POST PRODUCTION

Two states of mind, definitely. There's an engineer with a certain area of expertise, which is sound design, engineering and sonic quality, keeping the sound balanced and maintaining a clean signal, mixing it down to a two track mix for mastering, applying effects, etc. And the producer's area of expertise is creating the sound of the record, shaping the mood of the song and the direction it's going, and coaching the artist and engineer towards his goal of what the recording should sound like.

Two states of mind, definitely. There's an engineer with a certain area of expertise, which is sound design, engineering and sonic quality, keeping the sound balanced and maintaining a clean signal, mixing it down to a two track mix for mastering, applying effects, etc. And the producer's area of expertise is creating the sound of the record, shaping the mood of the song and the direction it's going, and coaching the artist and engineer towards his goal of what the recording should sound like.

Very well stated!! Thanks for summing it up. It's a wrap! End of discussion. On to the next topic...

mpire45 wrote:

Two states of mind, definitely. There's an engineer with a certain area of expertise, which is sound design, engineering and sonic quality, keeping the sound balanced and maintaining a clean signal, mixing it down to a two track mix for mastering, applying effects, etc. And the producer's area of expertise is creating the sound of the record, shaping the mood of the song and the direction it's going, and coaching the artist and engineer towards his goal of what the recording should sound like.

Very well stated!! Thanks for summing it up. It's a wrap! End of discussion. On to the next topic...

i think people like dr.dre, prime, etc. have more of a say in the mixing than you think...i mean, the sound engineers get credit(well deserved), but im sure they just dont let "someone else do it."

also people like primo, and dre, have thier ways, so perfected or sculpted, im sure they dont have to worry about someone else mixing as much as some of us might. They have years of knowledge, that they dont think twice about how they create thier sounds, or arrange them, it sounds good....whereas the engineer is then left to the minor technicalities. An engineer probably has to do less to a dre beat, than to an amateaur beat.

also there is more than one way to mix a beat, so definately the producers vision needs to be part of the mixing, otherwise it might be mixed differantly....that i think alot of time the producers use alot of the same engineers because they have a relationship where they know what eachother was thinking.

i think people like dr.dre, prime, etc. have more of a say in the mixing than you think...i mean, the sound engineers get credit(well deserved), but im sure they just dont let "someone else do it."

I agree (I've worked at D&D in the past and know how Primo works)....But Dre, Primo, etc. have way more experience than the multitude of amatures who have no knowledge or experience of the art and science of audio engineering...And yet, they know when to pass the torch. Unfortunately, too many amatures are trying to take too much into their hands without the adequate experience to handle such a tedious task...And the music quality as a whole in Hip Hop suffers (I know, you want your hip hop gritty...But gritty and $hitty are too different things that shouldn't be confused).

Understand....Dre, Primo, etc. have a wealth of knowledge and yet they realize that their true focus is much larger than spending 8+ hours on a mix. They're all very active in the process, but they're not handling every detail of engineering...When saying they "let someone else do it" doesn't mean that they just leave the engineer with the multitracks and bounce...They're very active in the process...In alot of cases, they've given the engineer the rough mix of the pre-production mixes (instrumental and vocal) before the tracking begins...That's because the engineer needs to have the preproduction mixes in advance so that he/she will know how they want to track all of the elements in order ensure that the mix stage is in focus with the producers vision...often times, the producer may begin the mix and have the engineer tighten up the mix to give it the shine they want. In the amature world, audio engineers are not valued like they are in the professional realm...Partially due to financial restraints...Partially due to the myth that top name producers are one-man operations.

Bottom line, understand and value the difference between the Producer's and engineer's roles before you decide to do both.

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