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There are a lot of singer-songwriters who come to the studio in order to choose the right music producer to get their songs out. Choosing the right producer can be extremely crucial for your project, and its hard to figure out the right individual for your project. Keeping this in mind, In this blog post I’ve enlisted a few things musicians should consider before picking a music producer for their project.
Before we begin, let me quickly explain the different roles a producer can play:
Choosing the right producer can be extremely crucial for your project
Executive Producer:
Executive producers provide the financial backing for projects, and are usually assigned in big commercial projects where higher budgets are involved. Some executive producers also look after licensing and issues related to Intellectual Property Rights.
Creative Producer:
Creative Directors conceptualize the entire project, they are involved with helping in writing and creating the right parts for a project and finding the general creative direction in which the project should head when its being executed.
Technical Producer / Engineer Producer:
This is a role in which the producer also assumes engineer duties, but he may not necessarily restrict himself to that. Even though his work may be more aligned towards the technical field, here the producer takes care of the creative aspects as well.
Vocal Producer:
This role came to light initially with Hip-Hop, as the beat producers that hip hop artists hired did not have the skills to work with vocal layers. However, today vocal producers play a major role in a lot of other projects.
Beat Producer:
As the name suggests, Beat producers are hired by hip hop artists where they create an actual beat for the artist.
Now that we know the different kinds of roles that a producer may play, let us move on to the factors that one must think of before choosing a producer for their next project:
No. 1
Knowing what you want:
Even though this factor seems the most obvious one, it is by far the most overlooked aspect. Having a set of clear expectations stems from knowing what you want yourself. When working with music we are dealing with something that is very subjective. Everyone has their own interpretation of certain sounds and how they relate to them based on their personal experiences, so its best to find a vocabulary and exact terms to understand what you want.
These can be explanations of what you imagine the guitar sound to be like, or what kind of a vocal texture you want for the song. Assuming that you’re working with an experienced producer, he will ensure that he gets all this information from the musician and then make an informed decision on the final sound for the record.
Exchanging references, influences and visualisations in terms of the end products will really help you both understand each other’s direction.
No. 2
Communication:
Every creative process where multiple people are involved will work only if there is a synergistic relationship between everyone involved. In all my years of experience, a common factor that I have seen among the most sonically established musicians, is their ability to communicate. Communication plays a huge part in the recording process and I’ve seen a lot of records suffer because of communication issues between the producer and the musicians. There are situations where the musicians are too attached to the project and don’t let the producer do their job and situations where the producer is oblivious to what the musician has to say. Both these scenarios have their own disastrous results.
Find somebody with whom you can have this creative discussion and someone who is easy to work with. Most importantly, find someone who understands you and your music.
Find somebody with whom you can have this creative discussion and someone who is easy to work with. Most importantly, find someone who understands you and your music.
No. 3
Budget and Network:
The producer not only brings his sound to your project, he is also behind its logistical success. Many musicians fail to plan their project, which makes them waste precious time and money. Find a producer who can help you devise a recording plan and schedule within your budget. A good producer should be able to find you the right studio, engineers, musicians for your record. The best producers are well entrenched in the music scene and know exactly the right people to get onboard for your project. Its this kind of conceptualization and direction that you expect from a producer. Find someone who can leverage these personal contacts to help you find the right sound for your record.
No. 4
Pre-production:
This is an important one! You should ask every producer this question “Will there be pre-production ?” Simply put, pre production entails the time spent while conceptualizing the project. This means the producer is going to sit down with the artist and figure out the different layers that need to go into the song, figure out the arrangement , the structure and performance that will make the song sound great, and will in turn save you a lot of time and money in the studio!
Get in touch!
If you guys have any other questions you would like to shoot at me, just shoot me a mail at ronak@gray-spark.com.
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