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The Changing Roles of Music Producer and Audio Engineer

Until 1997, the community of music producers and audio engineers was one of the last remaining groups without representation as a guild or trade association. To address that need, I had the opportunity to help launch the Music Producers Guild of the Americas (MPGA). Our entire industry has been very supportive of the MPGA, and it has become a well-established organization helping to “make the music better.” The Guild has organized “top down” conferences, such as 5.1 Multichannel Music Mixing seminars, where industry leaders explored the current DVD format, what it is, and where it is going. The MPGA has also presented the “Producing Success” series, which I call “bottom up” conferences for emerging audio professionals at leading schools such as USC. These conferences were designed to provide interaction between serious young people and leading music producers and audio engineers on a one-to-one basis. The goal has been to give the latest generation of recording industry students an opportunity to interact with those audio engineers and music producers who have “made it” on the creative side of the music business.

One of the major benefits of being involved with the MPGA has been the chance to understand, finally, just how much the role of audio engineer and music producer has changed during the past 30 years. In the 1960s, the audio engineer was a knob twister in a white shirt and tie, and the music producer was an employee of the record company doing only what he was told to do by his label on a salary-only basis. Independent music producers and audio engineers were definitely in the minority. Other than Sir George Martin and a few others such as Chris Blackwell, Chuck Plotkin, Phil Spector, and Bill Szymczyk, these talented people were salaried employees of the record company under the umbrella of “artists and repertoire” (A&R), which today has become the basic project management for the artist by the record label, with very little creative input. A&R directors are more like product managers now, being responsible for artist development, promotion, and marketing management. In addition, the stable of artists under contract to their label is their responsibility with respect to recording budgets, on-time release of their CDs, coordination of their public appearances, and tour support. Some A&R people are qualified music producers, but most today rarely see the inside of a recording studio control room or have what insiders refer to as “magic ears.” The good A&R representatives have consumer ears and appreciate the music that is selling the most today. They use that skill to find new artists and put them under contract to their label.

Back in the sixties and seventies, the record producers’ hands were tied by corporate policy, which meant that their creative juices could not fully flow. They did not have the opportunity to present new artists to the label, could not pick and choose the artists whom they produced, received no royalties, and had no creative control over the quality of the music that they oversaw—mostly in corporate-owned recording studios.

Today, the independent audio engineers and music producers provide creative contributions second only to the recording artists’ creativity in the recording environment. In a recent radio interview, for example, artist Teddy Pendergrass was asked where he got his signature sound. He replied, “I didn't have a sound, the producer gave me that.” These producers and engineers are very talented, yet the world is just beginning to understand, in MPGA founder Ed Cherney's words, “who we are and what we do.” Few people know of the strenuous apprenticeship audio engineers serve in recording studios, learning how to “get a sound” from an instrument—how to mike it, how loud to record it, and how to enhance it through equalization, compression, and other delicate audio processes.

Most current producers and engineers have spent two to four years earning a degree from a recording industry school or the music department of a major university prior to going to work in a recording studio. The competition is fierce for the few entry-level positions available in the best studios, so the pay is low and the hours long. The new employee usually starts as a janitor/runner and works his or her way up to assistant engineer in the control room doing a major project. When one of the studio's clients decides to give them an opportunity to engineer, it means they finally have their chance to excel. After proving themselves as audio engineers, they may move on to becoming music producers, if they so desire, by finding a new artist and selling the idea to an A&R executive who will let them produce the record. This is not the only path to success, but it is a prevalent one today.

To be successful in this field requires long hours, low pay initially, and total dedication to making the music sound better through the art of recording. Without that dedication and the patience to learn the many nuances of recording, there is little hope for success in the professional audio industry. Once you are trained, there are myriad specialties in the visual and music recording arts from which to choose, and most of the top audio professionals are multifaceted in several of those arts.

Ask the man on the street what a music producer is, and he is likely to say: “Isn't he the business guy who raises the money and supervises the budget?” No! That's a good description of a film producer. Ask him what an audio engineer is and he is likely to say: “Oh, isn't he the guy who walks around in a white coat and adjusts settings with his trusty screwdriver?” No! That's an audio technician, another figure who is also very important to the music equation. He or she makes the plane fly. If you ask the consumer what a mastering engineer is, he might say: “Oh, is he the guy in the factory who manufacturers the record?” No! The mastering engineer is the last creative link in the creation of the CD. He or she is often the one who has the “golden ears” necessary to make the final “tweaks” and prepare the master recording for manufacture. This naivete on the part of the record-buying public, unfortunately, underplays the importance of each creative role in the chain of recording events.

One of the goals of the MPGA is to educate the public about the roles of these incredibly important and creative people. When someone outside our industry, with no knowledge of what we do, asks me to explain what an audio engineer's job is, I say: “He is the navigator of the airplane. He watches all of those knobs and dials, and makes certain that the music stays on course in terms of what each instrument sounds like and how you hear it. He takes his creative direction from the music producer, who is trying to get the best performance possible from the musical artist.”

I further explain that the music producer has the same responsibility as the director and/or the producer of a film. He must capture the greatest possible performance from the artist and surround it with the best sounds to enhance the artist's voice and /or instrument. The overall quality of the music is his responsibility. In addition, he is most often the person responsible for bringing the project in on time and within budget. Mr. Peter Filleul, of the Music Producers Group (MPG) in England and The European Sound Directors Association (ESDA), defines the record producer as “that individual responsible for the process of directing and supervising all the creative and other aspects of making sound recordings. In relation to motion pictures and television, the equivalent role would be that of the film director.”

Peter goes on to say that multitrack recording is what made the difference in the roles of these talented people. In the fifties, their job was to faithfully reproduce the “live” performance of the artist. “Today they must supervise and create the dazzling and sophisticated production that music consumers are accustomed to, even though it may bear small resemblance to the original performance.”

Let's give the creative producers and audio engineers the credit they deserve. The future of our music industry depends upon it. If everyone knows “who they are and what they do,” it will improve their professions and help to make the music even better. It will also attract more talented people to this profession, simply because they are more aware of what our industry is all about. Education is the key to success for all of us.