[MUSIC] Who are you, as a producer? For those of you taking this course who really want to produce, who maybe don't see yourself as an artist, or see yourself as an artist slash producer, it's good to ask yourself that question and make some distinctions. So first off the genres that you are comfortable working in. And that's one of the things that can kind of help you kind of figure out your identity as a producer. Also, clients, what kind of clients do you want to work with? And what kind of clients are you getting already? As producers, on the up side, we tend to not be quite as pigeonholed as artists, and that we can work in multiple genres a little bit easier, and go from genre to genre and work with artists from a wider spectrum. Having said that, often if you have some success with a CD or a record in a certain genre, you might wind up getting more clients from that particular genre. Whether it be you know, rock bands or singer songwriters, or hip hop artists, or dance artists, what have you. Sometimes you have to really seek out an artist from a genre that you're wanting to work with in order for that to happen. Then, what about your vibe? Do you have a really friendly vibe? Or are you one of these people who just make everybody feel really good about themselves? They're really happy to be there in your presence and working on this project. Or do you have maybe a cooler vibe? Are you after something that's a little more edgy or something in that has more to do with maybe an Indie genre or something like that you happen to be working with. Or you're very professional. Some producers are very, very professional and as soon as you get there you leave your personal life behind and it's just all about the work and trying to get things done and get them done on schedule and get them done professionally while still keeping, obviously, the vibe of the music. But the vibe is all just about the emotion that's in the music itself. A really important thing to think about is the hang factor. What we call the hang factor which, basically, means are you the kind of person people want to hang out with? I would much rather work with With someone who is good at what they do but a great hang than someone who is perhaps great at what they do but they're a real jerk. I mean nobody really wants to spend long 14 hour days around people who are not easy to hang out with or are just jerks. Then think about creating a safe place. If you're the producer on a project it's really your responsibility to set the tone, to set the vibe. And you're asking people to go out there and kind of lay their emotions bare. You're asking them to emote, you're asking them to share with the world some of their innermost thoughts and feelings, so creating a safe place, a safe environment can be a really important thing for your identity as a producer. And if you can make, people feel safe, a lot of times it's going to be part of what attracts artists to want to work with you. Then think about the skills that you bring to the table. Your musical chops, first off. Are you really good at playing? Do you play on the projects that you work on? Are you really good at writing and or arranging? Can you help the artist strengthen their material or even finish their material? What about programming? Are you really a programmer? Do you know your way around an Ableton Live? Are you really great at sound design? Can you make great sounds? And if not, that's fine but you might want to increase those skills or have somebody in your cadre of people that you might call that can do those kinds of things. Then listening. Obviously listening is super important. You've gotta be a good listener to be a good producer. And translating listening and what you're hearing into coaching, being able to coach players and singers to give the best performances that they can possibly give. Then of course there's technical skills, audio engineering skills, for instance. In recording, can you do that yourself or do you have someone else that you call on to do that? Editing. These days quantizing, tuning, all those things are a very integral part of a lot of recording projects. Do you do that yourself or do you farm that out to somebody? And then also mixing and mastering. There are some people who aspire to be, and a few people who are actually able to pull it off, to be kind of a one stop shop. Where you help with the production, you do the engineering, and then you even do the mixing and the mastering. Now mixing and mastering are two art forms in themselves, and some people devote their entire lives to be a great mixer, a great mastering engineer. But with low budgets and independent artists who are funding themselves, people who can kind of do it all can find a lot of work. Once of the problems with doing it all is you don't get other ears on the project so it's very hard to maintain your objectivity, when you're hearing something over and over and over again. Not saying it can't be done, but you've really gotta be good at it and you've gotta have some strategies to keeping that objectivity. Then your personal skills, and first and foremost, among this, we talked about your vibe and all that. Probably the most important personal skill, professional skill that you bring to this is attention to detail. There are so many details when you start producing records, from keeping your file management straight to labeling everything, to being able to find everything, to cleaning up the takes. There's so many things that you have to have just excellent attention to detail, and follow through. Getting the whole project done. Often, the artist does not have the chops themselves to follow through and they don't even know what the steps are. So having great attention to detail, great follow through to really get the the project completed can be hugely important. So take a little bit of time to think about who are you as a producer? Write down what you bring to the production process, what are you offering artists if they come to you to have you produce their record? And be able to articulate this to artists, potential clients that you might want to work with. So take a look at your notes and write them up and I'd like for you to post these to the producer identity workshop forum and comment on your colleagues' postings as well. Who knows, you might find people to collaborate with, you might even find some work.
