[amanitas]

Goldcoast, I'm going to step in and say that I think you are right on the money.

While Henchmen does have a point about great producers/engineers being just as gifted as songwriters, that doesn't change the fact that the more people know about the recording process, the more they can achieve their artistic vision. Isn't that the goal?

I guess what bugs me about all of this is that people seem to completely ignore the compositional possibilities that are part of the mixing process.

The idea that tracking and mixing have to be seperate is out of date and quite frankly silly. There's entire genres of music where producer and songwriter mean practically the same thing (ie hip hop or electronica for example). That's not to say a good mixing engineer isn't worth his weight in gold to polish and fine tune everything, but speaking for myself, stuff like panning and EQing, for example, are integrated into my compositional process, because they allow me to do stuff that I couldn't do practically with real instruments.

For example, EQing the mids out of a choir part until it resembles ambient ghosts singing has everything to do with what my "arrangement" is going to sound like. And until I learned how to do these sorts of things (clearly producer/engineer not songwriter terrain), I simply had to live without them in my "arrangements." Because I, like a lot of people, don't think it makes a lot of sense to pay someone $xx an hour to do that for me (especially considering that now I can do it myself for free).

There is always going to be a top 1% - whether that's engineers, composers, producers, instrumentalists - whatever - that will always be working and always be busy. Henchman, I think you are probably referring to this group of people, and much of what I'm about to say doesn't really refer to them (BTW, I think that's why nobody is giving you any love on your post, goldcoast, because I think a lot of the posters that frequent this board in particular are either in or trying to be in that top 1%) Great mixers will always have a job, because a great mixer knows how to make stuff sound good (or better) in any studio (let alone whatever gear they have).

But the reality of the situation is that with the means of production being moved into the hands of musicians (as opposed to the record labels/investors/studio owners/producers), there are gonna be a lot more people in the other 99% that, out of financial necessity alone, decide that spending the time learning the craft of engineering is a far more viable and useful option than paying someone to do it for them.

As for spending all that time honing one skill, that entire line of thinking is wrong to me - unless you are going for a position in that top 1%, which requires a combination of prodigious talent and a ridiculous work ethic, you're realistically going to max out at some point and face diminishing returns in the work you are putting in. At some point it becomes more rewarding (admittedly, depending on what kind of person you are) to start learning new skills. Music is a pretty big art form. There is a lot of stuff to know.

For example, I consider myself a good trumpet player. I know a lot of great trumpet players who practice 4 hours a day and have been doing so for their entire lives. Realistically, I don't have a snowballs chance in hell of taking an orchestra gig from one of those guys, because every single person that's applying for those gigs are in that same category. Am I a hobbyist, then? Should I give up on being a professional musician because I know I can't get the gigs that every trumpet player in every music school in every country is trying to get?

Hell no. My solution was to pursue a different direction. I play trombone and euphonium as well, so I can, by myself, multi-track an entire brass section. I've studied composition and arranging and have a really good ear, so most of the time I come in and do this stuff on the spot, without writing things out ahead of time. In other words, I'm doing the work of an arranger and 10 horn players by myself.

Does it sound as good as it would sound if you hired Quincy Jones and the brass section from the Chicago symphony? Of course not. But most of my clients couldn't justify the expense of bringing in Q and the CSO, if they could even afford it. It's not like I'm being hired by professional brass players that could really point out all the little differences between me and Bud Herseth - the fact that it sounds like a real horn section and makes their music in some way better is all any of my clients really care about.

Bottom line is that I offer a cost effective solution to a problem (getting a real horn section on your tracks), thus I get work. Being as the trend is going towards there being far more 'studios' and 'producers' (read: 'musicians'), my business stands to increase in the next couple of years rather than shrivel.

Getting back to the original point - unless you are in that top 1%, if you want to make a living in the music industry, you need to learn to do as many different things as you can as well as you can, because the days of things being nicely compartmentalized are over. It's a ****ing free for all, and unless you can compose, produce, engineer, sing, and play, you are likely ****ed. Oh yeah, you need your own record label, website, and publishing company too, because all of the ones that are out there right now could care less about you and what you're doing. Unless you're famous, or are related to or good friends with someone who is, in which case all bets are off.