What is Music Production?

CHAPTER A-1Quantifying It

As we inducted new students to their degree in music production, we would find year on year that something odd happened. These induction sessions often began by posing one simple question: “What is a music producer?”—the same single question often asked at their interviews. The answers from both the interviews and the hour-long induction discussion ranged from bizarre to more obvious. One such odd one was “miracle worker,” another was “the fixer” whilst others revolved around the more standard “make things sound good” or “make sure the band don’t get too drunk” among many other attributes.

After many years of few concrete answers we set about asking whether we could externalize what we thought music production was, the ...