Music Producer's Creative Responsibilities:
1. Finding and selecting songs
2. Deciding the musical arrangement of those songs3. Getting the right takes and the right sounds in the session
Music Producer's Administrative Responsibilities
1. Finding Talent
2. Creating a budget and staying within the budget
3. Booking Studios and Engineers
4. Hiring composers, musicians, and other talent
5. Getting Musicians and other talent paid (keeping time sheets submitting union reports)
There are also different types of producers. This enables some of the responsibility to be placed with other professionals involved with the production. An executive producer tends to take on some of the administrative and/or business related responsibilities.
· Secures Finances
· Hires Musicians and Production Personnel
· Oversees (w/ attorney) any production related contractual agreements
The EP is involved in the production process right from the beginning. Often he/she is the one putting up the capital and taking the financial risk for the product along with the record label if there is one. The EP is hoping to make a solid return on his/her investment. Success depends heavily on having a marketable artist and an effective production process. The EP is not necessarily directly involved in the creative process; they are usually the financiers.
Now, there are producers with multiple skill sets. In other words, there are producers who can where several hats at once. This type of producer seems to be very prevalent in popular music today. Producer such as Timbaland, Pharrell, Kanye West, Will.I.Am, Dr. Dre, and many more are capable of writing lyrics, writing music, beat making, finding the talent, developing the talent, and much more. The skill set of a music producer is often dependent upon the musical genre. Many hip-hop producers are often associated with being the songwriters/arrangers because they create the music tracks.
Rock producers are less frequently the songwriters for their clients. They embellish musical ideas by creating arrangements, changing instrumentation, altering lyrics, overdubbing, etc. Nonetheless, all types of music production requires attention to detail.
All types of music production require some level of aptitude in regards to music theory and the sound recording/production process. You simply can't get around it!
