Three types of producers

- I think there's three types of producers. I think that there's the musician producer, like Pharrell Williams, someone who writes the music and has a singer come and sing on that that they've written, they create the music for the project. Then I think that there's another type of producer, the engineer producer, that's the type of producer that I started as because I learned the equipment, and the tool that I use here in the studio is how I add to the project. So the studio is my tool. Then there's a third type of producer, and that's the fan producer, and that's someone like Rick Rubin who doesn't necessarily do engineering and is not necessarily a musician writer, but he knows how to put people together and to pick the music that should be recorded. So when he works with a band, he'll have them write 300 songs and bring him 300 songs, and he'll listen to each one and he'll pick only maybe 20 of the best. So you can imagine, out of 300 songs, the 20 that he picks are going to be really good songs. Then he'll choose the studio, he'll choose the session players, he'll choose the engineer and the editors and the people to populate the session, and he'll pick the dates, and then he'll put everyone together in the room and he'll get the session started. And as soon as he knows the boat has left the dock and is in the water, he'll just let it be, and he'll come back and he'll check and he'll make sure these songs are being developed the way that he envisions them to be developed. And it's a magic combination he hits time and time again. But he comes from the perspective of a fan. When I do projects, I come from the perspective of a fan too. I start there, I want to work on music that I really enjoy and am passionate about, and then I'll use my skills that I've learned in engineering, or I'll call in an engineer to say, okay, you know what I like, you run this part, I'm going to concentrate entirely on the music process that's happening out in the room. And then on occasion I'll also do some music, I'll do some writing, I'll write arrangements for strings or harmonies. So I do have a musical writing element that I can put in there too. So most producers have a little bit of all three of these skills that they bring into the sessions. I concentrate more on the engineering side just because I love gear and I love gadgets, so that's where I'll usually start a project, besides just having to love the music before we even start.