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Task 1(a): Producer #projectgroup

I picked the role producer because I enjoy giving feedback to the artist and adding my creative input to the recording session to make it better and help communicate between the artist and the recording engineer to make the session as smooth as possible and get the most out of the artist.

A producer is responsible for overseeing the musical product and to communicate with the artist, give them advice on different creative aspects of the track and particularly help during pre-production in terms of trying to figure out in which direction the song will go and what could be made better in the track before even heading to the studio.
In the studio the producer is the middle man between recording engineer and artist and help make the recording session efficient by coaching the artist, helping with crucial decision-making, giving feedback and proposing new ideas that can quickly be included into the session. Producers need to be able to communicate with the artists so they are required to have the necessary knowledge and vocabulary in order to convey their ideas clearly to the artist so the musician or singer is able to make it happen.

Trevor Horn is a good example of how a lot of producers are also musicians themselves. He had both success as a producer where he won a grammy for producing "Kiss from a Rose" by Seal and had several chart placements with the bands The Buggles, Yes and Art Of Noise.

In the music industry it's important to make use of different sources of income since unless you are very successful it's hard to make a living as only a producer and in the case of Trevor Horn you can see that he makes use of those different income sources. He owns a part of the recording company ZTT Records, Sarm Studios and a music publishing company, Perfect Songs.

Nowadays the term producer (often in terms of electronic music producer) is used quite differently, it covers a broader spectrum of skills and tasks. For example a producer in today’s terms would also be a recording engineer, arranger, mixing engineer, composer, mastering engineer, etc.


The term evolved due to the evolution of technology and the invention of the pc's and laptops with enough processing power to run digital audio workstations. These so called DAW's make it possible to make great sounding songs just with a laptop so professional studios aren’t necessarily needed anymore which means that a much wider spectrum of people are able to make music since you don't have to spend money on renting a recording studio or hiring professionals.

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