record producer
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.
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. A key example of this is of Phil Spector who defined the gap between Elvis and the Beatles (1958 - 1964) with such acts as The Ronettes, The Crystals, Darlene Love, The Righteous Brothers and The Paris Sisters. Spector's Wall of Sound production technique also persisted after that time with his select recordings of The Beatles, Ramones, Leonard Cohen, George Harrison, Dion and Ike and Tina Turner. Other notable past and present independent producers include Jerry Fuller, Todd Rundgren, Don Kirshner, Mickie Most, Tony Visconti, David Briggs, Rick Rubin, Nigel Godrich, RZA, DeVante Swing, Dr. Dre, Norman Whitfield, Timbaland, Jerry Finn, Charlie Peacock, and Jay Orpin.
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, Ray Davies, Trent Reznor, John Feldmann, Nile Rodgers, Ken Andrews, Jeff Lynne, Brian Wilson, Brian Eno and Jack White.
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, it is possible for the producer to be the only person involved in the creation of a musical recording, and is able to be responsible for 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. 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, Rich Harrison, JiMMY JAM & Terry Lewis, Rodney Jerkins, Kendu Issace, Dre & Vidal, Ron Fair, Dr. Dre, JMV from DE SIGNER, StarGate, Kanye West, Timbaland, SoulShocker & Karlin, Brian Micheal Cox, The Dream, One Up Bink, 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.
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