Best producer of all time

Ok, so with the emergence of the producer who gets credit in music nowadays, I was just podering who you guys and gals think of as the best music producer of all time, and if not of all time, one of the best in the biz today.

There are some noteable producers such as Phil Spector, Jon Brion and Kanye West, then there are producers who breach the confines of rap and produce very successfully for other genres. Rick Rubin and Timbaland come to mind as producers who have done this successfully.

Who do you think is doin it big today?

Quincy Jones is probably No.1.

Timbaland has been very hot of late.

Terry Date produced many of my favorite albums.

Ahhh. My area of expertese.

ROn Fair, Jack Joseph Puig, neal avron, butch vig, butch walker, don gilmore, brendan o'brien, Jerry harrison, rob cavalo. check those dudes out.

Go to AAM or Nettwerk David Weise and Associates. Moir/Marie Entertainment, Marie Music Group, BK Entertainment Group. Borman Moir entertainmnet or just Moir Entertainment. those firms manage the varsity team of producers at the moment. At least in the rock/pop/alternative world.

Terry Date...ahhh memories. U2U me I know a thing or two about Terry Date. or just google who his old management team.

Oh yeah take it from Kelly Clarkson....never piss off Clive Davis! He tanked her last album and tour cause she didn't want to play along.

In my mind though Quincy put out some of the best stuff ever.

Timbaland, kanye west...those guys will be around for maybe another year and then never be heard of again. the aren't popping off like one would believe.

holy schmolly my spelling sucks when I type 200 words a minute.

Also check out Johnny K (John Karkazis), Tal Herzberg (works with Ron, and Jack)

Rick Rubin's the main man though in a lot of rock related stuff, even just switched up his contract.

fred durst......... ........... ........... NOT!!! even his right hand man (was, can't stand fred now) Lobo Hong won't talk to fred anymore.

Dan Huff is doing a good share of country producing.

I'd say Bob Ezrin or Eddie Kramer

Originally posted by BASSPLYR
Ahhh. My area of expertese.

ROn Fair, Jack Joseph Puig, neal avron, butch vig, butch walker, don gilmore, brendan o'brien, Jerry harrison, rob cavalo. check those dudes out.

Go to AAM or Nettwerk David Weise and Associates. Moir/Marie Entertainment, Marie Music Group, BK Entertainment Group. Borman Moir entertainmnet or just Moir Entertainment. those firms manage the varsity team of producers at the moment. At least in the rock/pop/alternative world.

Terry Date...ahhh memories. U2U me I know a thing or two about Terry Date. or just google who his old management team.

Oh yeah take it from Kelly Clarkson....never piss off Clive Davis! He tanked her last album and tour cause she didn't want to play along.

In my mind though Quincy put out some of the best stuff ever.

Timbaland, kanye west...those guys will be around for maybe another year and then never be heard of again. the aren't popping off like one would believe.

Good call BASSPLYR. It sounds like you have a good grasp on the hot producers. Have you ever done producing yourself, or are you active in a band? Gimme a shout and let a brother know.

I agree with your comments on Kanye and Timbo. Chances are that they dont have the staying power to function in the future. They'll make their millions and drop off the face of the earth, not to be seen until VH1 does a where are they now episode.

And if you drive and SUV, you should be romping over speed bumps. Idiotas...

yep SUVs even fancy ones are meant to disregard speed bumps all together. isn't that the point of all their fancy suspension n stuff?

Yeah I work in the management side of the recording industry. At one of the above listed firms. Met 80% of the people mentioned here on this thread.. my endocrinologist is even bob ezrins son calvin.

was in a few bands before. 2 had deals but both ended up being tax write offs for Warner and another for a Sony Imprint.

Me I'm more interested in moving away from specifically Producer/Mixer/Engineer management to incorporate artist management too, publishing in the areas of synching with TV/Movie/Videogames etc... I make friends with the A&R guys easily, the younger ones at least, and I miss opportunities because I don't have any artists on my roster only producers and mixers.

Plus one producer manager at our office who has been doing what I do for 4 times the time is now trying to undermine me, jack projects labels bring to our office for her own producers, take calls for me and then not tell me when I'm out of the office jacking projects, trying to impeade me anyway she can, even tried blaming me for stuff I don't even work on, and to top it off she's trying to "train" my assistant to do stuff for her. I'm either going to throw the bitch out the nearest window soon for F'ing with my money and career, or Move to a different firm. Probably one of the other above mentioned firms. Not my fault her commissions suck because she sucks at managing her damned clients. SO now she's moving in on mine cause I'm moving too fast. And to think I stopped negotiations to do low level executive work at a labels west coast office a month ago because at the time I was 'Happy" at my job. And I didn't want to make the current company I work at look bad to the A&R guy who co runs the label because I was thinking about leaving. Pissed. I can always bring it up again next week when I see him again.

the recording industry is just as backwards and immature as High School. seriously.

U2U me i could tell you about the personalities and drama of a good chunk of the above mentioned guys.

if we are not basing it only on units sold.
frank zappa, hands down.

listen to the production value of his stuff doing back to 66

boon.

you know I ain't go nothin' bad to say about Mr Zappa. that man WAS an iconic musical genius. I already told you about how crazy for joes Garage my collage dorm mate was, but the guy one time spent an entire friday night practicing this one bend on one specific part of one song on that album on his guitar. All night, and I do mean all night this guy bent the same note over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, but you know what. he did nail down the song perfectly in the end. Franks stuff was creative, lucid, and actually very thoughtful. Every time you bring it up it reminds me of collage.

Personally I think they should shoot whoever produced satches latest stuff. not satch himself mind you just whoever is producing the last few projects he recorded. like his last two. that stuff sounded more like he was trying to put together a portfolio reel for session work or something than the genius behind flying in a blue dream. also someone take the damned bass out of satches hand next time he wants to record all the instruments on his next album. great guitar player. the stiffest, feel less, no pocket bassist I've heard since the dude from spinal tap. please joe do NOT turn the bass up to eleven.

i am a huge white stripes fan and there are not many of us. i thought jack was coming right along as a producer and then i get icky thump.
the tunes are good but man, the production is not good. i am also upset at the lack of guitar solo but whatever.
every track seems bass heavy and compressed.
he said it was gonna sound like their first which was recorded in their house. this one was recorded in the studio and he was trying not to make it dound like that...what it sounds like is exactly that. like he was in a studio trying to get 'that sound' and he didn't get it.
it all sounds very compressed.

back to zappa for a sec, can we get a what what for the production value of lumpy gravy?

whats funny about the white stripes album is that the guy who recorded it was Joe Chiccarelli, the same guy who recorded all of Frank Zappa's stuff. Joe has really fallen since he stopped being managed by my boss. the only thing notable he's done in the last few years was engineering and mixing for The SHins, and Mika. other than that he's not in the picture anymore. I'm surprised that they went for Joe to do this album over at warner bros. The main A&R over (craig aaronson, perry watts russel, jeff aldrich, kevin williamson,bob bortnick and andy olyphant) there all could have prioratized the white stripes album and have gotten some good producers and more money authorized for the project. but I guess they wanted to develop other acts instead. I know the raccountours was considered a failure inside the industry. was going through storage and chucking a bunch of old Joe Chiccarelli boxes full of deal memos a few weeks ago.

The A&R over at warner, I don't remember who manages the white stripes but they weren't investing much into this album thats for sure.

Joe hasn't been used a lot for stuff anymore, he's just lost his touch or something. a few months ago a young whippersnapper of an engineer got a project that a label was considering giving to Joe. He lost out to a guy who has 1/10th the experience he has, and the other guy was the same price.

You are right though, there is way way way too much over compression on all the damned recordings around these days. It's a big problem in the industry. thanks Tom Lord-alge! he notorious for doing it on his mixes. it all started like this though.... compressed recordings physically play at a louder volume over the stereo radio whatever. the song that was compressed back when songs weren't compressed as much would stand out to the listener in theory because it was louder than everyhting else on the radio. unfortunantly you loose a lot of dynamics when you over compress and the emotional inflection in the notes don't come through. so the chorus is hard to distinguish from the verses because there is no dynamic there anymore. the over compression is bad for the actual laser reading the disc too studies have shown so the manufacturers of the CD players aren't too happy about it. the A&R keep pushing the producers and mixers to keep doing it since everyone else is doing it and they are in competition after all. The guys who made their livings doing mastering on albums have nothing to master because it's all so compressed. so they are pissed theres no work for them. the studio managers and owners are pissed too cause their little mastering rooms and equipment aren't being booked as much any more and they are losing money
and last it's not so good on your ears either.

hey boon...do you ever check out Bob Lefsetz stuff. sign up to his emails. he's in the know.

Hey! A topic about which I know absolutely nothing, so let me chime in.

I probably couldn't name 3 producers if you spotted me one, but I do know about Mutt Lange. No love for Mutt? Even some props for scoring a babe like Shania?

Needless to say (but I will anyway), I know nothing about the music business. But my all-time favorite music biz dude is Jerry Aldini.

Points if you know who that is without looking it up.

("Points" as in ephemeral kudos).

Anyone ever heard of Sir George Martin.............or did I miss it? How 'bout Robert Stigwood?

Quincy Jones is probably at the top.

Peace

You mean Robert Lange of Reach Sound inc. and Twain Zone Inc? Although I never worked with the guy, people at my office helped out with producing most of Shania's early stuff mid 90's through the mid 00' and dealt with him a few times. Robert John "mutt" Lange looking at his contact info in our data base right now (granted it's up to date.) He's Shania's husband so maybe the home phone and alt cell numbers I'm looking at are hers. Not about to call and find out.

Jerry Aldini? never heard of him.

John Stigwood....come on. you just like him cause he produced all the bee gee's stuff. Some ones got the night fever, but we don't need to know it. My own little version of the bee gees song. He did do work on the Cream albums though right? I don't remember as I wasn't in the biz back then. I think I was in kinder garden or maybe just a zygote. I don't know too much about him.