WTF Engineers & producers

hi i'm not the most clued up on this stuff but whats up with track engineers. i saw on flashpoint digital that there was a new release track. i can't remember the name but i said it was coming from an artist that was hot and new to the scene and that frank farrell engineered it for him. so i did some investigating to find out exactly was an engineer. and a top producer from canada told me that basically any dj can hook up with an engineer and compose a track the dj doesn't even need to know how to use a computer just tell the engineer what you want and bam you have a tune.

now to me that seems cheap i thought that a dj can say that he composed a track but actually didn't even click on the mouse once in the process of creating it and can have his name on it and in the small writing in the corner says who engineered it.

maybe this is just the way it is but i was shocked i thought that all these dj's with tracks released did the hard yards them selves but really just became friends with an engineer and claimed fame for there work.

hope this brings up some interesting conversation.looking forward to what everyone has to say.

and an extra big up to all the engineers out there for keeping it real. steve hill, technikal, frank farrell, maddox, dom sweeton and all the others i didn't name

Some people have good ideas but not the technical skills, it would be shame for those ideas to never see the light of day because they didn't have years to spend learning the software.

The reverse can also be true.

In saying that I think most of the time the very best producers (who not always the most popular) are doing the bulk of the work themselves and it shows.

The reason I have not got into producing is because at this point I do not have the massive amounts of spare time required to do it well.

I don't see anything wrong with a producer doing the bulk of the work and then getting an engineer to tidy it up a bit as these can be two quite different skills.

Deadmau5 was an engineer turned producer and it shows, his tracks are always extremely well made although his ideas can often be lacking.

Sometimes two heads are just better than one!

Don't really have a problem with it. Was talking to Lee Burridge about production when he first came and played Sandwiches as he's only got released tracks where he's combo'ed up with another producer who already knows the in's and out's as he flat out said to me he sucks at the technical side of production. It's an extremely long and time consuming process to get good at, and if you have the ideas for a track, why not work with someone else to make it happen?

Most of these people "can" produce, they just can't produce well and it takes them a long time to do it...so they hire an engineer and sit in a studio with him nutting out the track...end of the day, they're the creative influence who decided on how the track would feel/sound/evolve, just use someone else for the physical hands on to make it happen faster.

And hey, dude got paid, so he's happy too!

you'd be surprised how many of your favourate artists have engineers. a shitload of the most seminal dnb artists for example use engineers eg: goldie, grooverider,peshay, ed rush etc

i know alex metric is/was adam freelands engineer recently...probably explains why i suddenly started enjoying the last couple freeland tunes eg: "hate" << HUUUUGE

and yeah chris lake seemed to use deadmau5 a fair whack last year

Heaps of them do it, even Sasha I believe.

I've got beats going around in my head, would love to sit down with an engineer and make tracks...there in there, I just don't know how to get them out

rumour has it that goldie used to use a whiteboard and marker to draw squiggly lines and patterns in order to tell optical how to make stuff sound in his tunes

must have been some trying times for ole optical really

yeah, some people think that now making music is all computer based it's really easy... well, in some ways it is, you can sit down an thrash out a track without much experience... and to a lot of people it'll probably sound passable at least... (what do you think 99% of pop music is?)

but to make the really good tracks can take a *lot* of time and needs a lot of experience... electronic music opens up a huge range of sounds that just weren't possible before, but to get those sounds you have to spend a lot of time designing them. You can twiddle the knobs on a synth and get something cool by chance, but if you've got something specific in your head, that's not really good enough

a lot of engineers are actually more concerned with quality of sound and possibly structure of a track than the creative aspects...

Yep - they know how to make all the individual parts and how to string it all together - but may not necessarily have the initial ideas (of course some do though)

matthew decay is another good example of a studio engineer turned into producer, had a few great tracks then ran out of idea's...

i dont have any problems with the concept of someone thowing idea's at an engineer to make a tune.... thats how i've been working recently with someone out here... i get something started, he throws great idea's suggestions / umms ahhhs etc and we eventually start getting some good sounds out of it...


what i HATE are the pricks that get people to SHADOW WRITE tunes for them and take all the credit for it... Tiesto and a few other big names have done just that... and a f*ckwit out here thats got a huge ego problem did the same to get "known".... the least these guys could do is show some respect and do an Introducing title... ie - Tiesto introducing XYZ artist...

who's this??

a guy called KV

I would totally agree if the case was that the engineer was not getting paid for his services but in general
most top grade engineers get fair money , many do the engineering for a job and will produce many tunes for various different artists.

and in some cases they will be getting a % of the publishing in individual tracks,and in other cases they will get a 1 off payment. this happen right across the board, from pop to psy trance ,

just because a certain well known person engineers a track does not mean that it will sound like a track that he would release himself.

if that makes sence .

i.e Paul Maddox is Paul Glazbys engineer , but his music sound very different.

Dave Parkinson is prime mover , but used to do production for Fergie and Tall Paul and the happy mondays

Im sure that in some cases it may mirror the engineers sound , but this will all be down to the person co writing the track , wanting to head in that direction.

Ive written about 15 new tunes in the last yr ,with a young engineer from wellington , everything from house to techno, and Im pretty bloody sure that the tunes would sound nothing like they do without my input ,

Its more fun in a studio with 2 ,

its also a fact that alot of people cant co write tunes, as I know many engineers that deem if there is not enough input from the 2 person ,it is a waist of time them being there, this is normally established fairly early on in the session.


a composer does not necessarily know how to play every instrument in the orchestra, but this does not stop him from writing a symphony!!


chur...