ryman said:
All good points Glen, but from my point of view working hard to improve one's own skills is probably more productive than worrying about what title someone gives themselves.
Well, by that logic, let's just start calling compressors equalizers (they equalize the volume, don't they?) and reverbs we'll call mixers (they do mix the sound up, don't they?). Oh, and every traditional producer is now called Quincy Jones, just so they're not mistaken for beatmasters. But we'll still also call equalizers equalizers, well still call mixers mixers, and we'll still call Quincy Jones and have him not return our calls
D). Now, let's talk about audio production and engineering and see just how far we can get how fast. It *does* matter.
Anyone familiar with Parade magazine that shows up in many Sunday newspapers across the country every week probably knows that they have an annual issue, "How Much Do We Make", that goes over a large sample of different career titles and jobs, literally from fry cook to rocket scientist. The cover of that issue always shows a series of picturs of people in all different walks of life along with their job title and annual salary.
The latest issue showed a guy from Texas that gave himself the title of Music Producer. From reading the article, he was basically a "producer" in the beatmaster sense, and not a traditional music producer in the vein of T-Bone Burnett or Quincy Jones. His stated anual salary, if I remember correctly, was somehwere in the mid twenty thousand dollar range.
Now, some high school junior or senior who is reading this article - and they are the demo that traditionally takes the most interest in that article - knows enough about music to know just what an actual music producer really is. He may be considering persuing a career in engineering or production. He sees that a music producer, someone near the top of the music food chain, is making only $25-$27K a year, and he is going to be *very* disappointed and *very* mislead. All because this guy in the magazine is representing himself as something he's not by, with utter disrespect for it's value, hijacking a title that does not belong to him.
It's that disrespect that bugs me the most. In fact, not even the disrespect for the title so much; it's the disrespect for the work ethic, the idea that all one needs is an 808 and an attitude and they too can be a "producer". They are deceiving themselves more than they are deceiving you or I. That's the part that's gonna hurt the most. It *does* matter.
G.