Welcome to issue #175 of Tape Op.

As we've been doing publicity for our recently released book, Making Music: Conversations With Record Producers, many of the people interviewing John Baccigaluppi and me have asked, "So, what is a record producer?" It's certainly a fair question, but as many of you reading this will know, there isn't one simple answer. For the book's intro, John and I wrote this summation of sorts:

"Here we have a collection of interviews, with a number of people who have been in the recording studio with some of the biggest names in music. All of these people interviewed were also the producers on many of these sessions. That means that, along the way, they might be engineering the recordings, picking the songs, guiding the singers, picking the best takes of songs, balancing egos, fixing the lyrics, booking the studio time, buying lunch, playing instruments, pushing artists further, writing or co-writing the songs, finding the musicians to use, overseeing the mixes, and many other tasks. Making records is always a combination of many skills and goals, and the producer is chosen to be there because they have what it takes to make the session productive and the music compelling."

But recently I came up with another way to explain what a record producer is: it's simply someone who was asked to be involved in the creation of recorded music. Whether they were doing all or none of the tasks listed above, somebody – the artist, the label, the manager – asked that person to be part of a project and designated them "producer." So, there you are. It's that simple, yet it's still totally open-ended!

Larry Crane, Editor & Founder