Stop calling yourself a "PRODUCER".

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This one is a fun read....

I think I get the OP, but maybe just don't feel as strongly about it...I might if I was an actual producer, since the current uses of the term seem to dillute its meaning a bit...

As far as sampling though...I am all for it. Frankly, in most of the '90's rap I have listened to, samples are often taken from obscure '60's & '70's tunes that I don't really like in their original form. They chop 'em up and combine them with other sounds to create something wholly new...and it sounds better...cool.

Even if the original track being sampled is one I like (james brown and funkadelic come to mind as commonly sampled), so much the better. I love hearing a familiar snippet reused in a new way.
 
Mindset said:
wow.
my only words to this thread. lol

IDK.. I am a =producer= myself. A hip hop producer. :eek:
The generalization around here is pretty out there.... lol
Couple questions..... not that I am for pirating software (because I'm not), but how is the use of "pirated software" make you not a producer? I really don't think it has anything to do with production lol.
Sampling... Personally I do it all, live to samples. But sampling does not constitute that the initial intentions was to "steal" someones work.. I have friends who are "producers" who win Grammy's & their music is a whole lot more dynamic than I'ld say 70% of the people hmm I'ld say in this forum. :confused:

Let it all be music.
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Cool! Who are your friends who've won Grammys? We've probably bought their stuff.

I think it's a bit unfair to compare them to bedroom hobbyists though.
 
rayc said:
Does the rhythm section of Barracudda become a Heart Beat?
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No, because they stole that beat from Led Zeppelin :p

I like Glen's example though. So doing a few lines of nose candy while interjecting "That's hot" every few takes and saying "I think this would sound better in Dobly" has more to do with accountancy than a composer creating a backing track to a rap vocal? Hmm, you might be right there, you just might be right :p
 
RAMI,

now why did'ja open this big can of worms?


I've worked with very few producers, mind you, but the ones I did work with didn't know recording (that's what the engineer is for), couldn't play music (that's what the musician is for), couldn't select a microphone to save his life (that's what the engineer is for), but he could whip the band into a performance that made you proud to listen to at the end of the day, that was the best you could have ever done. He could make the engineer feel upbeat and great about the sounds that were coming over the monitors. He could get the singer to sing the same vocal line 1000 times and it kept getting better each time. He could hear something in the music that either made it worth keeping or throw it away. He had the 'ears' and the band trusted him.

It's like having your ultimate fan that doesn't BS you when it sounds bad.

As well, you could trust that if the producer gave 'the' nod, that meant that the take was a good one and worth keeping and you could go to sleep at night not worrying that you just recorded a huge pile of crap that was going to sound horrible the next day, and you just blew $120/hour.
 
Mindset said:
I am a =producer= myself.
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Under which definition? Or, simply, what is your definition of "producer"?

I'm not saying you are or you aren't one thing or another; in fact I'm under the impression that you have your sh_t together better than your average forum member in any genre. It's just that for most of us that work in other genres of music, we have no idea what you actually mean when you say that you're a "producer". Coming from any other genre, we know what that means, but from the hip hop community, we don't know what to make of that because you have several different working definitions of what "producer" actually means.

And no, that is NOT a dig against hip hip or anything racial whatsoever. It's simply stating a simple fact that you can go to any genre of music from anywhere in the world, and hip hop is the only one where this linguistic problem occurs. There is no doubt as to what a country, reggae, Italian opera, Baptist Gospel, Tuvan throat singing, etc. music producer actually does, because they all share the same definition, regardless of the race, creed, color or spiritual bent of the music or musician involved. It's only hip hop where the problem rears itself.

And that, BTW, includes hip hop "produsas" of every color form every corner of the globe. A couple of years ago I was solicited to mix some tracks from a white hip hop band based in Russia, and the same problem existed when I tried to reach out and find out if they had someone acting as their producer who I needed to work with. It turned into an Abbot & Costello routine with a thick St. Petersberg accent, because they had no idea what I meant by the traditional definition of "producer". They had no idea that such people even existed.

So let's drop any pretense of haters (at least with me), or of whether one steals loops or makes their own, because that is all irrelevant, IMHO. Even if one composes and makes their own rhythm tracks from scratch, how does that differ from any other self-recording musician? What is it that turns them into a producer and not a musician?

Or, what really has me curious, what happens when that "produca" actually is good enough to get a contract - or at least a tryout - with a label that actually assigns their own traditional producer to the project? When someone calls out, "Phone call for the producer", which one should pick up the phone?

G.
 
Who wants to be a producer anyway? I wanna be an A&R guy. That job just involves drinking, and I already have a black leather casting couch :D
 
Am I the only one who could care less whether or not rap has a beat that is more complex than a 1-2 measure bassline, and a kick drum and snare alternating? It's all about the words, anyway...
 
noisedude said:
Cool! Who are your friends who've won Grammys? We've probably bought their stuff.

I think it's a bit unfair to compare them to bedroom hobbyists though.
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Kanye & Tony
Dre
Mike Doty (Wu Tang)

mshilarious said:
No, because they stole that beat from Led Zeppelin
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who did!? I'm telling! They should be moving down here in Feb. or March.

SouthSIDE Glen, Thanks ;)
Why Am I A Producer?
I commonly or, more of work mostly as, find myself in the producer role in 99.9999% percent of any projects I encounter. As a producer w/ a label, I'm responsible for the whole project, usually also responsible for the budgets that come in for X projects. As a producer, my task is to "envision" the final project, and by any means & methods, get my production team to put that vision into a final project. Utilizing artists, songwriters etc etc... so basically...
A Record Producer.

Now when I'm not producing a record, I find myself producing musical pieces themselves, regularly (depending on it being a recording year or not). So part of the year, I'm "labeled" as a Music Producer. Not as much these recent days as I hired on a couple music producers.

Good part of it is that instead of trying to have the engineer envision & lay the neccessary down, I do it myself being an engineer by trade.

I refuse to label myself as a producer of a certain genre of music, though Hip Hop/Rap/R&B & Soul are my main focus & business.
 
eternalpayn said:
Am I the only one who could care less whether or not rap has a beat that is more complex than a 1-2 measure bassline, and a kick drum and snare alternating? It's all about the words, anyway...
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I KINDA feel the same way, but I can't say it's all about the words. Not for me. The instruments accompany the artist, and allows vast emotions. Remember... Voice IS an instrument too..
 
Mindset said:
Kanye & Tony
Dre
Mike Doty (Wu Tang)
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So your claim is that their music is more dynamic than 70% of users on this forum? I don't know what you mean by dynamic but I think it'd be hard to disagree with you.

And they ARE producers, they use studios, they run creative projects and they oversee the making of records.

That is not the sort of person this thread is about.

Contrast what they do (and perhaps what you do, I don't know you!) to some kid in his bedroom with a cracked copy of Fruity and a bunch of unlicensed samples. Hey, it's great that he wants to make music and all .... but that guy is NOT a producer. He's a guy who tries to make music for a hobby and maybe wants to be a producer one day, no more, no less.

Oh ........ and your Myspace is unreadable in Firefox, the boxes are translucent and get lost over the background. ;)
 
noisedude said:
So your claim is that their music is more dynamic than 70% of users on this forum? I don't know what you mean by dynamic but I think it'd be hard to disagree with you.

And they ARE producers, they use studios, they run creative projects and they oversee the making of records.

That is not the sort of person this thread is about.

Contrast what they do (and perhaps what you do, I don't know you!) to some kid in his bedroom with a cracked copy of Fruity and a bunch of unlicensed samples. Hey, it's great that he wants to make music and all .... but that guy is NOT a producer. He's a guy who tries to make music for a hobby and maybe wants to be a producer one day, no more, no less.

Oh ........ and your Myspace is unreadable in Firefox, the boxes are translucent and get lost over the background. ;)
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I agree with you. Many can be labeled a hobbiest and not producers. That doesn't mean that any of us (at least my opinion) has the right to say all people who use a certain device for creation of music are all not producers. Some of or many of the "producers" in the music industry in fact use Fruity Loops, but that does not make them any less professional in their careers. Just like I would hate to say that you'll be suprised how many people in the mainstream industry use pirated software. Million dollar studios that use cracked wave bundles. Pirating is a total different subject than someone whose trying to make music whether it's for hobby or pro. Anyways I just read that "all beat producers and/in hip hop/rap" should not be called producers judged just by what they use. Which I found strangely wrong, while I look and seen all types of people do just that, but we don't judge them, why hip hop? :rolleyes:

Oh, btw, I just tried to open up our myspace in firefox, and it's working just fine for me
 
Mindset said:
I just read that "all beat producers and/in hip hop/rap" should not be called producers
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I don't know where you read that. Certainly not in my OP. So many people missed the point/boat in this thread. But, I guess after 6 pages, it's not surprising that the thread went in a few directions.
 
Mindset said:
I agree with you. Many can be labeled a hobbiest and not producers. That doesn't mean that any of us (at least my opinion) has the right to say all people who use a certain device for creation of music are all not producers. Some of or many of the "producers" in the music industry in fact use Fruity Loops, but that does not make them any less professional in their careers. Just like I would hate to say that you'll be suprised how many people in the mainstream industry use pirated software. Million dollar studios that use cracked wave bundles. Pirating is a total different subject than someone whose trying to make music whether it's for hobby or pro. Anyways I just read that "all beat producers and/in hip hop/rap" should not be called producers judged just by what they use. Which I found strangely wrong, while I look and seen all types of people do just that, but we don't judge them, why hip hop? :rolleyes:

Oh, btw, I just tried to open up our myspace in firefox, and it's working just fine for me
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Agreed on all except the Myspace bit ... maybe it's just my dodgy eyes or something but I can't read the stuff in the boxes very well ....

screengrabkk6.jpg


:)
 
Mindset said:
I commonly or, more of work mostly as, find myself in the producer role in 99.9999% percent of any projects I encounter. As a producer w/ a label, I'm responsible for the whole project, usually also responsible for the budgets that come in for X projects. As a producer, my task is to "envision" the final project, and by any means & methods, get my production team to put that vision into a final project. Utilizing artists, songwriters etc etc... so basically...
A Record Producer.
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That's what I thought, and that is a very good description of "producer" in the traditional sense. I have no problem calling you a producer.

Can't you see just how ludicrous (not Ludicris :D) and self-defeating it is, however, when anybody who composes a loop or marries a vocal to a loop calls themselves a "producer"? Not only does it water down and disrespect what you do, but it makes them look like posers to everyone else (except other amateur musicians who also erroneously call themselves "producers".)

It's a crying shame that I even had to ask you what you do, that I even had to alleviate that doubt; the only reason I had to even go down that road is because of the multitude of non-producers out there who call themselves producers. Ten, fifteen years ago I would not have even had to ask you, it would be, OK, Mindset is a producer; I know what that means, now we can move on. Now you have these people putting that cloud over your head causing reasonable people like me to have to wonder whether you're for real or a poser. It's not your fault, nor do I believe it's mine. It's the fault of the millions of fake "producas" out there ruining a perfectly good job title.
Mindset said:
Now when I'm not producing a record, I find myself producing musical pieces themselves, regularly (depending on it being a recording year or not). So part of the year, I'm "labeled" as a Music Producer. Not as much these recent days as I hired on a couple music producers.
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And that differs from "composer" or "musician" how? I don't seem to remember Tin Pan Alley or the Brill Building folks or the Motown Gang calling themselves "producers". They had their Don Kirshners or their Barry Gordys or whomever acting as producers, but the actual music creators never had that title. And, except for the one single genre, they don't now either.

G.
 
Chili said:
The most notable theft was Stairway to Heaven which they stole from a band called Spirit. But there are others....

Here's something google pulls up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjPAEPFaxoM

Yeah, I'm still a big Zep fan.
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I'm a big fan, too. But everything from "Whole Lotta Love" to "Black Mountain Side" to"Dazed and Confused" are blatant rip-offs from other artists. And I don't mean just lifting old blues tunes. They've been sued many times over and either had to pay huge amounts, or settled our of court. Part of the problem was that they put "Page/Plant" as the writers of these tunes on the records and never acklowledged the original composers.

There's at least one other YouTube video that picks up where yours left off.
 
Actually, I don't even think that most "producers" even at the pro level are "producers" in the way the word was used originally and should be used. A producer is some one who produces something in a mere business sense. Few ENGINEERS are actually producers. This mix up of words happened at some point when AR agents and PRODUCERS started to get involved in the recording process which started to be part of the creative process unlike before. I still think that it can be useful to keep those roles labeled correctly as in "the guitarist is the producer of the band and tells the engineer what to do".

The kid in the basement may be neither a "producer" nor an "engineer".
 
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