General Music Chat

would bands like the beatles sound like they did on record(i.e. sgt pepper) if it werent for george martin? would all that orchestration be present without him? do you think bands like ac/dc and def leppard would have the commercial success they have/had without mutt lang? how do you feel about production by non-band members?....or do you think alot of these guys just take the artists music and turn it into sellable commercial crap? would you take a record contract if you HAD to work with one ? what are your views on the role of production?

I definitely want control on production. I've always had it. It would be weird to give that up. I would however be willing to let somebody else "drive" if I had the final say.

Hard to say "what if," but I would guess that the Beatles' success wasn't entirely dependent on Martin's great productions.

They wouldn't have sounded the same, no. Just listen to thier "Anthology" collections to see what they would have sounded like. Still ain't bad, over all, but Martin's productions solidified thier complete sound, enhanced the music perfectly, & in at least one case (Eleanor Rigby), the production composed by Martin was used instead of thier own musicianship for a fantastic piece of music that stands on its own, with or without thier great vocals. (there is a track of this on one of the Anthologies.)

Production & arrangement is something that many of us leave out in the search for a raw sound or real sound.

Sometimes it enhances the music perfectly, other times it's overdone.

I find that far too many ppl, when they're just starting out, overproduce thier own stuff in search of that Martin effect on a usually grade B song, & it ends up sounding cheesy instead of classy. (Ppl around here refer to me as "our very own Simon Cowell" when it comes to critiquing thier recordings - esp when it comes to overproduction. It's surprizing how many otherwise good, tasteful performers lose all sense of taste when they start to record & produce.)

I agree with Paul in that I would demand final say on any production/arrangement, but I would allow other ppl to have input as it was being recorded.

I usually have some sort of production in mind as I write the song, but I don't always stick to it, or even remember it when I'm finished writing.

A producer usually makes or breaks a band where record sales are concerned.

There are numerous stories of bands who had successes with a certain producer, went to another, and found deaf ears, only to return to the former producer and have smash hits again.

But there is a delicate balance between artistic integrity and commercial success. A producer is just as important to the music as any of the band members playing it, and even more so, because they really have the power to alter the entire sound of the band, for good or bad, and the producer's vision of the music, may not always coincide with the band's vision.

Who's right? Depends on the goal.

In my opinion a good producer is worth their weight in diamonds.
But like most music people, I would like to have the final say.
I know that artist will almost always think they know whats best for the song, but judging by the demos and rough tracks that I've heard over the years... someone else knows best a lot of the time.
Artists get too close to their own stuff and need a good, trained, objective take on things.

I don't think the Beatles would have been what they were, without Martin.

A friend of mine found a bunch of old bootleg tapes of Van Halen. You can hear bits and peices of familiar songs form their first album. Of course Eddies guitar playing is there as are the backup vocals, but the songs arent really together. It would seem from outside lokking in that Ted Templeton played a major role in developing thier sound that we all know.

I think on a commercial level a producer can make or break a band.