So what does a music producer actually do ?
In very pragmatic terms, the producer is a ‘project manager’ for the recording, mixing and mastering process.
She has an overall vision for the music, the sound and the goals of the project, and brings a unique perspective to inspire, assist and sometimes provoke the artists.
The producer should make the record more than the sum of it’s parts – you could almost say she is trying to create musical alchemy.
Every producer brings different skills and a different approach, and this can make what they do difficult to summarise. In this post I’ve identified seven distinct types of record producer to try and make this clearer.
1. The Engineer
This is probably most people’s stereotypical idea of the “classic” record producer – hunched over a mixing desk, obsessing about compression settings, reverb tails and drum sounds. The studio is an instrument, and the producer “plays” it like a virtuoso, working late into the night to create a mysterious sonic masterpiece.
In fact this is often far from the norm though, as we’ll see.