Dressing For The Occasion
Throughout my 27-year career, I’ve almost always been both an engineer and producer. I can count the times on one hand where I’ve been one or the other. I don’t think the time of distinct roles has entirely passed, but it requires big budgets. High-end studios are out of reach for most artists, but paying two people in any studio for a couple of months is costly.
The roles cross over and I like to visualise them as hats; you take off one to don another. Engineering has a lot of rules, whereas the goal of producing is to let the song happen and capture the moment—to bottle lightning.
It’s the engineer’s job to get all. Then it’s the producer’s job to select how much will be used in the dish. You might have been to the shops and bought six chillies, but just because you have six, doesn’t mean you have to use them all — unless cooking a really hot dinner is the goal. Most of the time you’ll only add one or two. It’s the producer’s job to decide how much to put in there, and the meal, or the song, will dictate how much to use.
