The Music Producer’s Handbook

2nd Edition

The Music Producer’s Handbook 2nd Edition reveals the answers to these questions:

• How do I become a producer?

• How much money can I make?

• How do I get the best out of the musicians or vocalist?

• How much time should each phase of the production take?

• Why is pre-production the most important step in the process?

• What are the different types of productions?
Why should I master the final mix?

• How do I get a great mix?

• How do I select a studio?

• How do I select an engineer?

• What are all of the producer’s responsibilities?

• EDM, Pop and Hip Hop production tips and tricks

• Self-Production tips and tricks

• and much more!

Read An Excerpt

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What It's About

The Music Producer’s Handbook 2nd Edition reveals the inside information and secrets to becoming a music producer and producing just about any kind of project in any genre of music. Among the topics covered is the producer’s responsibilities, and all the elements of a typical production including budgeting, contracts, selecting the studio and engineer, hiring session musicians, and even getting paid!

Unlike other books on production, The Music Producer’s Handbook covers the true mechanics of production, from analyzing and fixing the format of a song to troubleshooting a song when it just doesn’t sound right, to getting the best performance and sound out of the band and vocalist. The book also covers perhaps the toughest part of being a producer – being a diplomat, a confident and amateur psychologist all at once.

The new 2nd edition of the book features new chapters on self-production as well as EDM/Pop/Hip Hop production tips.

The Music Producer’s Handbook also includes interviews with Platinum producers from different musical genres like Joe Chiccarelli, Stonebridge, Mark Bright, Richard Feldman, Michael Beinhorn, Gareth Jones, Carmen Rizzo, Mark Plati and more.

Kind Words From Readers

There have been many books on this subject before, but most were written at a time when the recording industry barely resembled the one within which a producer has to operate today. The Music Producer’s Handbook, on the other hand, is bang up to date, and is thus realistic about the current state of the industry. It follows the format of the other books in the series, with Owsinski himself writing the bulk of the book, before featuring a number of producer interviews. Both parts of the book are well worth reading
Sound On Sound Magazine

Great book. Bobby has a real good way of explaining things. it is a easy reading full of interesting issues. Some people are real lucky to have a mentor I am not one of them, with this book and the video Bobby really paved the way for me! Big up to Bobby Owsinski
Urban Florjan

The most valuable part of Bobby’s books are his interviews with the TOP people in the profession. He covers the topics from every angle. Need a frame work to build skills?

Jame Kay

Very very comprehensive from an expert in his field.

Dr. Kenneth

This book gives you a great insight of what a producer actually is and how to go about the job. Great read!

Stan Silver

Bread and butter. You can never go wrong with his products.

Mike M

…and dozens more like it!

Let's Look Inside

Chapter 14 – Mixing: Where It’s Make Or Break
The Mechanics Of Mixing
   Hearing The Final Product
   Tall, Deep And Wide
The Keys To A Great Mix
   Find The Direction Of The Song
   Develop The Groove And Build It Like A House
   Find The Most Important Element And Emphasize It
The Master Mix
   Competitive Level
Mixing With Mastering In Mind
Mixing “In-The-Box”
The Mixing Engineer’s Style
How Much Should Mixing Cost?
How Long Should Mixing Take?
Alternative Mixes

Chapter 15 – Mastering: The Finishing Touch
What Is Mastering?
Why Is Mastering So Important?
   The Reason It Sounds So Good When A Pro Does It
   Experience Is The Key
   The Mastering Engineer’s Sound
   The Mastering Engineer As A Security Blanket
How Long Should Mastering Take?
How Much Should Mastering Cost?
Preparation For Mastering
Competitive Level, Take 2
Hypercompression – Don’t Go There!
Should You Use A Pro or Master At Home?
Mastering For Different Delivery Formats
   The Source File
Creating Files For Streaming Services
   Submitting To Online Stores And Services
Exporting For iTunes
   The “Mastered For iTunes” Format

Chapter 16: EDM, Pop, And Hip-Hop Production
How EDM Is Changing Music
A Look At The New Song Structure
The Modern Pop Formula
Tips For Making Beats

Chapter 17 – Production Checklist
Producer Checklist
   Getting Paid
   Assembling the Budget
Preproduction
   Questions For The Artist Or Band
   Song Analysis
   Song Arrangements
   Rehearsal Guide
   Preparing For The Session
   Selecting The Studio
Production
   Basic Tracks
   Music Troubleshooting
   Overdubs
   Vocal Recordings
   Mixing
   Mastering

Part 2
Interviews
   Mark Bright
   Joe Chiccarelli
   Richard Feldman
   Gareth Jones
   Mark Plati
   Carmen Rizzo
   Stonebridge
Glossary

Chapter 6 Excerpt - Music Mechanics

Music Mechanics

The Groove and the Pocket
ALL good music, regardless of whether it’s Rock, Jazz, Classical, Rap or some new space music that we haven’t heard yet, has a strong groove. You always hear about “the groove”, but what is it?

The Groove Is The Pulse Of The Song
And
How The Instruments Dynamically Breathe With It.

To your audience, the groove is an enjoyable rhythm that makes even the people that can’t dance want to get up and shake their booty. And while the concept of “the groove” is very subjective, the idea is well-understood by experienced musicians at a practical, intuitive level. Funk and latin musicians refer to the groove as the sense of being “in the pocket”, while jazz players refer to the groove as the sense that a song is really “cooking” or “swinging”.

A common misconception of a groove is that it must have perfect time. A groove is created by tension against even time. That means that it doesn’t have to be perfect, just even, and all performances don’t have to have the same amount of “even-ness”. In fact, it makes the groove feel stiff if they’re too perfect. This is why perfect quantization of parts and lining up every hit in a workstation when you’re recording frequently takes the life out of a song. It’s too perfect because there’s no tension. It’s lost its groove.

Just about every hit song has a great groove and that’s why it’s a hit, but if you want to study what a groove really is, go to the masters – James Brown, Sly Stone, Michael Jackson, George Clinton and Prince. Every song is the essence of what a groove feels like.

We usually think of the groove as coming from the rhythm section, especially the drums, but that’s not necessarily always the case. In the Police’s Every Breath You Take, the rhythm guitar establishes the groove, while in most songs by the Supremes, Temptations and Four Tops from Motown’s golden age, the groove was established by James Jamerson’s bass.

How To Find The Pocket
The phrase “in the pocket” is used to describe something or someone playing in such a way that the groove is very solid and has a great feel. When a drummer keeps good time, makes the groove feel really good, and maintains it for an extended period of time while never wavering, this is often referred to as a “deep pocket”. It should be noted that it’s impossible to have a pocket without also having a groove.

Historically speaking, the term “pocket” originated in the middle of the last century when a strong backbeat (the snare drum striking on beats 2 and 4) became predominant in popular music. When the backbeat is slightly delayed creating a “laid back” or “relaxed feel”, the drummer is playing in the pocket.

Today, the term “in the pocket” has broadened a bit, suggesting that if two musicians (usually the bass player and the drummer) are feeling the downbeats together and placing beat one (the downbeat) at the exact same time, they are said to be “in the pocket.” Whether you are playing ahead (in front) of the beat, or behind (on the back) of the beat, or right on top (middle) of the beat, as long as two musicians (i.e. bassist and drummer) feel the downbeat at the same time, they’ll be in the pocket.

In terms of bass and drums locking to create a cohesive part, there are three areas of focus for me. You have to know where your drummer is most comfortable in terms of the beat. Is your drummer very “straight,” playing right on top of the beat (which can sound like Disco music or a quantized drum machine)? Is he or she laid back, sitting in that area way on the back back of the beat (like Phil Rudd does on AC/DC’s Back In Black, anything by Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, or Clyde Stubblefield on James Brown’s Cold Sweat or Funky Drummer)? Does your drummer’s playing have that urgency of a musician who plays on top of the beat (like Stewart Copeland of The Police)? This is crucial to know because the bass and drums have to function as a unit. They don’t have to play everything the same, but they have to know and understand the way the other thinks and feels.

Getting the rhythm section to groove with the rest of the band is much more difficult than you might think since guitarists don’t always listen to the drummer, a keyboardist may have metronomic time yet have a difficult time coordinating his/her left hand with the bass player, and vocalists will often forget that there’s a band playing behind them altogether. The key is for everyone in the band to listen to one another!

Many people feel that the question is not so much what the pocket is as much as how you know when you’ve achieved it, yet I guarantee that you’ll know it when you feel it because the music feels like it’s playing itself. It feels as if everything has merged together with all the rhythmic parts being played by one instrument. Whichever definition you choose to go with or use, having a pocket is always good thing!

Chapter 7 Excerpt - PreProduction: The Most Important Step

PreProduction: The Most Important Step

Maybe the most crucial time in the entire recording process is the time before you actually record, which is known as preproduction. Almost always, the more time you spend in preproduction, the smoother the recording will go. It’s in preproduction where the songs are chosen, arrangements worked out, and parts are learned so well that the only thing to concentrate on during recording is the performance.

Getting To Know You
Preproduction sometimes is so much more than the process of working out songs. For a producer working with a new artist or band, it’s a time of getting to know each other. It’s important for the producer to learn the likes and dislikes of the artist, be it food, music or politics, as well as their working habits and idiosyncrasies. Knowing these things can help the producer determine how far to push a singer, or discover what gets the best performance out of the guitar player, or the signs of when the drummer is getting tired, or the hot button issues of the day to stay away from. If you’re going to be working closely with an artist even for a short time, the more you know about him, the better you can serve the project.

One of the most important aspects of getting to know an artist is learning what music she loves, was influenced by, and is listening to now. One of the most effective ways I’ve heard of doing this back in the days of vinyl record albums was for the producer to go to the artist’s house and have them throw a bunch of albums from their collection on the floor and have them describe what they liked and didn’t like about each of them. You can still do this with CDs or an iPod playlist. Among the questions to ask might be:

• What do you like or dislike about the artist your listening to?

• Do you like the sound of the recording?

• What recordings do you like the sound of?

• What are some of your favorite records? Why?

• What are your biggest influences? Why?

• If you have a body of work as a producer already, what does the artist like about you? Why?

You can probably add any number of additional questions, but can you see where this is heading? This is the information that you need to help attain the artist’s vision. It gives you a common point of reference so you can say, “Let’s go for a sound like the lead guitar on The Cure’s Boys Don’t Cry,” and have the artist know exactly what you mean because you’ve found out in preproduction that’s one of his favorite songs. Or if the artist says to you, “Can we get the sound like on the Arctic Monkey’s Still Take You Home,” you’ll know exactly what he’s talking about.

Selecting The Songs
Selecting the songs for the project is usually a function of how much preproduction time you have. If you don’t have a deadline to worry about, you might work on songs that have strong hooks but are incomplete or weak arrangement or structure-wise. If you don’t have a lot of time, you might be looking for only the songs that are in the most record-worthy shape that you’ll know you can easily record and have them sound good.

As we said in chapter 5, songwriting is a craft and it gets better the more you do it as you learn what works and what doesn’t. Usually, the more you record, the more attuned your ear gets to arrangements, so an artist or band that’s on album number four will have songs that are much more together than an artist or band on record number one. Because of that experience, the songs will be in better shape, any changes can be made faster, and the preproduction time will be shorter.

It’s usually a good idea to work up at least one extra song other than the ones intended for recording. There’s two reasons for this. First, if an intended song just doesn’t sound right during basic tracking for some reason, you have an alternative available. Second, sometimes you have a little extra time during basics where you don’t have quite enough time to set up for overdubs, so it’s nice to have an extra song to take advantage of the opportunity.

Preproduction Rehearsals

The preproduction rehearsal is where much of the heavy lifting of the project takes place. This is where the songs get honed to where they’re deemed ready for recording. Here are a number of tips and tricks to get the most out of your preproduction time.

You Gotta Hear Yourself
It’s really hard for a player to hear the nuances of their part and how they integrate with all the others in the band if they can’t hear themselves and everyone else equally well. One of the problems that young bands have is cranking up the volume right off before they really learn a song or make any changes to parts or arrangements. I’ve found that it’s best to learn the song or change the parts at low level first so everyone can hear each other’s parts, then play it at their normal stage volume once things are worked out. This will save you a lot of time later when you’re trying to figure out why something isn’t sounding right and you have to go player by player, part by part to find out why.

In fact, sometimes the best rehearsals are the ones with only acoustic guitars and drum pads in someone’s living room. This is surprisingly effective, since it’s easy to hear what everyone’s playing and especially easy to hear the vocals (works great for harmonies). Of course, bands that have been gigging for a while find this a lot easier to do than new players together for a short time.

Practice In The Round
A really good rehearsal technique is to set up in the round where everyone is facing one another, instead of setting up like you would on stage. This allows everyone to hear themselves really well. It’s also the way that almost everyone records, since it’s so important to have eye contact when you’re doing a take. Playing in the round usually means that that everyone has to control their volume a bit so they don’t blow out their fellow band members, but that’s not such a bad thing, is it?

A Few Rehearsal Tips
No matter what kind of music you’re producing, here are a few rehearsal tips to help things go a bit smoother and get the most out of your preproduction time.

• When going over a song, stop as soon as there’s a train wreck and work it out. Talk it over to see what everyone is playing, then play just that part until everyone gets it. Sometimes the problem may be in the middle or end of a section, so if they’re able to play just that section, great. It’s pretty easy to work out. Most bands just can’t get into it unless you start four bars before or even at the beginning of the section to work it out. That’s okay, whatever it takes to make things sound great!

• Find the part of the song that needs the most work and concentrate on that first. Slow the song down to where it’s easy to play, then bring it up to speed when everyone can play it cleanly.

• Sometimes it’s best to start with the chorus, especially the out-chorus, since it usually repeats. If a band is working on groove or tempo, the out-chorus is the section of the song that’s played the most anyway, and probably has the song’s hook, so it’s easy to remember. Starting with the out chorus can give you confidence about playing the rest of the song.

Producer Joe Chiccarelli Interview Excerpt

Joe Chiccarelli is a ten- time Grammy winner who’s known not only for his production prowess, but his engineering and mixing skills as well. Joe has a ton of great credits including Spoon, My Morning Jacket, Morrissey, The White Stripes (he won a Grammy with them for Icky Thump), The Killers, The Shins The Strokes, and many more.

How hands-on are you when you’re producing in terms of working with the band?
To me, engineering is one tenth of the total picture. It doesn’t mean that much because anyone can make a record now since the bar of quality has been lowered so much, so to me the engineering is the lowest part of the art form.

The most important thing is getting in there working with the band on songs, arrangements, concept, lyrics – all that stuff. It’s months of work before I ever get in the studio. It means at least two weeks of eight hour rehearsal days for preproduction working on song arrangements, rhythm section arrangements – all of it.

We all geek out and have our favorite pieces of gear, but that’s so insignificant to getting the musical part of it right and getting the artist to stand out from the pack of other artists. There’s so much music out there but so much of it isn’t ready to be seen on a global scale. Getting people to weed through it and find stuff is very difficult, so we have to come up with a song, a character, a sound or a melody that really vibrates with people, and that’s hard.

I’m involved with every note of a project even when I collaborate as well. For instance, on a project I’m collaborating on now, I’ll work with the band in the morning, then they send me rough mixes at night and I’ll make comments on it. I spent about a week by myself working on the arrangements, then about a week on the tracking, then I handed the overdubs off to my co-producer. I’m still involved with every note of it, I’m just not physically in the room for two or three weeks of the record. Even when I’m sharing the duty I’m still very active.

Do you engineer the tracking yourself or get another engineer for that?
It depends on what’s best for the album. Usually I’m doing it myself, but that’s pretty much dictated by budget. The budgets are cut to about a quarter to a tenth of what they once were, so it demands that I assume two roles.

There are times when I’ll feel that I’m not the best engineer or mixer for the project, so then I’ll bring in someone else. If I do three projects a year, I find that on one those there’s someone sharing some of the duties with me.

I always found that it was difficult to be the tracking engineer and the producer at the same time.
Yeah, it’s definitely hard and that’s why I insist on the preproduction before going into the studio. If I can sort of sign off on all the arrangements, then I can concentrate more on getting sounds and getting performances, as opposed to worrying about the bass line in the chorus. We’ll have worked that out in preproduction.

Is there a mentor that you feel you got a lot of your chops from?
There were a lot of people over the years for a lot of things. I started at Cherokee studios when I was 20 years old and the Robb brothers [The owners of Cherokee] were very good to me. David Anderle [Former A&R exec at A&M Records] was the first one that ever gave me a production project, and that was Oingo Boingo. I learned a lot from David, especially how to deal with artists. I worked with Jimmy Iovine for long time and I learned a lot from him.

I was pretty much a pop/rock kind of kid when I started, but I worked with Roy Thomas Baker on a number of albums and he taught me how to push the limits. Up to that point I had learned that there was only one way to make records and it was a somewhat conservative approach. I learned from Roy that records could be a lot more dynamic and cinematic and abstract. He really opened up my eyes. He understood how things had to be bigger than life. They had to jump through the speakers and the performances had to rip your heart out. I don’t think I’ve looked at making records the same way since my time with Roy.

There are a zillion ways to make a record, but it’s even more important these days to do something impressive and unusual, yet keep in mind the specific vision of the artist. That to me is the first goal and first part of the job is to help them achieve that while along the way hiding their weaknesses and enhancing their strengths. The more I bond with an artist and understand and agree with what they’re trying to achieve, the better the results are.

I always come at an album with a very specific vision in mind. I even can hear the finished product in my head before I start it. I hope that my picture is in synch with the artist’s picture, and the more that it is, the better the record turns out. Hopefully it’s commercially successful, or at least artistically successful, but I want the artist to walk away saying, “This is the album that I had in my head that I was trying get out and Joe really helped me achieve that.”

You mentioned about how you’re trying to find something that stands out in a production. Do you have a process to do that?
I think it’s something you hear in a song or the lyrics or their voice or approach. For instance, I’m attracted to artists that push boundaries or blur genres and combine different styles of music, so that might be something about an artist that I might really enhance.

If the artist had a love for classical music, for instance, I might ask them to write a classical-oriented piece in the middle of a song. I like albums that take a left turn or surprise you or catch you off guard. Albums take you on journeys and bands take you on journeys. If you think you have them figured out, you find out you don’t when they suddenly incorporate something that you didn’t hear on the first three songs of the album.

As a result, I always try to push artists to take some chances. I think it’s important that they grow. As a music fan, I always hate it when an artist does the same thing over and over again. Even if they fail, it opens up doors creatively.

I agree with you, but isn’t that at odds with record label thinking?
I don’t know, maybe not so much with label thinking but more at odds with the way the marketplace is right now. Everything sounds the same with the same pop formula, and that’s kind of a sad thing.

Producing means managing the record company desires and management expectations along with the band’s specific ones. Sometimes you’re stuck in the middle, but sometimes everyone’s on the same page.

There are still some A&R guys out there that encourage artists to take chances, believe it or not. Just as you watch the artist’s back, a great A&R guy can watch the back of the producer as well and see the flaw in the song that you totally miss. Unfortunately everyone has a boss that they have to answer to and the major labels have to have hits.

At indie labels it’s a different situation. The good thing about an indie is that they want to make sure that they have their core audience covered and branch out from there, so in that way they’re looking out for the artist’s best interest. They want them to reach their people and get them psyched first, then broaden the base.

Buy This Book

The Music Producer’s Handbook

2nd Edition

What It's About

Kind Words From Readers

…and dozens more like it!

Let's Look Inside

Table Of Contents

Chapter 6 Excerpt - Music Mechanics

Music Mechanics

Chapter 7 Excerpt - PreProduction: The Most Important Step

PreProduction: The Most Important Step

Preproduction Rehearsals

Producer Joe Chiccarelli Interview Excerpt

Producer Joe Chiccarelli Interview Excerpt