Panda wrote:Hi!
Hi!
I'll try to ask my question in the most straightforward way I can: what are the minimum requirements for someone to be the "producer" of a record?
That he/she decides to call themselves "producer".
That may not be very helpful, but it's the reality of the situation - it's not a protected/licensed title and there's not even a widespread consensus of its meaning.
The situation is: the guy that recorded and mixed a record of my music is claiming that title, whereas I have the feeling he did just that: record and mix (and did a great job at both of those by the way).
So is there a way to draw the line?
Not really. My best understanding of the word in general terms is that "producer" is anyone who leads the work in getting from an idea to actual finished, packaged product. That implies a lot of things and depending on the organization and the team the producer may be doing the work him/herself or simply coordinate, organize and lead. These tasks can go from the menial to the huge and from the business to the artistic. The world implies a degree of independence and decision-making authority ("executive" producer) but beyond that things become fuzzy.
In music there's a more specific meaning as someone who takes a raw, skeletal idea and creates the arrangement, finds the right sounds, ensures they are recorded and mixed in properly and so on, and overall shares or even defines a vision for the final product together with the artist - sonically and even image-wise sometimes. It's simply a subset of the role above - since all the rest of the stuff needs doing anyways.
Examples:
- is there a studio to find where to record? Find it! (and make sure it works with the budget!)
- is there a song to mix? Ensure it gets mixed!
- is there a recording to do ? Ensure the recording happens!
- is the song not up to par! Improve it - add parts, change the mix, decide the sound
- add/remake a bass part because there's need of it.
In practice most independent artist are executive producers of themselves. They may sometimes find a producer in the "musical" sense if they feel that their ideas can benefit from someone else's vision (or, more commonly, if the label which is funding the job does).
But really, it may mean all and nothing.
In your case, unless the guy has done somethign with the song to make it substantially different, I'd say it's just recorded and mixed - but then again, he may have chosen ways of recording, selected how the flow of the song goes etc so he may be entitled to the "title".
The flip side is that it doesn't matter much at all - other than for building a reputation.