music producers

[Richie88]

What do Music producers actually do on records/albums?

e.g Quincy Jones produced some of Michael Jackson albums but what was his role? I assume Michael Jackson would say I've written this song, lets record it and the producer would do what?

[factor-fiction]

I would guess- organise the backing music and backing singers and the recording/mixing, advise on arrangement, etc?

[BigDogsWang]

Watch some of the 'Classic Albums' series. You will see the type of work that Producers do. Try this one:

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

watch from about 1.15 onwards

[andy-hughes]

The term 'producer' is one of the most elastic adjectives in the music industry.

A lot of producers are expert engineers and they will shape the whole aural spectrum of a record.Others are 'organisers' and arrange studio time, musicians, instruments, orchestra sessions and so on. Some are 'inspirational' - including Quincy who told MJ that three of the songs for Thriller were not good enough and he should write three more - one of the replacements wa 'Billie Jean'!

Jagger and Richard produce The Stones' albums, and the way they work is to noodle about in the studio until they get an idea, and work it into a song. J & R decide if the end result is good enough for the album.

t does vary a lot - there are no real hard and fast rules.

[Sooper]

Glad you answered that Andy it would have taken me ages to try and explain the differences as like you say its so varied with each band and what they want.
I will say this that many producers have made artists what they are and not the other way around one example that springs to mind is the legendary Trevor Horn. If you ever get the chance to see Frankie goes to Hollywood's performance of Relax on The Tube before Trevor got his hands on it and made it the excellent pop tune that it turned out to be , its staggering i think just what these often unsung heroes of music can do!