Whether exchanging lyrics to better song or editing loops you are producing. Sometimes it seems the producers are almost spooky, faceless names on an album. Those strange names that sit behind the studio desk and make magic happen. They can make a band bigger, give them a new sound that they needed, and take you to another level you never thought you could get to. However there’s nothing spooky about it, nothing creepy or spooky or magical. Like everything else in life it’s all talent and skill. Trust me, it’s more skill than talent, as for everything else practice makes perfect, or at least better.
The art of production is simply a part of the act of making music. Producing for your own band can be a good idea, but having a fresh unbiased pair of ears never hurts. The same can be said of other bands. In this article I will cover producing from the point of view of an outsider. By which I mean producing for someone else, I will also cover producing for your own work. The reason having fresh ears available is the artist tend to think of songs as children, it is often difficult to tell the worst from the best. Some songs just aren’t meant to be and that’s where the producer comes in.
The first step with any project is getting to know the band and the material. Whether it’s your own or someone else’s. If it is your music don’t start by thanking you know it already. See what you have and play around with it. Listen to it in different places, have people listen and give you their honest opinions. Get to know it as best as you can, figure out what the weaknesses are with the songs. Listen to everything you’ve done old, new and the stuff you’re working on now. Really get an idea of what you’ve done, and where you’re going with your art.
This pre-production will allow you to really understand where it is you are going. If you’re producing for someone else do the same things. Talk with them, listen to all their old material, listen to any rough material they may have, eat with them, and hang out with them, do your best to get to know them. You need to understand their image, style, and overall band concept. If they are true virgin band you still need to understand who they are so you can help form them into the band they want to be.
THat may sound like the job of their manager (if they have one yet), but realisticly; as their producer, you are the one guiding their music. A manager will no odoubt have input at times, but they will never be as intiment with the music like you will be. Doing a good production job can take weeks, even months for some. You will be in a position to know the music almost better than the band/artist.
The next step is to choose what you’ll be working with. At this point the idea is to pick out the best material they have so it can be made better, this is a collaborative effort with everyone involved in the project. This may seem difficult but most songs will say “I’m good”, or at least “work with me”. You and the artists will also have favorite songs you want to work with. The production is all about taking the bad or mediocre and making it good to awesome, and taking the awesome and making it pure gold(or platinum;), there is no wrong move to make. Just keep in mind the image and style that you wish to show.
It is also a good idea to keep in mind egos. Be respectful if it is not your work, your job is to help make it sound good not to take over their project. Having said that being a pushover doesn’t help anyone either. You must balance between taking over and being a tyrant, and just letting them run all over you. Being strict but fair is a huge part of the job.
Next you must plan. How much time can everyone stand? How much money can be spent? Do you have a time frame you need to keep to? Even if this is a simple open-ended home recording project with you, a band, or just you and some friends coming up with a few guidelines is never a bad thing. It prevents wasting time, it helps keep things on track. If you’re doing this more as of a hobby this probably isn’t as important.
Finally we get to the bulk of the work. Writing, rewriting, arrangement, and recording. This is the point where you craft the songs. Whether it is your work or producing for someone else, this is a time when you get creative and really work out the songs. It’s when you write new songs, rewrite old songs, decide what instruments will be used in the recording, and how the songs will be arranged. Arrangement is the layout of the song. For example the most use arrangement is
opening — verse — chorus — verse — chorus — middle riff — verse — chorus — chorus — Finish
This arrangement is used in pretty much every style. They use minor changes here and there but it is the same basic arrangement. Think of any pop rock song even rap songs. You have a lead in the opening, which goes into the first verse, you can either have another verse or it goes right into the chorus. This repeats then you have a riff or break depending on the music style, then another verse and chorus sometimes with a repeat of various elements of the song then the ending or usually a fade out, often repeating an element of the song or the main riff. This is an over simplification, but it is the basic way most pop music is arranged.
In professional production rehearsing is a very big element. Recording studio time is expensive. Unless you have a big-name band or a real home studio, as in someone who can afford to spend weeks in a studio because they have lots of money, you must rehearse ahead of time. Of course the problem with this is by rehearsing everything to death ahead of time you risk losing happy accidents, and just fun jam sessions. However with a little knowledge, the right software, patience, and inexpensive equipment you can get good results at home.
I will cover recording in another article, here are some other Little bits to consider. During a recording and mixing time frame part of your job; either for yourself or others, is making the sessions fun and comfortable for everyone involved. You will not just be sitting at your computer playing with FX and EQ (that effects and equalization).
Make sure it’s a pleasant creative place to work, most of what you will end up using is likely to be created while you are doing recording, and someone does something different. Those happy accidents and jam sessions I was speaking about earlier. You are the diplomat between bandmates, the man or woman in charge of setting up, the go to person for everything that might be needed. On top of that you need to be the head decision maker and mixer for the project.
Welcome to production work.
Mastering, or… why bother. Mastering is the reason why a CD sounds the same volume no matter what track its own. Why some songs blend together and others have space in between. Basically it’s getting music ready to go on to disk. With the wide use of the Internet this is no longer a real issue. I will cover mastering in more depth in a later article.
As a final note I will say when you are working on your own it may seem easier to just do everything yourself. But you should get other people to help you even if it’s just to listen at various stages of the work. Good criticism is very helpful. When you’re doing your own production work you have to act as if you are someone else listening to your work. This of course can be very difficult.
Having other people help you make decisions and listen to your work at various stages of the creation process takes you out of picture briefly. When you’re making music the idea is to please yourself, but you also want to be able to please other people. The idea is to make good music that you, and other people will like. If you are the only one listening to your work this becomes more difficult, perhaps impossible. We all treat our songs by children as I said at the beginning. Just like in real life having other people to help shape our children makes it more likely they will be accepted by others.
So There you have it. Music production is equal parts art, science and controlled chaos, have fun:)
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