work with Paul, standing by the piano with a dictaphone or small tape recorder on top. He'll play chords and I'll sing what I think. If you are using computers you tend to start with the track, but we like to concentrate on the melody. We use a programmer for sounds. We ask him for a certain sound and then leave him to it for half an hour. If you spend all your time looking at a screen, it dulls your creativity."
By day, David Mellor is a composer of production music, technical writer, lecturer and sound engineer. By night he attempts a synthesis of classical, gothic, avant garde and jazz musical styles, recording as The Days Of The Moon and, collaboratively, as Evil Twin. He has never been very good at sticking to a 9-5 job!
Europe's No1 Hi-Tech Music Recording
Magazine
Sound On Sound
Media House, Trafalgar Way, Bar Hill, Cambridge CB3 8SQ,
UK.
Telephone: +44 (0)1954
789888 Fax: +44 (0)1954 789895
mailto:info@sospubs.co.uk
Website: www.sospubs.co.uk
© 1998 Sound On Sound
Limited. The contents of this article are subject to worldwide
copyright protection and reproduction in whole or part, whether
mechanical or electronic, is expressly forbidden without the prior
written consent of the Publishers. Great care has been taken to
ensure accuracy in the preparation of this article but neither Sound
On Sound Limited nor the Editor can be held responsible for its
contents. The views expressed are those of the contributors and not
necessarily those of the Publishers or Editor.