Album credits
A lot of people love music, but not a lot of people pay attention to the credits on an album. Or, if they do, they aren’t sure what these people did to make the album happen. So I thought I’d explain some of these titles a little.
Producer – Most of the time the producer is the person who oversees the entire production of an album. They may have suggestions on how the music should sound, they may deal with organizing the artist, selecting songs, budget or anything involved in the making of the album. However, the role of the producer can take on different forms and mean different things for different genres. For example, in hip-hop, the person who makes the beats is often known as the producer. For major releases there are sometimes more than one producer, one that handles the music side of making the album and one that handles the financial or business side of it.
Recording Engineer – The recording engineer is responsible for getting all the instruments recorded in a way that suits the song. This involves choosing and placing microphones, choosing preamps, choosing sounds and getting good, clean recordings of the various tracks. When the recording engineer is done, the way in which he has recorded it should make it sound almost like a finished song. The closer to the final product, the better.
Mixing Engineer – Once the recording engineer has recorded all the tracks for a song, the mixing engineer uses various effects such as EQ, compression, reverb, and others to enhance the raw recordings and make them fit together sonically. He is basically polishing off the song, making sure it sounds the best that it can and that it translates on different speaker systems. He balances volume levels and makes creative decisions when using effects to enhance space, depth, and tonal relationships which contribute greatly to the mood of a song.
Mastering Engineer – Mastering is the last stage before an album is pressed. It is also perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of the process. A mastering engineer’s job is not just to simply make songs louder, as many believe. In the way the mixing engineer mixes the tracks to make a song, the mastering engineer mixes the songs to make an album. He uses tools similar to the mixing engineer, but his main focus is making sure all the songs have a similar tonal balance, volume, and feel, even if they had been recorded in different places at different times. They also do work to ensure the album translates on various speaker systems. He catches things that the mixing engineer may have missed. In the days of vinyl, the mastering engineer made sure that the standard RIAA EQ curve was applied before pressing, otherwise the needle could potentially jump out of the grooves of the record.