R/E/P Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: 1 ... 12 13 [14]   Go Down

Author Topic: What is a co-producer?  (Read 30228 times)

Bob Olhsson

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3968
Re: What is a co-producer?
« Reply #195 on: February 01, 2005, 03:18:08 PM »

Samc wrote on Tue, 01 February 2005 08:10

...We should not forget that music production, (past and present) is sometimes approached with the same speculative mindset as stock brokering.  Evidence of this is plentiful this thread alone where some people really believe it is their job to tailor the music to some specific demographic.

Music production is lots less speculative in the case of artists who have built up a solid fanbase by PERFORMING MUSIC.

henchman

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 549
Re: What is a co-producer?
« Reply #196 on: February 01, 2005, 05:25:34 PM »

As someone who is also a producer, my gaol is to try and push an artist or band to come out of the studio with something that's better than the ideas they walked in with.

That can mean changing songstructures, completely re-writing a song. Pushing players to play somthign other than they would have thought of.
Getting vocalists to work at giving great performances. Sometimes teaching them how to sing properly.

One of the things I hate is people recording 100 tracks into the computer. Then trying to edit a "song" together from all that crap.

Samc

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1393
Re: What is a co-producer?
« Reply #197 on: February 02, 2005, 05:35:53 AM »

henchman wrote on Tue, 01 February 2005 22:25

As someone who is also a producer, my gaol is to try and push an artist or band to come out of the studio with something that's better than the ideas they walked in with.

That can mean changing songstructures, completely re-writing a song. Pushing players to play somthign other than they would have thought of.
Getting vocalists to work at giving great performances. Sometimes teaching them how to sing properly.

One of the things I hate is people recording 100 tracks into the computer. Then trying to edit a "song" together from all that crap.


The "better than" part of the statement leads me to ask some questions.  

Do you automatically decide/assume that your idea(s) will be better than the band's idea(s)?
"Better than" for who/what?.......  
Do you really mean more to your liking?.......  
Who decide if your idea of "better than" is in fact "better than" the band's original idea?........

I also ask this because I concluded from your statements that the finished product is not necessarily what the band/artist would have played live, and this therefore answers the question, (or at least gives one reason) why a band's live performance is oftentimes considered different or "better than" their records by their audience.
Logged
Sam Clayton

henchman

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 549
Re: What is a co-producer?
« Reply #198 on: February 02, 2005, 03:37:15 PM »

Samc wrote on Wed, 02 February 2005 05:35


Do you automatically decide/assume that your idea(s) will be better than the band's idea(s)?
"Better than" for who/what?.......  
Do you really mean more to your liking?.......  
Who decide if your idea of "better than" is in fact "better than" the band's original idea?........

I also ask this because I concluded from your statements that the finished product is not necessarily what the band/artist would have played live, and this therefore answers the question, (or at least gives one reason) why a band's live performance is oftentimes considered different or "better than" their records by their audience.


I never assume my idea or any idea is better. I am the first to admit my idea sucks.

It's simple, IMO. The best idea will win out and stand on it's own merrits.

Do I force a band or artist to do something if they don't like it. Of course not.
They're the ones that will have to get up and perform a sonh night after night.

The advantage for a producer is, he hasn't listened to a song one way for the last month, and can catch something that can elevate a song to a new level. And that is my goal.

If a band wants to record their songs as they are, they shouldn't
waste money paying a producer. But hire a good engineer. Don't give up producers points to someone who is just engineering.

There's lots of different ways to do records. And I am the first to turn down working with a band if they don't want any input. Because I can't do that.

And I find that these days a bands performance is far from beign better tha the album.
Also, in most cases if you were to take an "un-fixed" live recording from alot of bands, they woudln't stand up when released as a live record without major work.

Fibes

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4306
Re: What is a co-producer?
« Reply #199 on: February 02, 2005, 05:32:24 PM »

henchman wrote on Wed, 02 February 2005 15:37



I never assume my idea or any idea is better. I am the first to admit my idea sucks.




Hench',

Just to put things into perspective for meeseff; aren't you the dude who posted a song in progress at J. Hall's a long time ago that was "produced" from a raunchy guitar lick jam that ended up sounding like U2/The Corrs?

If not, sorry for the confusion.
Logged
Fibes
-------------------------------------------------
"You can like it, or not like it."
The Studio

  http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtist ?id=155759887
http://cdbaby.com/cd/superhorse
http://cdbaby.com/cd/superhorse2

Jonas as

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 143
Re: What is a co-producer?
« Reply #200 on: February 02, 2005, 06:04:46 PM »

Well,
I won't pretend i'm a big time producer, but i do make my living out of producing/engineering.

I get producing gigs, not by some label appointing me, but because the artist asks me to do it, based on merit, and that they feel I  connect with their musical tastes, and share a common goal.

The level of innvolment varies from simply suggesting wich take is the best take to being also used as a musician too doing actual arranging or co-songwriting.

I do this within boundaries laid out by the artist, I prefer a working enviroment and way of comunicating that makes it clear to the artist that I should not be taken as a God, but with enough trust...at best......one of them, but with maybe one advantage:

I feel that 60% of what i can contribute with as a producer comes from the "you only hear it the first time once" factor at a time when the artist might feel they have lost any objective focus on their material.

The 40% left is IMHO
10% social skills
10% being able to translate THEIR musical language into technical solutions that doesn't hinder the performance.
20% being able to translate THEIR musical aesthtics into appropriate technical recording aesthetics.
on the projects i'm working with, this does rarely include working with "transparent" mics or pres, wich would btw. be an aestethic choice as much as any....

Have a nice evening!
Logged

henchman

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 549
Re: What is a co-producer?
« Reply #201 on: February 02, 2005, 10:35:45 PM »

Fibes wrote on Wed, 02 February 2005 17:32

henchman wrote on Wed, 02 February 2005 15:37



I never assume my idea or any idea is better. I am the first to admit my idea sucks.




Hench',

Just to put things into perspective for meeseff; aren't you the dude who posted a song in progress at J. Hall's a long time ago that was "produced" from a raunchy guitar lick jam that ended up sounding like U2/The Corrs?

If not, sorry for the confusion.




Yep That's me.
We finished the whole album. And had a couple of promoters in the UK that were going to start helping us with bookings.
Then the drummer caused the whole thing to explode.

Oh well. Life goes on. I'll probaly use some of the songs, resing the vocals, re-record the drums and release it myself.

lucey

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1043
Re: What is a co-producer?
« Reply #202 on: March 13, 2005, 08:37:33 PM »


The modern producer notion has Brian Eno to blame or thank, just as much as anyone ...

Here's his view on it from 1995 in Wired:

"I think of producing as the act of creating a sonic and conceptual overview of the record. And this type of creation is a whole new category for which there is no current copyright arrangement.

Funnily enough, a lot of what I find myself - surreptitiously - doing as a producer is thinking of elaborate diversionary tactics designed to make us leave things alone - at least long enough to listen to them as "audience." I find that when you're listening with a view to doing further work, you don't generally hear the totality of something but just the little gaps where you could squeeze in something else. Audiences, I find, nearly always appreciate more space and emptiness in a work than the creators of those works would like to tolerate. I noticed this first when working with tape recorders in the early days - that, having made something, I preferred hearing it at half its original speed: twice as empty."
Logged
Brian Lucey
Magic Garden Mastering

"the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the ecology" - unknown

John Ivan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3028
Re: What is a co-producer?
« Reply #203 on: March 17, 2005, 06:06:03 PM »

This has been great reading. It's interesting to note that all of us are basing our comments on our experience. I have been on both ends of this thing and can relate to having my art blasted to pieces by a producer type who just had to fill every space. I took from this experience a whole new view of " the producer" and made it clear to myself and everyone else that if you want me to produce, I have to love the band and the tunes they write. I do everything I can to stay the hell out of the way but I also try and keep them from walking off a cliff. Some folks seem to be saying ,walking off the cliff might sound cool or at least interesting. This may be the case but, wether they are coming to me because they think they have to or " GEE I guess we have to use a producer, everyone else dose" or what ever the reason, they are coming never the less. I don't feel bad about it either. Nor do they. I just don't understand this Idea that producing is a bad thing in and of it's self. Some folks can produce them selves and some can't. The last few things I did would not have been made without me or someone like me there. The band simply could not do it. I think this is a very cool and satisfying relationship and look forward to doing more of it.

It's like anything else. There's bad stuff and good stuff and we all have a different take on what's what. Every machine driven drum groove ever produced is just totally useless to me. I will never understand auto tune. I don't think all this shit should have the life edited out of it. I wish people would stop talking over "music". All just my opinion. I can see why some might hold the view that producers and or, the idea of needing one that has been built into the business, is wrong. I'm just not one of them.
Logged
"Transformation is no easy trick: It's what art promises and usually doesn't deliver." Garrison Keillor

 

Bob Olhsson

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3968
Re: What is a co-producer?
« Reply #204 on: March 23, 2005, 10:05:26 AM »

lucey wrote on Sun, 13 March 2005 19:37


The modern producer notion has Brian Eno to blame or thank, just as much as anyone ...
I think the real source was the rants in Rolling Stone about Brian Wilson, Phil Spector and the Beatles "playing the recording studio as an instrument." According to various people I've met who were present in the studio for all of the above, this was pure fiction but it was an utterly compelling, glamorous image to up and coming producers and engineers. To this day I am amazed by people in high places who ought to know better but obviously don't or at least don't want to.

lucey

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1043
Re: What is a co-producer?
« Reply #205 on: March 23, 2005, 11:46:28 AM »

Bob Olhsson wrote on Wed, 23 March 2005 10:05

lucey wrote on Sun, 13 March 2005 19:37


The modern producer notion has Brian Eno to blame or thank, just as much as anyone ...
I think the real source was the rants in Rolling Stone about Brian Wilson, Phil Spector and the Beatles "playing the recording studio as an instrument." According to various people I've met who were present in the studio for all of the above, this was pure fiction but it was an utterly compelling, glamorous image to up and coming producers and engineers. To this day I am amazed by people in high places who ought to know better but obviously don't or at least don't want to.


I don't have any great feelings for Spector or Wilson, yet I do for Lanois and Eno.

Have you ever engineered for Lanois or Eno?
Logged
Brian Lucey
Magic Garden Mastering

"the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the ecology" - unknown

Fletcher

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3016
Re: What is a co-producer?
« Reply #206 on: March 24, 2005, 08:07:11 AM »

We all have Les Paul to blame... if that asshole hadn't fucked around with this multi-track bullshit then you would have had artists that could actually play/perform going directly to one or two tracks of a recorder and that would be that.

Woulda kept all the "I can't really sing or play but you can manufacture a rekid out this can'tcha" bullshit in check.

Of course the argument could be made that if Les didn't do it some other butt reaming asshole would have come along with the idea... probably some film douchebag.
Logged
CN Fletcher

mwagener wrote on Sat, 11 September 2004 14:33
We are selling emotions, there are no emotions in a grid


"Recording engineers are an arrogant bunch.  
If you've spent most of your life with a few thousand dollars worth of musicians in the studio, making a decision every second and a half... and you and  they are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives, you'll get pretty arrogant too.  It takes a certain amount of balls to do that... something around three"
Malcolm Chisholm

wwittman

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7712
Re: What is a co-producer?
« Reply #207 on: March 24, 2005, 02:03:29 PM »

Someone once told me the story about a famous pianist who had recorded 6 takes or so of a piece to be put otgether into one final version...

He came in the next day to hear the edited master.

He listened carefully and said "I wish *I* could play like that!"

So it's always SOMETHING.

In the early days of recording, some "classical" composers and conductors complained that now people could become too obsessed with music "of the past".
And that has CERTAINLY happened.

We'd do a lot less talking about The Beatles if we had no way to hear them.., only remember them.

I often wonder whether that's a good or a bad thing.

Pays the bills though,
Sometimes.
Logged
William Wittman
Producer/Engineer
(Cyndi Lauper, Joan Osborne, The Fixx, The Outfield, Hooters...)
Pages: 1 ... 12 13 [14]   Go Up
 

Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.063 seconds with 19 queries.