From the book Poor & Famous-By Clive “Mono” Mukundu

It is an important business decision for an artist to pick the right producer who understands the type of music they want to do. It is also important to listen to what that particular producer produced before to see if they have the right sound that you are looking for because these days we have many studios and everybody says they can do it.

Please note that because of the digital era the duties and definition of a music producer now differ slightly from those of yesteryear. Basically, a music producer should not be confused with an executive producer, who is in charge of financing the project. Someone can also be a studio engineer but without being a music producer.

It is difficult to describe a music producer in one sentence, and it is very easy for anyone to fake being one, especially with the number of studios we have because of modern technology. Music production is not re-writing the music (although in some cases it is necessary) but developing the music to make it ready for the market. A music producer is an individual in charge of the final outcome of a music project. He is the one who gives creative guidance to the artiste and gathers ideas for the project. The producer supervises all aspects of the recording process, the music, the engineering, the session musicians, and at times the selection of songs.

Normally, good music producers are experienced musicians that have worked in bands and studios and acquired a great deal of knowledge firsthand. If you take a look at the world’s top music producers, 99 percent of them have that background. Some top-up that knowledge with a college production degree or diploma in music production but most of them learn the ropes by learning from a guru doing on-the-job training. Most famous Zimbabwean music producers from the analog era — including Bothwell Nyamhondera (drummer,) Peter Muparutsa and Kelly Rusike (bassists and vocalists), Isaac Chirwa (vocalist/multi-instrumentalist) — all started off as musicians in bands. They were then taught the ropes by mainly two producers/engineers, Steve Roskili and Martin Norris. None of them had college training. Here are some of the skills the music producer must possess.

Composition

An artist can come to the studio with a half-done song, it might be a song with verses only without a chorus. It is up to the producer to help the artiste create the chorus, or even compose the chorus themselves. The same applies to an artist who comes with a song that has a chorus only without verses. An artiste can also bring a song with not-so-good lyrics. It is up to the producer to help mold the lyrics, in this case, the producer will also have to be credited as a co-composer and there will be a need to sign a split sheet. The producer can also be the composer and compose songs for an artist who has the voice but cannot compose music.

Instrumentation

One common way of music production these days for artists without bands is for the artiste to come to the studio alone, then work with the producer to create the music backbone and direction, then call in session musicians and singers later. Now if the producer cannot play instruments, this will be difficult. The easiest instrument for such work is keyboards since you can imitate all other instruments which you will replace with live instruments when session musicians are called in. This brings us to the next point.

Music Directing

Just like a movie director, the producer helps the artiste to identify the right people to use on their album to produce the best results. The artiste might perform below their potential. It is the producer’s duty to motivate and push the artiste to perform to the required level.

Engineering Skills

If the tracks are recorded wrongly, the general sound quality of the project will be affected, and all the blame is directed at the music producer, so studio sound engineering knowledge is required for a good producer.

Good Ear

The producer must have a very good ear to be quick to pick out when a singer sings off-tune, when a musician plays off rhythm, or when an instrument is off tune.

Music Arrangement

The music arrangement is one very important skill for the music producer. If the music requires arranging, it is up to the producer to create the arrangements and teach the band. Music arrangement requires knowledge of harmony and time signatures.

The Digital Age Music Producer

The coming of the digital era brought so many changes to the music industry as a whole, significantly transforming the music producer’s role. It used to be prestigious for an artist to record at certain elite music studios. Every country had its own iconic studios. In Zimbabwe, we had Mosi-oa-Tunya Studios, housed by Gramma Records, and Shed Studios, where all yesteryear hits were produced. In the UK they had Abbey Road Studios where the Beatles recorded many hits. But with the coming in of modern technology, the focus shifted from iconic studios to iconic or superstar music producers. Some of the first modern-day digital producers who led the way in Zimbabwe included the late Fortune Muparutsa (who was one of the very first to prove that you can produce high-end quality music from little equipment using computers), Keith Farquharson, and Prince Tendayi Mupfurutsa’s Hi-Density Studio which housed a number of producers including Kuda Henry Matimba, Clancy Mbirimi, and Noel Zembe. There is also Andrew Baird who ran his studio in his garage with very little equipment that produced very high-quality music that included the then Celebration Choir and Delani Makhalima who took over from Fortune Muparutsa and was very instrumental in the growth of the Zimbabwean version of RnB that was later christened Urban Grooves.

With these new changes, it is now prestigious to record with superstar producers no matter how big or how small their equipment is, so the man behind the machine has become more important than the machine. Technology is also making it possible even to record high-end quality music even on smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Curtis Fields in the USA recorded a full album on his iPhone and won a Bet award in 2013.

All along the music producer role had very specific music production duties that differ from the music producer role of today. The most important of these duties was to lead, inspire and manage the creative direction of a music production from everyone involved. It also included discovering an artist. At times the role also came with managerial and administrative responsibilities.

The analog era producer did not necessarily need to be a studio engineer or an instrumentalist. I remember when I started out in the music industry, some of the producers in Zimbabwe did not even know how to operate the studio equipment. They would just stand in the control room with an engineer who would be doing the bulk of the work and give a few orders here and there, usually, stuff that had to do with timekeeping since one of his worries was to make sure the musicians do not waste precious studio time in such cases where the record company did not own the studio, for example, the record company is known as RTP did not own a studio so they hired studio space from Gramma records. If the music needed to be polished in some areas, they did not have time for that and would cancel the recording session and tell you to go practice, polish up and come back with polished material. They did not have time to polish you up in the studio. A few of the producers who were not musicians seemed to have no clue on how to fix the problems, they would simply point you to your problem areas in general terms and tell you to go fix it. In the current digital age, an artist can come to the studio empty-handed and the producer has to provide everything musically.

With the coming of the digital era, there has been a big shift of things and these trends have been witnessed the whole world over. The modern-day music producer now wears a lot of hats in music production, such as co-composer, writer, beat/riddim maker, arranger, session musician, recording and mixing engineer, and mastering engineer too. He also has to be able to use music software to tune the singer’s voice if the singer is beyond correction to sing in pitch. He also has to be good at programming drums/percussion and editing too.

The old music producer model is fast becoming extinct. That model came from the successful era when record sales funded the growth of the music industry. Some are suggesting that even the title of music producer be elevated to music creator or another title because in this era if you cannot do everything as a producer you will not last, artists now want a one-stop-shop. You cannot just stand there and give orders to the band like some producers in the analog era because at times the artiste will even come without a band. It is very common these days for an artist to come to the studio without a band expecting the producer to create everything from the drum pattern, bassline, keyboards, guitar, co-composing, or even composing. Sometimes this does not mean you have to play everything on your own, because that has a danger of ending up having all the songs you produce sounding the same, so the idea would be to shape and arrange the music at first before calling in session musicians to come to add their feel and make the music richer. In many cases where this system is used usually the drummer plays last.

TYPES OF MUSIC PRODUCERS AND STRENGTHS

Musicality

Each music producer has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some producers are stronger on the musicality and the instrumentation part of the project. They are very creative and have many ideas to enrich the instrumentation. In genres like hip hop, EDM, dancehall, and reggae, they are more of what are known as beat or riddim creators. Some argue that beatmakers cannot be called producers but their creative process is also music production. They are usually very good at arranging the music.

Vocals

Hip-hop, Pop, EDM, Dancehall, and Reggae gave rise to the need for a vocal producer because some of the beatmaker producers will not be very gifted in producing vocals, or will be limited in strength in that area. In modern times, the idea of a vocal producer has even spread to all other genres that do not have beat-maker producers. These genres include Country music and African genres.

Technicality

There are producers who are very creative when it comes to technicalities. They are more conversant with engineering and technology. If you give them a computer with a DAW of their choice, ideas flow through their mind more than when without.

There are artists that can compose their vocal melodies and write the lyrics but are not very gifted when it comes to creating other instrumental and vocal parts of their music. On the other hand, some artists are all-around composers who are able to compose their vocal melodies, write the lyrics and compose the individual instruments, too. This category includes self-contained bands. So, in other words, such artists also have production skills but that does not necessarily mean that they do not need a producer, the producer will contribute more on the technical and engineering side.

Some might argue that in this case, the producer would just be reduced to an engineer, but if the same artiste and all his ideas work with two different producers, whilst giving them all the instrumental parts, or if it’s a self-contained band and they work with different producers, there is something about the products that will tell you that this particular track was produced by producer A and that one by producer B. This is mainly because there are always some technical decisions that the producer will make, even subconsciously, that will drive the music in a certain direction. In fact, the act of simply capturing the sound also falls under music production because if the sound is not captured well, the product suffers. Remember, the producer is in charge of the product outcome.

I have worked for a musician who was an all-around composer. He would compose and give each instrumentalist, except for the guitarist, what to play. Every time he changed producers, you could tell that the sound had changed. One time he worked under a seasoned producer for about 10 years. They produced many internationally acclaimed albums, then he decided to buy the same equipment the producer used and started producing his own music. There was a very big change in the sound quality.

This makes it difficult to rule out the producer’s contributions to the music. At times his contributions are not considered that much because they are done in silence or behind the scenes. He just decides to change ideas on the music silently while a producer who is not working on the machine has to speak out his contributions. As a result, the latter’s contributions are more noticeable and easily acknowledged.

In his book, Modern Record Production, American music producer, songwriter, and author, John Boylan, explains that there are basically two types of music producers — the Obstetrician and Author Style Producer.

The Obstetrician Producer (midwife) is more concerned with the birthing or delivery of what the artist has in his mind. It is more of maintaining the integrity of the art without interfering much in the creative process. They usually work with self-contained bands and singer-songwriters. Usually, producers in this category do not have an individual distinct sound as the Author-Type Producer. So, the obstetric music producers’ work will only be similar in the high quality of the production. He gave examples of Jerry Wexler, George Martin, Peter Asher, Tony Brown, Don Was, and Robert John “Mutt” Lange. In Zimbabwe, I think producers like Bothwell Nyamhondera, Tymon Mabaleka, Jabulani Ndlovu, and Peter Muparutsa fall into this category.

The Author-Type Producer is the one who interferes in almost every aspect of the music, including its composition at times. They are as responsible for the music content just as the artiste and usually all their productions have a very unmistakable distinct sound. They do more than one job. John Boylan calls them “hyphenate”, meaning someone who does more than one job — engineering, songwriting, and producing. He cited Phil Specter, L. A. Reid and Babyface, David Foster, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis as examples. In Zimbabwe, producers like Lyton Ngolomi and Macdonald “Macdee” Chidavaenzi fall into this category because their productions have a distinct sound.

But there are also music producers who use both styles of production but depend on who they are working with. John Boylan singled out the legendary Quincy Jones. I also use both styles depending on the artiste I am working with within my productions.

Producer Agreements

It is very important to have a signed agreement before working with anybody in the music industry. It must be standard practice before engaging a music producer.  The artist or band must have a signed agreement with the producer. Although there is no one fixed form of agreement, here are some of the basic types of producer agreements. You can pick some points on each example to tailor-make one that suits your situation.

Record Company Producer Agreement

In this agreement, the producer is hired by the record company and the producer’s payment is initially done by the record company, who will then deduct the money from the band’s royalties when the music is released. The producer would be paid a fixed fee plus a percentage of the royalties depending on the agreement. He would be in charge of some administrative roles like choosing the studio to use and also picking and paying session artists.

Artiste-Producer Agreement

In this case, the artist chooses and hires the producer. The payment terms are usually a flat fee per song plus a percentage of the royalties.

Demo Agreement

This agreement is usually done when the artiste is still shopping for a record deal. The producer produces the music without upfront payment but would get part ownership of the music which makes him entitled to the royalties, percentage of the advance payments, percentage of publishing rights, and merchandise, but this all depends on the agreement signed.

The Zimbabwean Context

In Zimbabwe before the digital era, we basically had two music companies only, their producers were in-house producers paid by the companies on a fixed salary, and they were also awarded not more than 3 percent of the artiste’s royalties. This was a lot of money before the piracy period considering that each producer would produce a good number of artists. So for demos, recording artists would basically produce themselves.

The record companies did not basically rely on demo tapes alone, at times they did live auditions where the artists would perform for the producers in front of them. If they passed, they would be recorded for free under contract. In this system, the artists did not have any signed agreement with the music producer and the producer had all the creative control over the recording.

With the coming of the digital age in Zimbabwe, all major record companies collapsed, mainly due to music piracy. The digital age also saw the rise of many studios and many new music producers and a whole new system altogether. In this system, there are basically no agreements signed because it is largely informal. The artiste pays for everything which means he retains all artistic control of the product, and then takes the master and markets the music on his own. The only agreements signed are usually between the artiste and whoever would market his music, but since artists usually do everything on their own very few agreements are signed.

Ghost Producer

This is a big topic worldwide in electronic dance music (EDM) circles. For a DJ to be popular so that he gets a lot of jobs ahead of his competitors, he needs to release music under his name. Since he cannot sing, he has to hire someone to sing or he can get a popular artiste to collaborate with, which will give him more mileage and he has to create and produce the music otherwise it would not make sense to put his name on the song. But the problem is, many are not gifted in that area, so this gave rise to the need to have what we now know as ghost producers.

A ghost producer is the one who creates all the music for the DJ but without being credited, so all the credit goes to the DJ for a fee. Internationally, the fees usually range from $5000 to $30 000 depending on the producer’s reputation. But you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement, stating that you will keep it a secret. So you will enjoy the money for two days’ work of studio time but you will endure the pain of watching the DJ lecture people on TV on how he “produced” the music when you know it is you who did everything.

But it is not all DJs who cannot produce or contribute ideas to the music. Some can just stick around during the creative process and contribute some instrumental lines and other material which will earn them the title co-producer, so usually, such DJs will credit their main producer but the title depends on the agreement. Zimbabwe is not much of an EDM country so ghost production is not a big thing.

RESEARCH ABOUT THE PRODUCER, THEN TRUST HIM:

Every once in a while I always encounter new artists who, when you are working with them on their new projects, go to all their relatives, acquaintances & friends asking them to judge if the music is ok & if the producer is doing a good job. Unfortunately, with music, everybody has something to say, everybody considers themselves an expert. So you will end up with 200 good ideas when you just need one.

Then the producer gets a call from her uncle who is a bricklayer telling him “The song is not right, there is no guitar”…Producer: “No, uncle, we haven’t done overdubs yet, right now we are just concentrating on the vocals”. Uncle: “What are overdubs”?

Then a Whatsapp voice note from the sister’s husband who is a banker. “The melody of the whole album is not good…,
Producer” There is nothing like the melody of the whole album, do you know the definition of the word melody?…What exactly do you mean?”…Silence.

A call from the artist’s cousin who is a bus driver: “I can’t hear the bass well”. The producer: “This is what we call a rough mix; it’s not mixed yet, after mixing everything will be clear”.

New female artists are the majority of people who have that problem. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, most of them feel a male friend or relative has to validate whatever they are doing for them to believe they are on the right track. You can get a call from her male friend who is a sales rep at a shoe company telling you “I don’t like the mixing, the voice is over there, and the instruments are over there”…Producer: “I’m sorry that doesn’t mean anything, can you be specific, do you have a problem with the balancing, the EQ, the compression, the application of effects, or what? What do you think needs adjustment”. Sales Rep: “I don’t understand that jargon”. Producer: “Those are some of the common elements of mixing, I want you to pinpoint where we have to adjust”….silence…

Since everybody thinks they are music experts, some are bold enough to attempt teaching the producer such sacred topics as mixing &mastering. Mixing &mastering is such a highly technical job, it is the hard hat area of music production. That is why you do not see music critics in newspapers and blogs critiquing mixing & mastering. Many established musicians worldwide do not even know anything about it, & they don’t even pretend to either. Even some music engineers, including some music producers, stay away from that topic. Now for something that even other musicians, music engineers, and music producers avoid, how can someone who is not even in the music industry be bold enough to tell an experienced mixing & mastering engineer how to do their job?

I don’t mean opinions are not welcome, but there are 3 crucial things a musician must consider when seeking opinions:
1:Opinions must come at the right time, an opinion that comes too early is nothing but disturbance. It’s like telling someone “when the water boils add the tea leaves”, that’s what they were going to do even if you didn’t tell them.

2: If the topic is music creation it’s best to ask practitioners. A mature professional does not give a comment for the sake of making an impression; they speak because they have something to say. A comment made for an impression leaves more harm than good. If there is a need for correction a professional will give constructive criticism, he will break down the comment & tell you where to fix it, not a blanket meaningless unconstructive rant disguised as a comment.

3:Ordinary people are the best to tell whether the music is a hit or not, BUT,
just because one can tell whether the taste of bread is good or bad does not make them an authority on baking the bread, so they can’t tell the baker how many sugars to add, that’s a technical area left to the practitioners.

The same with music, just because one can make a distinction between a boring song and a hit song does not make one an expert on the creation process. If you ask them, obviously they will always have something to say, there is too much information about the music industry in books & online to fool any reader to think that they are now experts, & only an expert can tell that they are just bubbling, everybody else can be fooled.

When seeking opinions many people are influenced by the halo effect. This is a tendency to think that just because someone is good in one area, he knows everything concerning that subject. eg. If someone is a great driver then he must know everything about mechanics, if someone is a popular DJ or journalist then he must know everything about music creation, it’s very easy to skip a quiet expert & seek a loud-mouthed novice. So great wisdom is needed when seeking advice.

In conclusion: when creating music you do not need 50 people with great ideas, you need one person to make a final judgment, that person is called the music producer. Before an artist engages a producer, they must do research on them, find out what they have done before, what their strengths & weaknesses are, & even how professional they are, then trust them. Sending unfinished work to people is not safe, that’s when the music ends up getting plagiarised (stolen) too, & with a music studio of some sort in every street, it is very easy to do that these days.

EVERYBODY IS A MUSIC EXPERT:

There is a certain arts forum that I participate in every once in a while. We have meetings that last the whole day. We discuss theatre, sculpture, music, etc. The moderators know that when it’s time to discuss one certain topic you really need all the energy, concentration, and a clear mind. So every time that topic is always discussed last, and it’s always discussed after lunch, when everybody has got all the energy, and it takes hours to finish, that topic is music.

The reason is that with music, everybody is an expert. Some are experts because they once sang in a choir, some are experts because they own a radio, some are experts because they are close friends with a musician or related to one, and everybody is an expert.

So I and my other music panellists have to be very patient to explain in layman terms to our other non-musician experts why we do not endorse certain music by explaining such things as intonation, chord progressions, time signatures, mixing, mastering, etc. and explain how such things affect a music product’s quality and integrity. I know of a few artists whose last 3 or 4 albums have the exact chord progression sequence, I know songs that have made it in the charts but with instruments that were not tuned properly, or the singers were singing off-key, those are serious flaws if one understands the technicalities of music, but for someone who does not have a certain amount of musical literacy it does not matter as long as the song has numbers in terms of fans, & yes a song can be a hit with some of those flaws, but there are certain accolades it can never be given. An album mixed and mastered badly can become a hit simply because of its lyrical prowess and the musicianship displayed on the song, but when we decide to list songs with the best mixing and mastering we cannot include it, obviously, the “music experts” in the street will crucify you for that because they cannot tell the difference between a mastered product and one which is not, what matters is “is it a good song?,” and “Did it enter the top 10 charts”, yes it entered the charts, but the mixing was crap.

That’s the nature of music. It’s easy to discuss other aspects of music such as aesthetics, but when it comes to technicalities there are certain areas that should be left to practitioners only. Those that have a certain level of musical literacy, especially those that can play an instrument, even at the amateur level. This is the reason why I wish all media houses should appoint people who are really musically literate to sit on the entertainment desk and analyze music and give constructive criticism The reason why it is called constructive criticism is that it points you to your mistake, then tell you how to fix it, in other words after tearing the artist down with criticism, you construct him back by pointing out areas that need fixing. That is why simply telling a musician that his song is “Boring” or “Uninspiring” cannot be called constructive criticism. Constructive criticism will break down the song, element by element, and point out why the music is boring. Was it the chord progression? (Yes there are hit-making chord progressions, the current one being the 6/4/5/1 progression and the all-time 1/4/1/5 progression.) Was it the tempo, was it because he used the same melody on the verse and chorus, constructive criticism must address all those areas, not just telling a musician that his song sucks, that’s too shallow.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MUSIC PRODUCER AND AN ENGINEER

These days there are debates now and then concerning the difference between music production and engineering. I had an interesting discussion with a fellow Zimbabwean musician who wanted to hear my views on modern-day Zimbabwean music producers & the difference between modern-day music production and the analog era production style. He also wanted to know my thoughts on the difference between a producer & an engineer because he thought that most of our modern-day home studios music producers are just mere engineers.

I also talked to one veteran studio engineer who worked in a number of regional professional music studios, he was of the opinion that a music producer is somebody who has to be well versed with all the necessary audio gear hardware, not just the software, he went on further to say that if the so-called laptop music producer does not understand signal flow, audio chain and other analog studio basics he is not a fully qualified music producer, I then reminded him of artists like Curtis Fields who won a 2013 BET award for an album he produced and recorded entirely on an iPhone, using apps only without any traditional professional studio hardware. It is important to note that basically music production is about production decisions, although it is a necessary requirement for the producer to know his gear we cannot come to the conclusion that if he does not know much about hardware then he is not a music producer, because a music producer can even produce music without knowledge of engineering and work with an engineer, I operated that way when I worked part-time as a music producer for Ngaavongwe records year 2001, and the late Raymond Makahamadze from RTP used to do the same during the analog era, they would book studios at Gramma records together with the engineer, that is how he produced us when we did the album Ruvengo as Chikokoko in 1992, he was the producer and Bothwell Nyamhondera was the engineer on the session.

The main difference between a music producer and an engineer is as follows, although most, if not all music producers are also engineers, it is not all engineers who are music producers, audio engineering involves having technical knowhow of operating studio equipment, therefore an engineer is generally a technician, but a music producer goes a step further, a music producer has a creative gift of contributing to the actual creation of the music, overseeing the whole production process. An engineer can work under a producer but a producer cannot work under an engineer.

 Since the dawn of the digital age, there have been some changes. Although the term “Music producer” is ambiguous to some extent, one major difference between analog era music production & modern-day music production is that in this dispensation it is now very difficult to separate engineering from production, because during engineering there are now far too many crucial decisions that the engineer does quietly that cannot be dismissed merely as just part of engineering, especially when it comes to programming, choosing the right samples & choosing loops to use, creating the bass lines, creating the keyboard lines, etc., all those are production decisions, but it’s easy to overlook & downplay the contributions since the guy does it quietly on the computer, but if it was a case where he would audibly announce every little thing he would be doing it would be easy to give him his credit. You might call him an assistant producer if there is an assigned producer prior to the session, but you can’t rule out his production contributions, that would be plagiarism & also very unfair. That is the very reason why if you record the same song at 2 different studios it won’t sound 100% the same.

It’s different from the analog era way of doing things where every band would come to the studio as a complete band, having worked on all the musical arrangements, all the intros & outros, and all the vocal parts, in such cases the producer wouldn’t contribute much, at times he wouldn’t even contribute anything, but he would be credited as the producer simply because he would be the one with the final say, of which since the term producer is also very ambiguous it was also correct. I remember 99% of the recordings that I took part in during the analog era starting from my very first recording where we did Somandla Ndebele’s very first album that we recorded in February 1992, we went to the studio having polished every single angle of every single song to the extent that we did everything in one takes, from the first song to the last song with no stopping.

These days worldwide it’s now very rare for artists to come to the studio with full well-practiced bands, having polished every single arrangement of the music like we used to do during the analog dispensation, at my studio, I usually get such bands once in 2 or 3 months. When you have such bands being called just an engineer does not hurt.

Having said that the new school music producers are now wearing lots of hats because the majority of artists these days come without bands to the studio & the producer has to contribute everything at times, some artists come with fragmented songs & the producer has to knot everything together.