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Record producer (music producer)

A Danish recording session
Occupation
Names	Record Producer
Activity sectors	Music Industry Music
Description
Competencies	Instrumental Skills, Keyboard Knowledge

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording (i.e. "production") of an artist's music. A producer has many roles that may include, but are not limited to, gathering ideas for the project, selecting songs and/or musicians, coaching the artist and musicians in the studio, controlling the recording sessions, and supervising the entire process through mixing and mastering. Producers also often take on a wider entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, and negotiations.

Today, the recording industry has two kinds of producers: executive producer and music producer; they have different roles. While an executive producer oversees a project's finances, a music producer oversees the creation of the music.

A music producer can, in some cases, be compared to a film director, with noted practitioner Phil Ek himself describing his role as "the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, like a director would a movie. The engineer would be more the cameraman of the movie."^[1] The music producer's job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music. The scope of responsibility may be one or two songs or an artist's entire album – in which case the producer will typically develop an overall vision for the album and how the various songs may interrelate.

In the US, before the rise of the record producer, someone from A&R would oversee the recording session(s), assuming responsibility for creative decisions relating to the recording.

With today's relatively easy access to technology, an alternative to the record producer just mentioned, is the so called 'bedroom producer'. With today's technological advances, it is very easy for a producer to achieve high quality tracks without the use of a single instrument; that happens in urban music (like hip hop, rap, etc). Many established artists take this approach.

In most cases the music producer is also a competent arranger, composer, musician or songwriter who can bring fresh ideas to a project. As well as making any songwriting and arrangement adjustments, the producer is also in charge of the creative mix. He or she will liaise with the sound engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording, whereas the music producer keeps an eye on the overall project's marketability.

History[link]

Early record producers[link]

During the 1890s, Fred Gaisberg ran the first recording studio and provided the closest approximation of production by guiding an opera singer closer or further away from a gramophone's horn to match the dynamics in the score. (Citation: Gronow and Saunio 1998, p. 8; Moorefield 2005, p. 1).

However in the first part of the 20th century the record producer's role was similar to the role of a film producer in that the record producer organized and supervised recording sessions, paid technicians, musicians and arrangers, and sometimes chose material for the artist. In the mid-1950s a new category emerged, that of the independent record producer. Among the most famous early independent producers are the famed songwriting-production duo Leiber & Stoller, "Wall of Sound" creator Phil Spector and British studio pioneer Joe Meek.

Magnetic tape enabled the establishment of independent recording studios in major recording centres such as London, Los Angeles and New York. Unlike the old record company studios, which were effectively a "closed shop", these new studios could be hired by the hour by anyone who could afford to do so.

The biggest and best commercial studios were typically established and operated by leading recording engineers. They were carefully constructed to create optimum recording conditions, and were equipped with the latest and best recording equipment and top-quality microphones, as well as electronic amplification gear and musical instruments.

Top-line studios such as Olympic Studios in London, Fine Recording in New York City, United Western Recorders, and Musart in Los Angeles quickly became among the most sought-after recording facilities in the world, and both these studios became veritable "hit factories" that produced many of the most successful pop recordings of the latter 20th century.

Evolution of the role of the producer[link]

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.

The new generation of independent producers began forming their own record production companies, and in many cases they also established their own recording labels, signing deals that enabled the recordings they produced to be manufactured and distributed by a major record company. This usually took the form of a lease deal, in which the production company leased the usage rights to the original recording to a major label, who would press, distribute and promote the recording as their own, in return for a percentage of any profit; the ownership of the master recordings typically reverted to the producer after the deal expired.

Producers would now typically carry out most or all of the various production tasks themselves, including selecting and arranging songs, overseeing sessions (and sometimes also engineering the recordings) and even writing the material^[2], although it became a common practice for producers to claim a writing credit even if they did not actually contribute to the song.

Independent music production companies rapidly gained a significant foothold in popular music and soon became the main intermediary between artist and record label, discovering and 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 with his AIR (Associated Independent Recordings) production company and studios.

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 Phil Spector, who defined the gap between early rock and roll and the Beatles (1959–1964). Although many of Spector's s productions were credited to acts such as The Ronettes, The Crystals, the Righteous Brothers, the Paris Sisters and Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans, in reality they were created using a crack team of top-rank Los Angeles session players (now known as "The Wrecking Crew") and often featured an interchangeable lineup of lead singers, including Ronnie Spector and Darlene Love. The prime example of Spector's modus operandi is the record widely regarded as his masterpiece, "River Deep, Mountain High". It is credited to "Ike & Tina Turner", but it is now well-known that Ike Turner was paid $20,000 to stay away from the sessions; the backing track was in fact performed by the Wrecking Crew, and the backing vocals were provided by a chorus of 21 singers, comprised of Ikettes Janice Singleton and Diane Rutherford and most of the female singers on Spector's roster, including Ronnie Spector, Darlene Love and Cher. Spector's Wall of Sound production technique also persisted after that time with his select recordings of the Beatles, the Ramones, Leonard Cohen, George Harrison, Dion and Ike and Tina Turner.

Some producers also became de facto recording artists, creating records themselves or with anonymous studio musicians and releasing them under a pseudonym. In the USA, some of the earliest examples in popular music were the novelty records released under the name Alvin & The Chipmunks, which became hits in many countries in the mid-1950s. These records, written, performed and produced by entertainer David Seville, relied on the simple gimmick of recording an instrumental track, then overdubbing the vocals while the the tape ran at half-speed. When played back at regular speed, the music would sound normal, and the voices would remain synchronised with the music, but the pitch and timbre of the voices would be dramatically shifted up, creating the instantly recognisable, chirpy "helium" effect. In the UK in the early 60s, Joe Meek was the first British pop producer to make records with studio-created groups, and he had major hits with singles like "Telstar" and Heinz's "Just Like Eddy".

Other 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. The same producer-as-artist phenomenon can be found with many modern-day pop-oriented street- and electronic-music artists. In later years this became a prominent and often successful sideline for major producers, as evidenced by the string of albums by the studio group The Alan Parsons Project (created by former EMI/Abbey Road staff engineer Alan Parsons) and the successful musical adaptation of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, devised and produced by former David Essex producer Jeff Wayne.

Another change that occurred for the role of producers occurred progressively over the 50’s and 60’s. The development of multitrack recording and new technology such as electric guitars, amplifiers, and better microphones led to a fundamental change in the way recordings were made. The goal of recording no longer was simply accurately capturing and documenting live performance. Instead producers could manipulate sounds to an unprecedented degree and producers like Spector and Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio and were no longer reserved to the role of functional engineer. Examples of such engineers includes George Martin, Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, and Biddu. These producers became known as creative producers who turned the studio into a creative space.

Another notable related phenomenon in the 1960s was the emergence of the performer-producer. As pop acts like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and The Kinks rapidly gained expertise in studio recording techniques, the leaders of many of these groups eventually took over as producers of their own work. In some cases this was not credited at the time - many recordings by acts such as The Rolling Stones, The Small Faces, Donovan, The Kinks and The Who are credited to their various producers of the time, Andrew Loog Oldham. Mickie Most or Shel Talmy, but many of these performers have since asserted that many of their recordings in this period were (in practial terms) either self-produced - e.g. The Rolling Stones' Decca recordings - or were collaborations between the group and their recording engineer - e.g. The Small Faces' Immediate recordings, which were made with Olympic Studios engineer Glyn Johns.

Similarly, although The Beatles' productions were credited to George Martin throughout their recording career, many sources now attest that Lennon and McCartney in particular had an increasing influence on the production process as the group's career progressed,and especially after the band retired from touring in 1966. The Beach Boys are probably the best example of this trend - within two years of the band's commercial breakthrough, group leader Brian Wilson had taken over from his father Murry, and he was sole producer of all their recordings between 1963 and 1967. Alongside The Beatles and Martin, Wilson also pioneereed many production innovations - by 1964 he had developed Spector's techniques to a new level of sophistication, using multiple studios and multiple "takes" of instrumental and vocal components to capture the best possible combinations of sound and performance, and then using tape editing extensively to assemble a perfect composite performance from these elements.

Equipment and technology[link]

Mixing Console

There are numerous different technologies utilized by the producer. In modern day recordings, recording and mixing tasks are centralized within computers. However, there is also the main mixer, outboard effects gear, MIDI controllers, and the recording device itself.

See also[link]

• Music executive
• Musician
• Audio engineering

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Gibson, David and Maestro Curtis. "The Art of Producing". 1st. Ed. USA. ArtistPro Publishing, 2004. ISBN 1-931140-44-8
• Burgess, Richard James. The Art of Music Production. 3rd Ed. UK. Music Sales, 2005. ISBN 1-84449-432-4
• Hewitt, Michael. Music Theory for Computer Musicians. 1st Ed. USA. Cengage Learning, 2008. ISBN 139781598635034
• Gronow, Pekka and Ilpo Saunio (1998). An International History of the Recording Industry. ISBN-X. Cited in Moorefield (2005).
• Moorefield, Virgil (2005). The Producer as Composer: Shaping the Sounds of Popular Music. ISBN. 123
• Olsen, Eric et al. (1999). The Encyclopedia of Record Producers. ISBN 0-8230-7607-5, ISBN 978-0-8230-7607-9
• Zak, Albin. The Poetics of Rock: Cutting Tracks, Making Records. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
• List of the Producers of the Current Top 100 Songs, Top 100 – Album Credits

External links[link]

• Record Producer Video Interviews
• Music Producers Directory

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Rob Cavallo at the Yahoo! Yodel Studio on October 13, 2009

Rob Cavallo is a record producer and A&R, most famous for signing and producing Green Day^[1]. He is currently Chairman of Warner Bros. Records.^[2]

History[link]

Cavallo, born in Washington, D.C., moved to Los Angeles, California when he was about ten years old. As a teenager, he played in local bands, and after graduating from high school he began working as a recording engineer.^[3] Cavallo eventually graduated from the University of Southern California where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Composition, Communications and Sociology in 1985.^[4] In the mid– to late 1980s, Cavallo worked with the so–called "hair metal" bands around Hollywood as a record producer. This continued into the 1990s, but when the "hair metal" scene died out, he began seeking out alternative rock bands to work with.

Cavallo currently lives in Hidden Hills, California with his wife Kim and children.

Projects[link]

Cavallo was an in–house producer with the band Green Day. He has co–produced every album from their multi–platinum success Dookie to American Idiot. Cavallo has also produced four studio albums for the Goo Goo Dolls, 1998's Dizzy Up the Girl, 2002's Gutterflower, 2006's Let Love In, and 2010's, Something for the Rest of Us.

Cavallo has also produced records for Jawbreaker, Alanis Morissette, Sixpence None the Richer, Less Than Jake, Fleetwood Mac, Jewel, My Chemical Romance, Kid Rock, Avril Lavigne, Paramore, David Cook, Shinedown, Dave Matthews Band, Adam Lambert, Switchfoot, and Meat Loaf, among others.

Partial discography[link]

Goo Goo Dolls[link]

• Dizzy Up the Girl (1998)
• Gutterflower (2002)
• Let Love In (2006)
• Something for the Rest of Us (2010)

Green Day[link]

• Dookie (1994)
• Insomniac (1995)
• Nimrod (1997)
• Warning (executive producer) (2000)
• Shenanigans (2002)
• Cigarettes and Valentines (unreleased) (2003)
• American Idiot (2004)
• ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré! (2012/2013)

My Chemical Romance[link]

• The Black Parade (2006)
• Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (2010)

Avril Lavigne[link]

• The Best Damn Thing (2007)

Other projects[link]

• 1995 – Dear You – Jawbreaker
• 1997 – The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum – L7
• 2000 – Sooner or Later – BBMak
• 2001 – Weird Revolution – Butthole Surfers
• 2001 – Blowback – Tricky
• 2002 – Divine Discontent – Sixpence None the Richer
• 2003 – Anthem – Less Than Jake
• 2003 – Say You Will – Fleetwood Mac
• 2003 – My Degeneration – Flashlight Brown
• 2004 – B is for B–sides – Less Than Jake
• 2004 – Trouble – Bonnie McKee
• 2005 – Room Noises – Eisley
• 2006 – Under The Skin – Lindsey Buckingham
• 2006 – Goodbye Alice in Wonderland – Jewel
• 2006 – Paris – Paris Hilton
• 2007 – Happiness Ltd. – Hot Hot Heat
• 2007 – Rock N Roll Jesus – Kid Rock
• 2008 – All Sides – O.A.R.
• 2008 – Gift Of Screws – Lindsey Buckingham
• 2008 – David Cook – David Cook
• 2008 – Coming To Terms – Carolina Liar
• 2008 – The Sound of Madness – Shinedown
• 2009 – Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King – Dave Matthews Band
• 2009 – Happy Hour – Uncle Kracker
• 2009 – Brand New Eyes – Paramore
• 2009 – Hello Hurricane – Switchfoot
• 2009 – For Your Entertainment – Adam Lambert
• 2010 – Foxy Shazam – Foxy Shazam
• 2010 – Hang Cool, Teddy Bear – Meat Loaf
• 2011 – People and Things – Jack's Mannequin
• 2012 – Amaryllis – Shinedown
• 2011 - 2012 Untitled - The Indecent

Other work[link]

• RENT: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2005)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Rob Cavallo's legendary Taylor Guitar used on 10 number one songs

• Video Interview with Rob Cavallo

Robin Millar is a record producer and musician, known variously as ‘The Original Smooth Operator’, ‘The man behind Sade’, and ‘Golden Ears’ [Boy George]. Born in London to an irish father and West Indian mother he has conquered blindness to become one of the world’s most successful ever record producers with over 150 gold, silver and platinum discs and 55 million record sales to his credit. His 1984 production of ‘Diamond Life’ the debut album by Sade was named one of the best ten albums of the last 30 years at the 2011 Brit Awards.

He has worked as a fundraiser for vulnerable people for 30 years and in March 2012 Millar underwent a 12 hour operation to install a bionic retina in his right eye to help research into future treatment for blindness.

He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.^[1]

Early life[link]

Millar was born with retinitis pigmentosa at St George’s Hospital, which is now The Lanesborough Hotel, Hyde Park Corner.^[2] Despite poor vision he attended attended mainstream state school Enfield Grammar School from 1963–70 and then read law at Cambridge University from 1970-73.^[2]

Musical career[link]

After gaining his law degree,^[3] Millar moved into the music industry initially as a guitarist and artist, putting out records with Atlantic and WEA and working with ex-Velvet Underground singer Nico. He found his niche as a record producer in the early 1980s when he started Power Plant Studios. Power Plant became the most fashionable haunt of the London 1980s music scene. After working with post punk band Weekend in 1982, his breakthrough came in 1984 with seven consecutive Top 10 albums; including Eden by Everything but the Girl, Working Nights by Working Week, and especially the multi-platinum selling Diamond Life by Sade.

Later he produced albums by Fine Young Cannibals (Fine Young Cannibals), Colin Hay (Looking for Jack), Big Country (The Seer), Patricia Kaas (Je te dis vous), Kane Gang, Bhundu Boys and Randy Crawford amongst others. Millar arranged the music for the film, And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen...^[4] Millar's song "Rich and Poor", co-composed with Colin Vearncombe, was recorded by Randy Crawford on her 1989 album, Rich and Poor.^[5] His 2003 solo album, Kiss and Tell was released by the Nujaz record label.^[6]

Millar has worked as producer, arranger, musician, songwriter and mixer, with Sting, Eric Clapton, John Mayall, Chrissie Hynde, Alison Moyet, Brand New Heavies, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Willard White, Mick Hucknell, Elvis Costello, Peter Gabriel, Françoise Hardy, Catherine Deneuve and Malcolm McLaren. His productions have sold over 55 million copies worldwide and have been awarded 150 platinum, gold and silver awards.^{[citation needed]} They have won every major music award including Grammy and Brit Awards.^{[citation needed]}

He is also a champion for vulnerable people and was awarded the 2002 Windrush Award for this work. He has made campaigning records and produced fund-raising concerts as Patron for UNICEF, UNHCR, Oxfam, Nimibian Freedom Fighters, Chilean Solidarity and Oxfam. He is a long-time trustee of The Vietnamese Boat Peoples' Appeal.^{[citation needed]}

Millar trained as a recording engineer, classical and jazz musician and arranger, and has trained dozens of top engineers and producers, including Jim Abbiss the producer of Arctic Monkeys & Adele. He also works as a mentor and inspirational guide to FTSE business leaders and people in the public eye, with famous clients from the world of business, music and politics.^{[citation needed]}

In 2005, he produced MP4's version of The Beatles', "Can't Buy Me Love".^[7]

Millar is a patron of The Music Producers Guild, which he helped found in 1987.

Millar is currently executive producer of a major worldwide series of concerts to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Edith Piaf, with shows planned for Carnegie Hall, New York, The Royal Albert Hall London and major venues in France, Germany, Russia, Europe and the Far East. He has been collaborating with Australian singer/songwriter Eran James whom he met through Elton John in 2010

Production credits[link]

In addition to those listed above, Millar's work as a record producer includes credits on the following:-

• Hope and Glory - Tom Robinson Band
• Wonderful Life - Black
• Nouveau Monde - Pierre Schott
• Paris - Malcolm McLaren
• Mickey Hart's Mystery Box - Mickey Hart
• Urban World Music - Hiroshima
• Singles Collection - The Bluebells
• In T.R.O.U.B.L.E. Again - Vic Godard
• Ive Mendes - Ive Mendes
• Sound of the Style Council - The Style Council
• Sungrooves - Mark Riva
• In The House - Dimitri from Paris
• Shev and the Brakes - Shev and the Brakes
• To Touch You - Tyrone Berkeley^[8]
• "My Favourite Town" - POLA ^[9]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website