Last night, the Music Producers Guild (MPG) held their annual award ceremony, at London’s renowned Café De Paris. The event, now in its third year, is intended to raise public awareness of the importance of production, as well as to recognise the successes and achievements of producers and engineers.
The award for Producer Of The Year was presented to Markus Dravs, for his work on Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs and Mumford & Sons’ Sigh No More (you can read about the mixing of that album’s first single, ‘Little Lion Man’, in the March issue of Sound On Sound). Among the 15 awards presented, the Producer Of The Year accolade is unique in that, thanks to the MPG’s involvement with the British Phonographic Industry, its winner will also be presented with a Brit Award for Best Producer, at the Brit Awards ceremony next week.
Guy Massey, meanwhile, won the Prism Sound-sponsored award for Recording Engineer Of The Year (you can read about his remastering work on the Beatles’ back catalogue at www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct09/articles/beatlesremasters.htm). Solid State Logic sponsored the award for Mix Engineer Of The Year, which went to Mark Stent, aka Spike, whose mixing techniques we recently explored in the pages of SOS (www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb10/articles/it_0210.htm).
SADiE sponsored the Mastering Engineer Of The Year award, which was presented to Tim Young, who in the last year has worked with such artists as Massive Attack, the Pet Shop Boys and Take That. The International Producer Of The Year award was sponsored by Grove Studios, and that accolade went to Daniel Lanois, whose work in the past year includes recording Neil Young’s latest album, Le Noise (www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb11/articles/lanois-young.htm).
There was also an award given for Live Album Of The Year (sponsored by Shure), and that honour went to BBC Electric Proms 2009. Butterfly House by the Coral was crowned UK Album Of The Year — an award sponsored by Focusrite — while the PMC-supported UK Single Of The Year award went to Plan B’s single, ‘She Said’.
Outboard manufacturers Joe Meek sponsored the award for Innovation In Production, which was won by Tony Visconti. Well known for his work with David Bowie, some of Visconti’s unique production tricks can be read about in our October 2004 article on the recording of Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ (www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct04/articles/classictracks.htm). James Rutledge has remixed tracks by many artists, including Everything Everything, Bloc Party and the Kills, and it was he who picked up the Novation-sponsored award for Remixer Of The Year. Deep Recording Studios sponsored the Breakthrough Producer Of The Year award, which was presented to Eliot James, who’s had a hand in releases by Kaiser Chiefs, Noah & The Whale and Kate Nash, to name but a few.
Genelec sponsored the award for Breakthrough Engineer Of The Year, which went to Jake Jackson, while the Studio Of The Year award, sponsored by Music Week, went to world-renowned London premises Air.
Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) sponsored the award for Outstanding Contribution To UK Music, which went to veteran producer and Mute Records founder Daniel Miller. Finally, trade publication Pro Sound News sponsored, and chose the winner of, the Unsung Hero award — which this year went to Adam Sieff, Communications Director for Dune Music and co-founder of new record label Jazzlotion.
We’d like to congratulate everyone who won an award this year, and applaud the MPG’s noble efforts to raise the profile of producers in the music industry.
