What does an record producer do?

Answer 1

From this url: http://www.musiciansnews.com/61/what_does_a_music_producer_do.shtml

A music producer can do anything from making coffee to just sitting back and listening. That sounds like an easy job, and it can be. When you have a great recording engineer doing the recording, and great artists and musicians around you creating great music a producer's job becomes very easy. But when you are on a budget with very limit studio time, a busy schedule, a singer that keeps messing up the vocal track because he/she is nervous, the drummer that can't get the groove right, a recording engineer who can't get the computer to record the next track your job as a producer becomes a lot more challenging. And this is what being a good producer is being about. At these moments a producer needs to be a problem solver and make decisions. Every producer does it differently, but the result is the same, a recorded and well produced song.

To be able to make it work a producer may have to get involved with the technical stuff and help the recording engineer out. Or you may have to get the singer to make the vocal track work with the song by changing the lyrics, changing the melody or give some vocal pointers. It may also involve rewriting part of the music by changing chords, adding samples and sound effects and creating a complete new drum rhythm from scratch. And there are a lot of other situations where a good producer needs to take charge and show why he (or she) is the producer.

Being a producer can involve

Getting into the music (Music Theory)

Getting into the songwriting process and learning about songwriting and sequencing

Knowing some things about recording

Being able to work with musicians and artist and get the best out of them

Working with a recording engineer and other studio owners

Using sound effects, samples and other techniques to make song sound different and unique

Mixing and editing the song

Mastering the song

In today's music the producer is usually also a songwriter, a musician and recording engineer. This makes the job both easier and more difficult.