Paul Thompson offers an alternative take on the romanticized and mythologized process of record-making. Side A illustrates how creativity arises out of a system in action, and introduces the history, culture, traditions and institutions that contribute to the process of commercial record production. Side B demonstrates this system in action during the central tasks of songwriting, performing, engineering and producing. Using examples from John Lennon, David Bowie, Tupac Shakur, Björk, Marta Salogni, Sylvia Massy and Rick Rubin, each chapter takes the reader inside a different part of the commercial record production process and uncovers the interactive and interrelated multitude of factors involved in each creative task.

(Music Pro Guide Books & DVDs). Here, record producer Beinhorn reveals how to deal with interpersonal issues record producers face when they work with artists one on one or in small groups. The situations and solutions are based upon the author's personal and professional experience working with a variety of different artists, such as Herbie Hancock, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soul Asylum, Hole, Soundgarden, Ozzy Osbourne, Courtney Love, Marilyn Manson, Social Distortion, Korn, and Mew. Beinhorn's unique methods and perspective, applied to record producing and music making in the studio, opens the door to successful collaborative efforts. The author shows you how to find what he calls your sensory connection to the creativity process, which ultimately helps you find the intent behind your creative choices. You can read dozens of articles and books that feature a hundred different people talking about what microphones they used when they recorded Record X or how they set their stereo buss compressor, but you will never find out what prompted them to make these choices. Beinhorn's focus on collaborative effort enables record producers and artists to find solutions while working as a creative team. This perspective is especially valuable as it is transdisciplinary and can be applied to many occupations and modes of creativity outside of record production.

The field of popular music production is overwhelmingly male dominated. Here, Paula Wolfe discusses gendered notions of creativity and examines the significant under-representation of women in studio production. Wolfe brings an invaluable perspective as both a working artist-producer and as a scholar, thereby offering a new body of research based on interviews and first-hand observation. Wolfe demonstrates that patriarchal frameworks continue to form the backbone of the music industry establishment but that women’s work in the creation and control of sound presents a potent challenge to gender stereotyping, marginalisation and containment of women’s achievements that is still in evidence in music marketing practices and media representation in the digital era.

Recording studios are the most insulated, intimate and privileged sites of music production and creativity. Yet in a world of intensified globalisation, they are also sites which are highly connected into wider networks of music production that are increasingly spanning the globe. This book is the first comprehensive account of the new spatialties of cultural production in the recording studio sector of the musical economy, spatialities that illuminate the complexities of global cultural production. This unique text adopts a social-geographical perspective to capture the multiple spatial scales of music production: from opening the "black-box" of the insulated space of the recording studio; through the wider contexts in which music production is situated; to the far-flung global production networks of which recording studios are part. Drawing on original research, recent writing on cultural production across a variety of academic disciplines, secondary sources such as popular music biographies, and including a wide range of case studies, this lively and accessible text covers a range of issues including the role of technology in musical creativity; creative collaboration and emotional labour; networking and reputation; and contemporary economic challenges to studios. As a contribution to contemporary debates on creativity, cultural production and creative labour, Cultural Production in and Beyond the Recording Studio will appeal to academic students and researchers working across the social sciences, including human geography, cultural studies, media and communication studies, sociology, as well as those studying music production courses.

(Book). This book features interviews and articles from issues 11 to 20 of Tape Op , an independently published magazine founded in 1996. With a fiercely loyal readership, Tape Op covers creative and practical music recording topics from the famous studios to musicians creating masterpieces in their bedrooms. Creativity, technique, equipment, passion and learning collide in this entertaining, value-rich publication. Interviews and articles in this volume include Abbey Road Studio, Butch Vig, Jim Dickinson, Joe Chiccarelli, Ani DiFranco, Fugazi, The Flaming Lips, and Ween.

For decades, Jesse Cannon has been pushing creative ideas in music. You may know him from writing one of the most popular books on the music business, Get More Fans, or from his recording credits on records with the most varied set of bands you've ever seen, including The Cure, The Misfits, Animal Collective, Brand New, The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Menzingers, Limp Bizkit, Basement, Leftover Crack, Saves The Day, Senses Fail, Weird Al Yankovich, Lifetime, Say Anything, NOFX, Flatsound, Man Overboard, Bad Books, Transit, Somos, Cavetown, and over a thousand others. You may also know his work as the host of the podcasts Atlantic Records Inside The Album, Noise Creators, and Off The Record, his popular YouTube channel Musformation, as a producer for popular podcasts at Rolling Stone & The Daily Beast or from his writing at outlets like Alternative Press, Tape Op, & Hypebot. In Processing Creativity: How To Write Songs People Love he chronicles the lessons learned working on all those records and writing about music's most progressive ideas, taking on the subject he knows the most about; helping musicians fulfill their creative vision. The book is the culmination of four years of poring over scientific studies, books, and thoughts from top creators as well as his own experience to write a book every musician should listen to about what goes into making great music versus what bands do when they make the innumerable bad songs we hear each day. Covering the pitfalls of creating music, the book thoroughly explores the hidden reasons we actually like music, how to get along with our collaborators, and patterns that help creativity flourish. While every musician says that being creative is the most important part of their life, they barely explore what's holding them back from making music they are happy with. When trying to navigate the ways our creative endeavors fail there's no YouTube tutorial, listicle, or college course that can help navigate the countless creative pitfalls that can ruin your music but after reading this book you will have the knowledge to guide you to make songs the world loves. The essential ideas on creating music are detailed in a simple, fun language that’s littered with quotes and insight from the most innovative creators of our time including: • How to make highly emotional music that compels listeners to listen again and again. • Effectively dealing with collaborative problems like “too many chefs in the kitchen,” giving helpful criticism or dealing with stubborn collaborators. • Finding inspiration when you have writer's block. • How to draft your songs while avoiding the common pitfalls of losing perspective and giving up. • Examining the unexpected reasons we enjoy music. • Calming your thoughts so they don’t sabotage your music and other helpful tools to help execute your music as best as possible.

This title was first published in 2003.This highly original and accessible book draws on the author’s personal experience as a musician, producer and teacher of popular music to discuss the ways in which audio technology and musical creativity in pop music are inextricably bound together. This relationship, the book argues, is exemplified by the work of Trevor Horn, who is widely acknowledged as the most important, innovative and successful British pop record producer of the early 1980s. In the first part of the book, Timothy Warner presents a definition of pop as distinct from rock music, and goes on to consider the ways technological developments, such as the transition from analogue to digital, transform working practices and, as a result, impact on the creative process of producing pop.