The mastering and mixing engineer, arrangers, producers, songwriters, artists, musicians – for only a few minutes of enjoyment out of your day, multiple careers spanning multiple disciplines and skillsets are heavily involved to create a great record. Between the studio and the phone you plug your headphones into, the makings of your favourite song is one with the fingerprints of countless individuals before it finally reaches yours.
It’s not unreasonable to ask why so much changing of hands needs to happen to a track that could barely be 3 minutes long – opening the credits tab of a song off Spotify, only to be hit by a list of 4 to 5 names spread across writers and producers, can be a confusing sight.
Both creatively and technically, the entire process of music production isn’t the most visible, and some stakeholders don’t have their fair share of credit because of this.
Who are the key individuals music production wouldn’t survive without? Let’s break it down to the must-knows of the process.
The Producer
In all, the title of producer arguably has the most variable set of responsibilities out of any one personnel you might see in a studio session. Boiling their tasks down to a single bullet point is nigh on impossible as a result, but a key heuristic that seems to be the common denominator for any successful producer is their ability to bring an artists’ vision to creative fruition, in service of either the artist themself, the track’s commercial performance, or a combination of both.
That said, in most cases, you’ll most typically see producers take on roles of:
- Setting the timeline for a track to finish production, encompassing the tasks that a track requires for completion – the projected budget, right people to reach out to on the project, making sure that deadlines are realistic, etc.
- Creative collaboration with the artist. The role here is much more subjective to the dynamics between producer and artist here, and fundamentally means interpreting their vision materially, while also consulting on their particular level of taste in the aesthetic direction of the track.
The Artist
The creative driver behind the music production lifecycle. Most likely the most salient and well recognised proponent of the song creation process, the recording artist has a straightforward job description – the creation and release of music, whether under their selves as individuals, a moniker, or a group.
No matter the collaborator, party or musician involved in production, in other words, tracks begin and end with a recording artist, leaving their creation and release entirely under their discretion. Whether you’re a D’Angelo, who takes over 10 years to arrange and release music with whole sections of musicians, or a Brockhampton, who might release one project after another while still digesting the last, the artist is the creative battery who decides when the time to power the production on an idea is ripe.
The Mastering and Mixing Engineer
Across the overlapping procedures of recording, editing and arranging, the mix engineer appears as required in the smorgasbord with the goal of comping separate trackings together, curating the holistic structure of the song.
Where multiple takes are normally recorded between instrumentation, vocals and other sonic elements, the mix engineer collects the best variations into a single final draft. Effects, tone and volume are then adjusted to give the track its character, before being sent to a mastering engineer.
Final touches, a considered polish fidelity and multi-platform distribution are all in the ballpark of mastering here, and places the role in heavy weight. The quality of your mastering could be the feature that makes or breaks your track from being as magical as it is in the studio, to being completely incoherent when blasting out of your car’s speakers.
And that’s the simple gist of what the studio environment might look like, if you’re stepping into a recording session. Ready to pick up a mastering or mixing engineer as part of your own recording process? Studio Chaddy is ready to help – reach out, we’ve got the team to help you create the sound you’re after.