The role of music producers and sound engineers in the current recording context, as perceived by young professionals

Abstract

As a result of recent technological advances, musicians tend to produce their music themselves in home studios, without necessarily collaborating with a professional producer or a sound engineer. To understand how this new paradigm affects musical recordings, we need to study the context of recording sessions involving a producer and a sound engineer. In this article we investigate the role of producers and sound engineers, as perceived by young professionals actively involved in recording sessions. We collected verbal data from 16 musicians and 6 sound engineers, from different countries and backgrounds. Participants were asked to freely define in their own words the role of an ideal producer and an ideal sound engineer. Then, we invited them to describe positive or negative experiences they had previously encountered in the studio. We classified their spontaneous descriptions into emerging themes using the constant comparison method. The three main categories referred to mission, skills, and interaction. A consensus emerged regarding the respective missions of producers and sound engineers. While the producer is responsible for the artistic direction of the project, the sound engineer has to make appropriate sound choices by taking into consideration the musicians’ requests. The primary skills reported for the ideal producer were communication and interpersonal skills. The ideal sound engineer, paradoxically, was described as minimally interacting with musicians during sessions. To conclude, we discuss future directions to clarify the relationships between the missions and skills producers and sound engineers are expected to exhibit, and to further investigate the level of the producer’s artistic involvement.

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