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Definition

pro·duc·er

/prəˈdo͞osər/

a person responsible for the financial and managerial aspects of making of a movie or broadcast or for staging a play, opera, etc.

Film & TV complicates matters further with roles like Line Producer or Executive Producer. It’s equally murky in the world of music. Usually, I’m donning the hat of a ‘record producer’.

Okay… so what does that entail exactly? Rick Rubin, perhaps the greatest Record Producer of all time, can barely play an instrument, can’t operate a mixing board, and has no technical ability whatsoever (his words, not mine). So, what role does he play? Rick puts it this way, “The confidence that I have in my taste… and the ability to express how I feel has proven helpful for artists.” Getting paid for your taste in something sounds like a pretty sweet gig. I believe it’s the distinction that every creative person shares.

The record producer’s role also varies from album to album, song to song. You gotta know how much or how little is needed, when to push the artist or pull back – who to bring in as a collaborator. The same may be said about any film or advertising producer. Here, it’s about how to sculpt a musical idea. Being able to realize any artist’s true potential – often without anyone knowing – is the goal.

I had the privilege of seeing this process unfold right in front of my eyes.

Jeff D Elliott has been a composer and songwriter at Eggplant for a long time now. I’ve produced tons of his tracks for ads and long-format. He also happens to be a crazy talented Record Producer in his own right. Earlier this year, he produced an incredible album called Heavy Songwriting for Owen Davies. To kick things off, this psych-folk singer-songwriter sent Jeff a beautifully simple demo featuring only a Mellotron and vocals. This track would soon become the album opener, Notes from an Elevator. Here was the raw material that needed sculpting.  

Jeff’s first idea was to bring in some found sounds, mechanical noises and other foley to use as weird percussion. It didn’t work for Owen at all. It was quickly binned. As always, it comes down to taste

8 months later, with most of the album was finished, Notes from an Elevator had yet to earn its coveted place. The song had to live up to its potential. The second time around Jeff said, “Let’s shift it from a hazy dreamlike state into bright technicolour.” They would let the sonic colours of the Mellotron lead, then expand the entire palette and mood of the song with something different.

Jeff had heard some whimsical woodwind focused orchestral work that fellow Eggplant composer, Nick “Walker” Grimshaw had done, so gave him a call.

He decided on a slightly rough-around-the-edges, intimate ensemble – packed with a world of different techniques and musical gestures. He took inspiration from the lyrics – getting the clarinets to “haggle on the phone”; the strings to crescendo as Owen’s “mind starts to turn.” Through a stream-of-consciousness adventure, Nick conjured something beautiful, expressive and fun. He arranged the instruments not by traditional seating plans, but by the best way to achieve the call-and-response feel of the arrangement and create a sense of depth. The individual sounds were panned all over the stereo field so the melodies they share actually move around in space throughout the track.

To cap it off – one last request from the Producer was asking the violinist to play the final line backwards – so that they could reverse it in the mix to create a very cool effect for the last build in the track.