Music Production
A Music Producer is the artistic, creative, and technical leader of a recording project. Music production history begins with the appearance of the barrel organ at the beginning of the 18th century. The first known audio recording was made in 1860, sound recording, and reproduction, began in 1877, and a lot has changed in 160 years! This week we’ll be delving into the history of music production, and thinking about how general trends have changed along the way. The Producer is the Project Manager who oversees the entire process from choosing or writing the songs, the technical aspect of recording, determining the arrangement and the sound, and coaching the artists to deliver their best performances.
There’s a wide variety of Music Producers, ranging from those creating beats or loops, to others making albums in a studio or recording their own work in their bedroom. Producers often end up wearing many hats. Whether specialists or generalists, Music Producers play an integral music industry role in bringing music to the people.
Having people skills is also a very important part of being a Producer. You need to be able to recognize what makes people tick and how to get the very best performance out of them. Finally, a great Producer must have good taste in music as well as knowledge of contemporary music and the history of great songs and productions.
Benefits of learning Music Production are as follows:
- Producers are impartial — It’s hard to think outside yourself because when you’re the one performing your own songs, even the most nuanced changes will seem vast from your perspective.
- Producers bring out musical ideas you didn’t know you had — They’ll help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to focus on creating music with real meaning behind it.
- Producers help give you direction — It’s the producer’s job to know the history of music, keep up to date with the current climate of the record industry, and consistently be able to anticipate what will top the charts
- Producers educate you and help you grow — You’ll be amazed at what ideas come to fruition sitting behind a vocoder or vocal morph plugin, with a producer giving you direction on how to expand your sound.
- Producers expand your network and reach — Sometimes just bringing the right people in the room can transform good material to timeless legends.
- Producers allow you to exclusively focus on your music — Hiring a producer will ensure that you won’t be bogged down by the multitude of external and internal considerations surrounding the production of your album.