Research Portfolio
Intro
In this essay I will be using primary and secondary research to evaluate qualifications, skills, duties, legal and financial issues, career progression and personal/professional challenges of the career path I have chosen. The profession that I have chosen is music production, this role has always been my main aspiration within the creative industry since the age of 13. I love the art of creating a piece from scratch and letting my skills and intuition take over. Academically, I have always wanted to improve my production skills and be the best producer I can be. Most jobs within the creative industry are very competitive and unforgiving. This is why since I started my production journey, I have only driven myself to improve my musical and technical abilities. I will be using a range of sources from industry reports, interviews or documentaries, job listings and government resources among other sources. I will be using the Harvard referencing format to conduct my research and will be looking into awareness of profession development, employability and understanding industry frameworks. The evolving landscape of the creative industry has shown that freelance and portfolio careers have become more common than traditional job contracts meaning the importance of the topic of this essay will only increase.
Qualifications and Experience Required.
There are multiple ways to enter the industry of music production, some include qualifications and education while other methods include networking and working your way up a food chain. Relevant degrees that can land someone a music production role consist of: Music Production, Electronic Music Production, Sound engineering, music technology, popular music and sound design to name a few. There are also other higher education qualifications that will indirectly improve production skills such as film music and composition etc. Rob Bisel is an example of a producer that has a higher education involving music. He studied music at the University of Michigan and went on to work with SZA and Kendrick Lamar.
“Rob got his start engineering for Rick Rubin at Shangri La Studios, where he worked with a wide range of artists including Harry Styles, Kendrick Lamar, Tyler The Creator, Travis Scott, Santana, and more.” (Genius, 2025)
This quote from Genius shows how Rob Bisel obtained a degree and continued on working at the bottom of the food chain until he had built enough of a portfolio and gained experience to intrigue artists which eventually led him to gaining placements. Professional experience is a more common route of entering the creative industry. This could consist of a self built portfolio, internships, and freelance work. Contrary to working as a freelance producer, being signed to a record label as a producer may help gain popularity and speed up the process of working with industry names but in the long run may negatively affect a producer by shelving or being dropped by a label. Working freelance means that production is connected to the producer and not the record label.
Knowledge, Skills and Personal Qualities
Technical skills are extremely vital in a production role as a lot of the time producers/engineers are the only people in a studio environment who should know how to operate equipment such as; mixing desks, patching systems and other external analogue effects. Tech proficiency and knowing software such as Pro Tools, Logic Pro X and Ableton is vital in the production role as this is the basis of making modern music with professionalism.
“(Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey), Benny Blanco (Justin Bieber, Kanye West), Andrew Scheps (Adele, Metallica), and countless others have crafted a whole generation of hits—all from within Pro Tools. Because when you need to sound your very best, nothing delivers like Pro Tools.” (Avid, April 2022)
In the context of this essay, Professional strategies for production is a key factor towards gaining a job as a producer/sound engineer. This quote explains how in order to land a job in a studio, a producer should know these professional softwares like the back of their hand because without them a producer wouldn’t be able to create music at a releasable standard. Furthermore without softwares like pro tools, a producer wouldn’t be able to use high quality effects and plugins such as the CLA 2 {compressor:(https://www.waves.com/plugins/cla-2a-compressor-limiter)
Or destresser: (https://www.empiricallabs.com/distressor/)}
Because they wouldn’t be able to route it back to their DAW. No matter if its analogue or digital, a producer wouldn’t be able to use plugins and effects to their fullest potential.
Another essential area of knowledge that any producer/engineer or musician should know before entering the creative industry is contracts and royalties. Below I have included a guide that outlines most types of contracts needed for the creative industry.
“Whether you are the publisher, label, studio, producer, engineer, or artist, The Music Business Contract Library contains over 125 different contract templates and forms that you need, along with Greg’s professional experience in commentary on how he has used them and why.”
Books and information sources such as “The Music Business Contract Library“ are extremely useful to musicians who have little experience with the real world industry. Another method that I would use to obtain an understanding of contracts is by talking to lectures in Leeds Conservatoire because of the collective experience of my lectures and their knowledge of the creative industry.
Duties and Responsibilities/Typical Day
A typical working day for a professional in the music industry is varied and often shaped by the demands of ongoing projects. Because of this I will split this topic into two sections.
Freelance –
A typical day for a freelance music producer consists of creative tasks such as composing and producing. Administrative tasks such as emailing, contacting artists to send music to, scheduling and planning studio sessions along with budgeting. Finally client facing roles such as appearing at live performances, recording sessions and attending meetings.
Employed by boss or Label –
Creative tasks may be set by artists or labels in order to give a clear understanding on what to do that day. Administrative tasks are similar to freelance work but may involve more instruction and guidance on current projects. Client involvement roles mostly involve helping artists create songs and or compositions, other forms of client facing roles include being hired out to live sound engineer or produce for a studio session.
Through my research I came across a youtuber, “prodllb”, whose content I engaged with when I began my production journey. His work provides a useful insight into the content creation of production and shows his day to day responsibilities as a music producer running social media channels. Since prodllb is a freelance producer, most of his work is centered around online activity including creating videos, editing content and maintaining an online presence to keep his listeners interested. The video also highlights the importance of online networking; “Being active on instagram – just to keep up with stuff” (prodllb, Jan 2023). He then goes on to list engagement strategies such as commenting, posting and other social media factors that improve networking ability.
Financial and Legal Issues Impacting the Profession
Individuals working in the creative industry must navigate many different financial situations. From a financial perspective, music producers have to deal with income streams such as; session music production (being hired out as a one time producer), commissions, project commissions and advances paid by record labels or managers. Many music producers have a main source of income that carries their overall job. I have conducted some research and found a website that highlights all possible income streams of a music producer. “Obviously some opportunities won’t be available to you before you reach a certain stage in your career” (Sergent, Paul. Oct 2022). As this quote states, producers will often start out their music career selling beats online, creating music for small artists or making small amounts of income through released music and royalties. Because of this, the role of a music producer can often be quite difficult to make a steady revenue stream off of solely music.
Typical pay ranges consist of around 33k – 52k per year according to Glassdoor (Dec 2025). This salary can vary depending on how many opportunities and if, in my case, a producer has other skills in other fields of music such as playing as a session musician or working as an audio engineer. Budgeting large amounts of money for extended and large projects such as studio sessions, touring budgets and marketing budgets are all crucial roles of a producer as managers for hire can often be an expensive commitment so learning budgeting and saving is a vital factor that all producers should know before entering the creative industry.
Copyright ownership (PR, MCPS, PPL) is one of the most important legal agreement terms that any musician should have a deep understanding of. PR (copyright ownership): Performing Right Society is for live performances aired on radio or TV, social media platforms. MCPS (copyright ownership): Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society is for when music is reproduced such as streamed, or released on vinyl/cd. PLL (copyright ownership): Phonographic Performance Limited is when a song is played on TV/radio or used by any digital service. These three types of copyright ownership are extremely important as a lack of understanding could result in extreme loss of revenue due to the ownership of a piece of music. I have attached a website that previously helped me gather an understanding of royalties and copyright in my research methodology.
Marketing and Promotional Aspects of the Profession
Marketing strategies for music production can often go down 2 paths – The first path consists of being active on social media, having a beatstars account and selling beats on the website or creating a portfolio website with contacts attached to name a few. The second path consists of more mainstream advertisements such as billboards, audio adverts on streaming services and pushing music for commercials and other advertisements to catch the listeners ear.
Being employed or having a manager makes marketing strategies and campaigns marginally easier as there are usually budgets and vaster amounts of money involved. With this comes less involvement in advertisement and in turn less involvement with ideas and strategies. This could mean that a producer’s image may not live up to their expectations which could impact their career later down the line.
An example of creating an internet presence as a form of advertisement is multy- platinum award winning producer – nick mira. Since creating hit songs with “Juice WRLD” and “Lil Tecca”, Nick mira has created a consistent Youtube channel where he makes tutorials and beat cook-up videos to further showcase his production skills.
Career Progression and Future Pathways
Future pathways of a music producer could be a wide range of jobs including teaching music at level 1,2,3 or 4 depending on what qualifications have previously been achieved, sound engineering, music business or managing involving producers or artists, film composition or radio and TV pre/post production. These options among many others all have their own skills and qualifications that can be achieved but music production is a great start due to the musical knowledge gained as well as the business factors learned throughout a producer’s career.
Conclusion
My findings throughout this essay show that to create a sustainable career in music production, a producer must balance technical proficiency, creative capability, discipline, strong understandings of different areas of the creative industry, royalties and copyright ownerships along with money management and budgeting. The research that I have conducted links directly with the aims of the module by strengthening my awareness of how the creative industry operates and by helping identify pathways towards employability/freelance work and long-term career progression. Ultimately, this essay has shown me the steps I must take as a producer to further improve my chances of entering the creative industry by developing my overall understanding of music business and the key to improving my creativity.
Research methodology
- (Bisel, Rob. Genius, 2025) https://genius.com/artists/Rob-bisel
- (Avid, April 2022) https://www.avid.com/resource-center/the-best-music-creation-software
- CLA 2 compressor: https://www.waves.com/plugins/cla-2a-compressor-limiter
- Disstresser, analogue knee compressor: https://www.empiricallabs.com/distressor/
- (Forest, Greg. 2008) https://www.abebooks.co.uk/Music-Business-Contract-Library-Reference-Greg/32238073111/bd
- (prodllb, Jan 2023) https://youtu.be/Im83H7azWAk?si=5kbX08a51zeoW66S
- (Sergent, Paul. Oct 2022) – website highlighting all income streams of a music producer https://medium.com/@paul.m.sergent/revenue-streams-in-the-modern-music-industry-307cf96155cc
- (Glassdoor, Dec 2025) https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Interview/music-producer-interview-questions-SRCH_KO0,14.htm
- (Pursehouse, Simon. May 2021) understanding of copyright ownership https://www.prsformusic.com/m-magazine/how-to/how-to-understanding-publishing-rights
- (Beatstars) – https://www.beatstars.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorBg0qOIqN2J8l2JzbFwfxYCrfRGW7x7mPnT9Uik6yJzb9Wk_Yb
- (Mira, Nick) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0__rMNmefKfxeB-82fuCWA
