Michelle,

The higher level you go, the more segmented things get. Most musicians who are interested in studio work, get very profficent at it by doing it over and over and over. They play all the tracks and do things. As they get more experienced and making more money, some times they tend to hire more players so they can concentrate on one thing.

An audio engineer usually is specifically involved with the technical aspect of the recording process. The dials, bells whistles, effects, anything that has to do with the sound and collection of information to finished project.

Sometimes producers have different functions. Last night I was exectutive producer for a woman from Canada who is a regular client of mine. She comes in about twice a year to work with me and does my "tours". But she is different in that she comes in for a week at a time and we just write. Then we record at the end of the week.

This trip is a little more focused in that she is putting together songs for her own CD. She is 47 so a little old for a mainstream record deal. But she and I write some really good songs and last year I got her a song pluggers. So she is writing for herself and for the industry.

Her job is she is the owner (there you go, strong woman again) of a Sauce company. They make hot sauces, dessert sauces, etc. for several large grocery stores in Canada. But she is originally from Mississippi and lived in Nashville 12 years ago. She and My Father were good friends. She moved to Canada, got married and started working with me again about two years ago. She is a motorcycle rider with a bunch of women in Canada. She and her group, Women in the Wind" are comprised of judges, business owners, lawyers, all women who are successful and like to ride those big motorcycles. They do charity things like riding for breast cancer, and we have written many songs for them. Including their theme song, "Women in the Wind."

This time she had some emotional songs that she had written for her kids years ago, and on Monday we had to musically arrange those. Then on Tues.-Thus. We wrote 4 songs and then decided to record three of those so she will have new songs to pitch next year with her song plugger.

We recorded all seven over the last two nights. We got the basic tracks (guitar, bass, keyboards, scratch vocals) Thus. night and finished her vocals last night. This is going to be part of her new CD she is doing for herself next year. The songs really turn out pretty well and she actually did a good job as far as singing goes. I am very proud of her. But there are some songs that we pitch that I will get a professional singer on for the industry. There are voices the industry likes to hear and I use them in some instances.

In my recording activities, the recording process and my involvement come in four stages. My involvement is in two of those. This is all part of the roles of a "producer" and each person approaches it in a different way.

#1 Pre-production
#2 Tracking and musical recording
#3 Backing or production of vocals
#4 Mixing

We work with four musicians playing at the same time. The drums are in an isolation booth. Keyboards in another, guitar, and bass are all at the same time in different booths.

Now, earlier in the week I have done guitar vocal arrangements on her songs on my computer. These, I MP3 to my partner and arranger, Jay Verne, who is a GREAT keyboard player, (played with the Memphis horns, band leader for country star Lorre Morgan and many others.) Jay and I have been working together so long we are really in tune. he does the "Charts" which are the numbered arrangements. They are done in numbers so that if you have to change key you can do it easily. The numbers correspond with the notes to be played and it is very fast.
Jay and I actually sit down two days before the session and go over every part. This time we had very limited time because of some repairs to the studio. But we do our best.
That is pre-production.

Recording.
Since I do not play an instrument on the session, I leave that to the pros. We have a great guitar player and they don't need me. He is far better and I only accompany myself. These four guys play together all the time so I stay out of the way. My job on the recording is to take notes of what needs to be done, overdubs, vocals, lyric changes, etc. And keep an eye on the clock. Money is time so I have to deliver the product intact an on budget. I also have to pull the plug and move it on when we have spent too much time on any one thing. I am veiwing the overall project, while everyone else is concentrating on their own job. We have a audio engineer who watches the levels, makes notes, and does number markings for location if there are needs to fix parts or add something.
The actual tracking is amazing. These guys here it once or part of it then play it almost perfectly. It takes about 5 minutes a song and it is like on the radio. Of course we have overdubbing and small things to work out, but because everyone is so good and focused there is very little disscussion and NO arguing.

I have worked with bands that spend two hours arguing between the drummer and bass player of who is playing one wrong beat. Drives me nuts. A few months ago I produced a project on a guy who insisted on having his band guitar player, fiddle player, and female singer, record on his project. It was a disaster, with the guitar player freaking out, wasting three hours to get one solo on one song. The female singer sang flat as hell, and the fiddle player was decent. Not great, but decent. I had to move them along, hence the baby sitting part. In the end it turned out well, but we couldn't use some of their parts. When they got back to the big gig they were playing, a giant flood rained them out so he never even got to use what he did. And putting his players in cost him around $850 extra in wasted time. THEN the members he was working so hard to please, quit his band. So it was a waste of time. But it sounds good.

Vocals.
After the instruments go down, we do vocals. That was last night. She is a little slow because she is not used to it. But she did just fine. I sang the background parts and will finish those next week. I also will bring in a demo singer (Jay's wife is great! Sings with Reba McCentire, Barry Gibb and others) and
she will do duplicate "pitchable" version of each song.

Mix.
The mix is adding all the parts and I don't do that. I wear out easily and there are people who have more patience than I do. That is Jay. In this town there are actual "Mix engineers" that do the finish work. They have fresh ears and you can get burned out VERY easily. Actually, I don't know how anyone can sit there through ten hours of bass drum parts alone and not get worn out. One of the guys I work with is a rap and hip hop producer out of San Fransisco/LA areas and he spends hours mixing small isolated parts that we record in Nashville. He works out of his own studio as well as getting the tracks recorded with us.
He is here this week so I wrote one song with him in the middle of all this. Two days this week I was writing between two and three songs a day, doing recording in the evenings, and actually two hour shows at night. That is what a producer does. Everything.

When the mix is done, I review them. Make sure it is all ready to go, then get them to the clients. If something comes back unsatisfactorily, have to fix lines, add parts, need remixes, etc. that is my ass. I have to make sure it is all done before turning it to the final product. I will get some of these to the song plugger and some will be taken to other sources. Since I am working with two song pluggers now, both will get the songs I have written on.

So that is the process. I am more of an executive producer, like they do in the movies. I make sure everything is done from inception, arranging, recording, finished product.

If you would like to see this in action, if you go to my web site, www.marcalanbarnette.com, you will see me doing it on a song called "Less is More." It is a pretty cool thing, about five minutes. It was recorded by a film crew to document our process. It shows me literally walking into Jay;s studio with my guitar, sitting down, charting the song out, working arrangements, then adding the players. A cool thing is we used Bob Babbit, the legendary bass player from Motown, who played on hundreds of number one records, from Stevie Wonder's Signed Sealed Delivered, to the Bee Gees, and Spinners. Amazing guy. He plays on our song and just recieved a letter from Phil Collins thanking him for inspiring Phil. Phil is flying him to England next month to record 40 songs. He is a legend. I'm not worthy! LOL!

Then it shows us recording the track, me singing and the back up singers we use, who are also in the songwriter's band I have. It is pretty cool. The song, Less is More" is from one of my teaching lessons with a guy named Allen Shervelle. We had written the song a month before the session. The video won a "Telly Award" which is voted on by a film commission. That is like an Oscar and I have it sitting on my mantle.

So Michelle, this may be more info than you asked for, but I am thorough. If you are interested in the recording process, there it is.
But some women are not interested in that much technical procedure, which is why they don't gravitate to it as much, and that is why you don't have as many female producers. It is faceless, sometimes thank less and a LOT of energy used. And you have to remember that many women have children, families, other responsibilities, so they don't have the ability to take all that time away from other areas.

Hope this helps.

MAB