The job title of “Music Producer” has fluctuated across time, with the role developing and adapting to the innovations in music, all centered around what the artist needs to bring their creativity to life. This can span from sonically, the tones and sounds the artist wants to create emotion through, to practically, ensuring thought-out preparation and organisation to allow for a fluid creative-experience.
What are the (academic and professional) qualifications and/or experience required to enter the profession?
To become a music producer, although you may not flat-out require a degree to enter the job, a university degree can be extremely useful. My research led me to the advantages that studying music production at a university has in many different ways. A degree can provide extensively useful knowledge on how to use musical technology, such as mixing desks, and on how to navigate the music industry. Working in a university also exposes you to a creative environment and gets you familiar with collaboration and working as a team. Coming out of university and branching into the industry with a degree not only develops your skills but also gives you a credible qualification that shows your level of understanding towards the field.
What knowledge, skills and personal qualities/attributes are needed for success within the profession?
To be a successful music producer, key attributes that are required include good people skills, good organisation, and a confident knowledge of how to achieve certain sounds. Good people skills are a must when it comes to being a music producer due to the nature of what the role does for the artist. A good music producer will be able to communicate well and be able to contribute to a team to bring an artist’s idea to life. An artist’s producer needs to be able to confidently voice to them when things need to be redone, and good communication skills will allow for a fluid work-state for both the producer and the artist. Good organisational skills are also crucial to be a successful music producer. A key aspect of a producer’s role can be to organise studio time, musicians, and the layout of the studio so that it remains a safe work environment. A successful producer will make certain that the musicians the artist requires will be at the studio on time, and have been provided with their part with plenty of time to adequately learn it. The producer may also act as a middle-man for communication between the artist and the backing musicians and will make sure that no comments are lost in transit between the two parties. The layout of the studio is also a very crucial aspect that a producer will require organisation skills for, as it involves safety and work-flow. The producer must ensure that the wiring and the setup of the studio for a recording session is organised safely to prevent any trip hazards and allow for the artist and musicians to move swiftly around. A more proactive work-flow will be achieved if the musicians don’t have to worry about tripping over wires every time they enter the live room. For a producer to be successful they must also have a confident knowledge on how certain sounds are achieved. After everything has been organised and pre-planned, the work is now bringing the artist’s idea to life. Artists will turn to the producer to help create the tones and sounds they want to portray emotion. A successful producer will have the knowledge to be able to create the tones that an artist is asking, with good communication skills playing a part in this as the producer will have to communicate well with the artist to know what sounds they need to achieve.
What are the duties and responsibilities of the profession – what does a typical day’s work involve?
A typical day’s work for a music producer can vary widely and can involve all different types of duties and responsibilities. On a day where they are not in the studio, a producer’s responsibilities will involve more organisation and planning. This may involve booking studio time and communicating with everyone that needs to be in the studio, to find a date and time that all parties are available for. On this sort of day a music producer may also plan ahead for the equipment that will be needed for an upcoming studio session, allowing the setup to be more efficient at the beginning of the session. On a day in the studio, the duties will still involve organisation and communication but will also involve more practical responsibilities. An efficient producer will be the first in the studio, potentially with any sound engineers, and will begin to set up the live room and the mixing desk. This includes organising the cable management to prevent any tripping hazards and arranging and noting the inputs so that they can swiftly record at any given time. Being this organised allows the artist to enter the studio and be ready to start working straight away. It also means that all the focus can be on the project, with less attention needed on setting up the studio.
What are the main financial and legal issues that impact on this profession?
Music producers have to be organised in documenting their contributions in order to be paid fairly.Royalties are a big part of the music industry and music producers have to be organised in how they negotiate their percentage of royalties, depending on how many responsibilities they took on during the making of the project. Royalties are collected from any types of media that uses the artist’s song, whether that be Mechanical Royalties from CDs or vinyls, or Streaming Royalties from when the song is used on streaming services. Shares of royalties are decided through contractual agreements, so music producers have to have a good understanding of contracts and how they are laid out to ensure that they will be paid fairly for how much work they did.
What would the potential marketing and promotional aspects of this profession look like?
Music producers can successfully promote and market themselves in many different ways through many different mediums of media. A lot of modern-day music producers have turned to social media platforms to promote and publicize their work. This may include posting videos of songs they’ve produced or showing footage of them working on a song to show people how they operate. This may bring along small amounts of revenue but the main impact from it is that it can make producers more known to artists and make it more likely for artists to reach out to them directly to produce their song or album. This expands the job opportunities for producers and builds them a following that attracts other artists to want to work with them. Social media is not the only way music producers market themselves, with a lot of producers creating their own website to display their work. Websites are a strong and professional way to display a digital portfolio that is easy to access and navigate. They can include a small biography about the producer and how they like to work, and can have many examples of the producer’s work, to give potential clients a clear overview of who they are and why they should work with them. Websites also typically include ways to contact the producer such as an email address, making it easier for labels to potentially reach out to them with business enquiries.
What are the intellectual and personal challenges presented by the profession and how might these be dealt with?
To be a music producer it takes a lot of perseverance, resilience, and self confidence to be successful. Producers will have a lot of challenges thrown their way that have to be persevered through to make it as a full-time producer. This can include struggling to find work in the beginning, or having a lot of full-on responsibility and managing lots of people. In the beginning, producers may find it difficult to find work opportunities, without having much of a reputation. This can be solved through networking and building an audience online. Music producers typically heavily rely on their connections with people for work, so networking is a very efficient way for producers to get to know artists personally, to increase the likelihood of collaboration in the future. Building an online audience also helps to build up a reputation and makes it easier for artists to reach out to producers for work. Taking on a lot of responsibility and managing a lot of people can be another challenge for music producers. This overwhelming amount of work can be dealt with through good organisational skills. Being well organised can help a producer know what they need to focus on at certain times and give them a clear overview of the job at hand, making it less daunting to take on jobs that require more responsibility to be taken.
What career-progression/development opportunities are available within the profession?
Many music producers progress in their employment in terms of how much responsibility they have and how much control they have over a project. A lot of music producers started out right at the bottom as runners, where their main job is to make coffees for the people working on the project, allowing them to observe how the professionals work. Many producers then progress from this to becoming studio engineers, where their main role is to set up the cables and instruments in the studio, and to ensure that everything is organised to maintain a fluid work environment. As their experience builds up, many producers will then begin to take on more responsibilities, whether that be operating the mixing desk or working closely with the artist. Experience is a crucial trait for music producers and is what helps them progress in the industry to be trusted to take on more responsibilities.
In conclusion, the profession of a music producer contains a wide variety of responsibilities and duties, including people management and achieving desired tones and sounds for an artist. It is clear that good organisation skills and good people skills are crucial to be successful as a music producer, as working with others is an inevitability and lots of things have to be considered to have an efficient work space. Experience is a key aspect that puts producers apart from each other, with progressing through the industry being based on how much experience you already have working in a studio. Networking and self-promoting are vital ways for producers to put their name out there and build connections with artists to spawn future collaborations.
