“I think that it is important for a producer to be an artist as well. After all, how can a producer relate to an artist if they haven’t been an artist themselves at one point. Producers are there to facilitate other artists in the music making process. There’s always a risk that a producer will try and live vicariously through their artist’s if they don’t have there own projects, also. There’s nothing worse than when someone imposes their own opinion on the direction of an artistic project in manner that is uninvited. In fact, this is the single reoccurring complaint that is made about some producers all over the world. Artist’s will complain and say that “he had his own ideas about how the song was going to sound and he didn’t really listen to what I wanted”, or, “I could tell he was a great musician, but he didn’t really get where I was coming from as an artist”. The producer needs to be mindful that their role in the project, at best, is to be collaborative, to be a bridge between the music and the technical tangle of the recording equipment, and to be a reliable and unbiased source of feedback to the artist. The days of the Phil Spector – Hitler style producer are over. “
