Producing Etc...

[LilOrange]

Hello, 

 

can anyone explain to me how does the process of producing and everything go?

So, for example, I record my song and send it to a producer who makes a demo, then what? Send it to a potential singer or a label? Do they than reproduce it? I´m not sure how does that go. Also, if I work with one producer, can I work with others too? Or how does that go?

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited November 27, 2013 by LilOrange

[Xenicus]

A producer will be in on the project right from the beginning. Help with the arrangements of the music, help make it sellable (Sometimes) They will guide you to make the best possible music. Pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat as it were. Different producers will get different sounds out of you and the musicians. Sometimes but not always they will take it to industry friends. But for the most part Indie musicians will sell it and promote it them selves. Hope this helps.

Brian

[john]

Hey

The answer to this comes down to a change in meaning of the word producer, more with amateurs abusing a term they misunderstand than a real change of meaning, though there are some legitimate grounds due to the creep in responsibility for some producers.

Traditionally there are two types or levels of producers. One type takes on getting the best out the musicians in the studio, and helping pull the recording into a cohesive sound, pulling in sound engineers and session people, using specific studios etc to get a "sound". The other type does that plus project manages the whole recording process including budget responsibility.

The rise of home studios resulted in a broadening of the remit. Genres that relied heavily on electronics and software, such as electronica genres, dance/club music, hip hop derived genres, often had a lyricist / vocalist and everything else, from music writing to recording, audio engineering, synthesis, effects, samples etc, was handled by one other person, who quite literally "produced the music". This type of producer role opened the doorway for DJs to crossover, broadening their music creation skills from spinning records to more in depth loop building, sampling and synthesis. You find modern pop producers like Mark Ronson have that type of background.

You can hire producers of any kind on a per song basis, though often established artists engage them on a per album basis if only to help the tracks sit well together.

The traditional method was writer creates demo, demo gets pitched to artists, artists hire producers to create a polished commercial version of the song. You can have several artists recording the same song depending on the agreement. The publisher is the one that gets bands and fim production companies involved. Labels and artists are responsible for specific versions of the song, specific recordings. They plug that to radio stations, tv and film companies and more.

The modern industry has changed a little. With the rise of better quality home recording systems and biz aware indie artists, the industry aren't really looking for demo recordings like they once were, they look for finished recordings, finished arrangements. That is fine for singer songwriters who perform their own material, but more of a problem for writers who don't perform, but then the audience is different. Singer songwriters pitch songs to publishers and a package including songs to labels. Non-performing writers, however, really can target bands as much as publishers. The reasoning is simple. Publishers like to know there is a vehicle out there, ready to start earning. By targeting bands first, they produce finished recordings which can be used to shop the song around. In part the most common approach is lead by what genres you write for. Where providing finished recordings to publishers can be helpful is for plugging the song to tv and film production companies advertising companies even music libraries (if appropriate) where the direct association with an artist is NOT necessary.

There's more but I have to go for now. Talk to you soon.

[LilOrange]

Thanks everyone for the reply!

 

So, I started to work with one producer, but the thing is, I feel like he changes my songs too much so they almost sound like remixes lol, and also he always makes just a half of the song not the whole song, I don´t know why. Anyway, he told me I should open a youtube account and upload my music there, but I don´t want to upload just half of a song. Do you think it would be a good thing to also upload raw unproduced songs? And yeah, any tips for finding a good producer?

[rdean101]

Have you asked him/her why they are doing half the song? Sounds a little weird to me. As for uploading unproduced/raw songs to Youtube, I would advise against it. When you put your stuff out there for the world to see you want it to be as good as possible. Just my advise.