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(Redirected from Producer (music))
In the music industry, a 'record producer' (or 'music producer') has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the musicians, organizing and scheduling production budget and resources, and supervising the recording, mixing and mastering processes. This has been a major function of producers since the inception of sound recording, but in the later half of the 20th century producers also took on a wider entrepreneurial role. These activities comprise 'record production'.
In the UK, before the rise of the record producer, the A&R Man would oversee the recording session, assuming responsibility for creative decisions relating to the recording.
The music producer could be compared to the film director in that the producer's job is to create, shape and mold a piece of music in accordance with their vision for the album.
During the 1890s, Fred Gaisberg ran the first recording studio and provided the closest approximation of production by guiding an opera singer closer or further away from a gramophone's horn to match the dynamics in the score. (Citation: Gronow and Saunio 1998, p.8; Moorefield 2005, p.1).
However, within the first half of the 20th century, the record producer's role was comparable to that of a film producer, in that the record producer organized and supervised recording sessions, paid technicians, musicians and arrangers, and sometimes chose material for the artist.In the mid-1950s a new category emerged, that of the independent record producer. Among the most famous early independent producers are the famed songwriting-production duo Leiber & Stoller, "Wall of Sound" creator Phil Spector and British studio pioneer Joe Meek.
Magnetic tape enabled the establishment of independent recording studios in major recording centres such as London, Los Angeles and New York. Unlike the old record company studios, which were effectively a "closed shop," these new studios could be hired by the hour by anyone who could afford to do so.
The biggest and best commercial studios were typically established and operated by leading recording engineers. They were carefully constructed to create optimum recording conditions, and were equipped with the latest and best recording equipment and top-quality microphones, as well as electronic amplification gear and musical instruments.
Top-line studios such as Olympic Studios in London, United Western Recorders, Fine Recording in New York City, and Musart in Los Angeles quickly became among the most sought-after recording facilities in the world, and both these studios became veritable "hit factories" that produced many of the most successful pop recordings of the latter 20th century.
Prior to the 1950s, the various stages of the recording and marketing process had been carried out by different professionals within the industry -- A&R managers found potential new artists and signed them to their labels; professional songwriters created new material; publishing agents sold these songs to the A&R people; staff engineers carried out the task of making the recordings in company-owned studios.
Freed from this traditional system by the advent of independent commercial studios, the new generation of entrepreneurial producers -- many of whom were former record company employees themselves -- were able to create and occupy a new stratum in the industry, taking on a more direct and complex role in the musical process. This development in music was mirrored in the TV industry by the concurrent development of videotape recording and the consequent emergence of independent TV production companies like Desilu, established by '50s TV superstars Lucille Ball and her then husband Desi Arnaz.
These producers now typically carried out most or all of these various tasks themselves, including selecting and arranging songs, overseeing sessions (and often engineering the recordings) and even writing the material. Independent music production companies rapidly gained a significant foothold in popular music and soon became the main intermediary between artist and record label, signing new artists to production contracts, producing the recordings and then licensing the finished product to record labels for pressing, promotion and sale. (This was a novel innovation in the popular music field, although a broadly similar system had long been in place in many countries for the production of content for broadcast radio.) The classic example of this transition is renowned British producer George Martin, who worked as a staff producer and A&R manager at EMI for many years, before branching out on his own and becoming a highly successful independent producer.
As a result of these changes, record producers began to exert a strong influence, not only on individual careers, but on the course of popular music. Other notable past and present independent producers include Jerry Fuller (Ricky Nelson, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap), Todd Rundgren (Sparks, New York Dolls, Badfinger, Grand Funk Railroad, Hall & Oates, Ian and Sylvia, Meat Loaf, Patti Smith, The Tubes, Tom Robinson Band, XTC, Bad Religion, Cheap Trick, The Hello People, Hiroshi Takano, Bourgeois Tagg, The Pursuit of Happiness, The Psychedelic Furs, The Band, and many others) Don Kirshner (The Monkees), Mickie Most (The Animals, Herman's Hermits, Donovan), Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T. Rex), David Briggs (Neil Young, Spirit) Rick Rubin (Metallica, Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park), Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck, Travis), RZA (Wu-Tang Clan, Method Man, Ghostface, Raekwon), DeVante Swing (Jodeci), Dr. Dre (N.W.A, Eazy-E, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, The Game), Norman Whitfield (The Temptations), and Timbaland (Justin Timberlake, Nelly Furtado, Jay-Z, Aaliyah, Missy Elliott), and Jay Orpin (Hawthorne Heights, Bullet for My Valentine, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Simple Plan, Good Charlotte, Backstreet Boys, Hannah Montana, Lindsay Lohan, Linkin Park, Bon Jovi, and Britney Spears.)
Realising the potential for creating recordings that could match their musical vision, many successful recording artists have become producers in their own right. Examples are Jimmy Page, Trent Reznor, John Feldmann, Steven Wilson, Nile Rodgers, Devin Townsend, Ken Andrews, Jeff Lynne, Brian Wilson, Brian Eno and Prince.
Some producers also became ''de facto'' recording artists, often creating records with anonymous studio musicians and releasing them under a pseudonym. Examples of this phenomenon include the records by fictional groups The Archies and Josie & The Pussycats, produced by Don Kirshner and Danny Jansen respectively, who were contracted by TV production companies to produce these records to promote the animated children's TV series of the same name. Similarly, Jeff Barry and Andy Kim recorded as The Archies.
In modern digital music, the producer is often the only person involved in the creation of a musical recording, and is responsible for both writing, performing, recording and arranging the material. The term "producer" is nearly synonymous with "musician" in this field. This change has been partly due to the increase of inexpensive yet powerful music production software, which allows for entire tracks to be composed, arranged and recorded at home on a PC or laptop, allowing the traditional roles of a team of people to be performed by one individual. Popular PC music production software packages include Ableton Live, Adobe Audition, Cakewalk SONAR, Cubase, FL Studio, Garage Band, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Reason, Saw Studio, and Sony ACID Pro.
With the advent of portable recording equipment, live album production has become much more cost effective than in the past couple of decades. This has resulted in thousands of live music recordings flooding the internet and music stores. Notable live concert record producers include: Guy Charbonneau, Randy Ezratty, Eddie Kramer, Mark Cavener, Allen Reynolds, Chuck Plotkin, and Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes.
★ Gronow, Pekka and Ilpo Saunio (1998). ''An International History of the Recording Industry''. ISBN 0-304-70590-X. Cited in Moorefield (2005).
★ Moorefield, Virgil (2005). ''The Producer as Composer: Shaping the Sounds of Popular Music''. ISBN 0-262-13457-8.
★ Tweakheadz Guide to Home Recording
In the music industry, a 'record producer' (or 'music producer') has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the musicians, organizing and scheduling production budget and resources, and supervising the recording, mixing and mastering processes. This has been a major function of producers since the inception of sound recording, but in the later half of the 20th century producers also took on a wider entrepreneurial role. These activities comprise 'record production'.
In the UK, before the rise of the record producer, the A&R Man would oversee the recording session, assuming responsibility for creative decisions relating to the recording.
The music producer could be compared to the film director in that the producer's job is to create, shape and mold a piece of music in accordance with their vision for the album.
| Contents |
| Early record producers |
| Evolution of the role of the producer |
| Producers and modern recording technology |
| References |
| External links |
Early record producers
During the 1890s, Fred Gaisberg ran the first recording studio and provided the closest approximation of production by guiding an opera singer closer or further away from a gramophone's horn to match the dynamics in the score. (Citation: Gronow and Saunio 1998, p.8; Moorefield 2005, p.1).
However, within the first half of the 20th century, the record producer's role was comparable to that of a film producer, in that the record producer organized and supervised recording sessions, paid technicians, musicians and arrangers, and sometimes chose material for the artist.In the mid-1950s a new category emerged, that of the independent record producer. Among the most famous early independent producers are the famed songwriting-production duo Leiber & Stoller, "Wall of Sound" creator Phil Spector and British studio pioneer Joe Meek.
Magnetic tape enabled the establishment of independent recording studios in major recording centres such as London, Los Angeles and New York. Unlike the old record company studios, which were effectively a "closed shop," these new studios could be hired by the hour by anyone who could afford to do so.
The biggest and best commercial studios were typically established and operated by leading recording engineers. They were carefully constructed to create optimum recording conditions, and were equipped with the latest and best recording equipment and top-quality microphones, as well as electronic amplification gear and musical instruments.
Top-line studios such as Olympic Studios in London, United Western Recorders, Fine Recording in New York City, and Musart in Los Angeles quickly became among the most sought-after recording facilities in the world, and both these studios became veritable "hit factories" that produced many of the most successful pop recordings of the latter 20th century.
Evolution of the role of the producer
Prior to the 1950s, the various stages of the recording and marketing process had been carried out by different professionals within the industry -- A&R managers found potential new artists and signed them to their labels; professional songwriters created new material; publishing agents sold these songs to the A&R people; staff engineers carried out the task of making the recordings in company-owned studios.
Freed from this traditional system by the advent of independent commercial studios, the new generation of entrepreneurial producers -- many of whom were former record company employees themselves -- were able to create and occupy a new stratum in the industry, taking on a more direct and complex role in the musical process. This development in music was mirrored in the TV industry by the concurrent development of videotape recording and the consequent emergence of independent TV production companies like Desilu, established by '50s TV superstars Lucille Ball and her then husband Desi Arnaz.
These producers now typically carried out most or all of these various tasks themselves, including selecting and arranging songs, overseeing sessions (and often engineering the recordings) and even writing the material. Independent music production companies rapidly gained a significant foothold in popular music and soon became the main intermediary between artist and record label, signing new artists to production contracts, producing the recordings and then licensing the finished product to record labels for pressing, promotion and sale. (This was a novel innovation in the popular music field, although a broadly similar system had long been in place in many countries for the production of content for broadcast radio.) The classic example of this transition is renowned British producer George Martin, who worked as a staff producer and A&R manager at EMI for many years, before branching out on his own and becoming a highly successful independent producer.
As a result of these changes, record producers began to exert a strong influence, not only on individual careers, but on the course of popular music. Other notable past and present independent producers include Jerry Fuller (Ricky Nelson, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap), Todd Rundgren (Sparks, New York Dolls, Badfinger, Grand Funk Railroad, Hall & Oates, Ian and Sylvia, Meat Loaf, Patti Smith, The Tubes, Tom Robinson Band, XTC, Bad Religion, Cheap Trick, The Hello People, Hiroshi Takano, Bourgeois Tagg, The Pursuit of Happiness, The Psychedelic Furs, The Band, and many others) Don Kirshner (The Monkees), Mickie Most (The Animals, Herman's Hermits, Donovan), Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T. Rex), David Briggs (Neil Young, Spirit) Rick Rubin (Metallica, Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park), Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck, Travis), RZA (Wu-Tang Clan, Method Man, Ghostface, Raekwon), DeVante Swing (Jodeci), Dr. Dre (N.W.A, Eazy-E, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, The Game), Norman Whitfield (The Temptations), and Timbaland (Justin Timberlake, Nelly Furtado, Jay-Z, Aaliyah, Missy Elliott), and Jay Orpin (Hawthorne Heights, Bullet for My Valentine, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Simple Plan, Good Charlotte, Backstreet Boys, Hannah Montana, Lindsay Lohan, Linkin Park, Bon Jovi, and Britney Spears.)
Realising the potential for creating recordings that could match their musical vision, many successful recording artists have become producers in their own right. Examples are Jimmy Page, Trent Reznor, John Feldmann, Steven Wilson, Nile Rodgers, Devin Townsend, Ken Andrews, Jeff Lynne, Brian Wilson, Brian Eno and Prince.
Some producers also became ''de facto'' recording artists, often creating records with anonymous studio musicians and releasing them under a pseudonym. Examples of this phenomenon include the records by fictional groups The Archies and Josie & The Pussycats, produced by Don Kirshner and Danny Jansen respectively, who were contracted by TV production companies to produce these records to promote the animated children's TV series of the same name. Similarly, Jeff Barry and Andy Kim recorded as The Archies.
Producers and modern recording technology
In modern digital music, the producer is often the only person involved in the creation of a musical recording, and is responsible for both writing, performing, recording and arranging the material. The term "producer" is nearly synonymous with "musician" in this field. This change has been partly due to the increase of inexpensive yet powerful music production software, which allows for entire tracks to be composed, arranged and recorded at home on a PC or laptop, allowing the traditional roles of a team of people to be performed by one individual. Popular PC music production software packages include Ableton Live, Adobe Audition, Cakewalk SONAR, Cubase, FL Studio, Garage Band, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Reason, Saw Studio, and Sony ACID Pro.
With the advent of portable recording equipment, live album production has become much more cost effective than in the past couple of decades. This has resulted in thousands of live music recordings flooding the internet and music stores. Notable live concert record producers include: Guy Charbonneau, Randy Ezratty, Eddie Kramer, Mark Cavener, Allen Reynolds, Chuck Plotkin, and Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes.
References
★ Gronow, Pekka and Ilpo Saunio (1998). ''An International History of the Recording Industry''. ISBN 0-304-70590-X. Cited in Moorefield (2005).
★ Moorefield, Virgil (2005). ''The Producer as Composer: Shaping the Sounds of Popular Music''. ISBN 0-262-13457-8.
External links
★ Tweakheadz Guide to Home Recording
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