What is a Music Producer?
A Music Producer wears many hats when it comes to the production process of a musical project. In general, a Music Producer is someone who assists musicians in bringing their artistic ideas to life inside a recording studio.
The role of a Music Producer involves planning out the production process of a musical project from start to finish. This involves high-level organisation from booking recording studio sessions to managing and organising audio engineers, sound engineering equipment and the instruments required for the project.
In this article, I will be discussing the qualities needed to become a successful Music Producer.
So what are they?
Successful Music Producers are skilled Audio Engineers
Music Producers are the bridge between the musician, the music and the sound engineering technology. They usually work alongside Audio Engineers as a part of the process. The successful Music Producer would be a skilled Audio Engineer themselves, as it would allow the studio session to run much more smoothly if the Music Producer knows the signal flow of the recording studio, how to mix, how to master, how to set parameters of gear and having a trained ear etc. This allows seamless communication between the technical and creative process of music production.
Stay Updated on The Latest Sound Engineering & Music Production Technology.
A successful Music Producer stays up to date with the latest sound engineering equipment. Specifically on the ones that relate to the musical genre that they specialise in. This gives them a competitive edge and allows them to cater to their client’s needs.
An example of these are:
Interfaces. Mixers. Synths. Mics. DAWs. Streaming services. Musical Instruments.
Excellent Communication Skills
Music Producers work with a wide range of people such as individual artists, bands and ensembles as well as working closely with recording studio staff. They can also work with events managers, marketers and booking venues for their clients.
Musicians are all about “The Vibe” a successful Music Producer knows how to understand a musicians vibe and encourages their expression in the recording studio.
Successful music producers are leaders and must be able to communicate assertively, empathetically and patiently. Some examples of effective communication are: The ability to negotiate. To listen & understand. To communicate with all sorts of personalities. Patience. Empathy. Assertiveness.
Unafraid to Experiment in the Recording Studio
What differentiates artists from one another is their willingness to experiment with their sound. The best musical artists are always changing their sound with each album that they create. They are unafraid of experimenting on their production projects with new sound engineering techniques such as their channel strip layout, their bussing, trying new plugins, and pushing the limits of instruments and outboard hardware in attempts to produce the next big hit.
Music Producers Are Highly Organised
Music Producers have to manage the bookings of recording studio time slots, the budget used for the recording studio, contracts, negotiations, copyrights, invoices etc.
With the amount of responsibility a music producer has under their belt there is no surprise that a successful quality is to be highly organised inside the recording studio and out.
As Music Producers work heavily with computers it makes sense to have strict file organisation and house cleaning on your computer and external hard drives: Labelling and storing hard drives in an allocated organised place. Saving sessions in allocated files by date and time. Backing up sessions. Separating sound files into categories. Separating sound files into categories. Labelling and colour coding channel strips and analogue gear.
This promotes the effective use of time management and allows the production process to run much more smoothly.
In Summary
Successful Music Producers are tech-savvy Audio Engineers who always stay up-to-date with the latest Sound Engineering technology. They have an innate ability to understand the vibe of musicians as well as the technical lingo of Audio Engineering and business applications. The successful Music Producer is highly organised and is not afraid to experiment in the music production process by testing the limits of their sound engineering capabilities.
