Who's your favorite music producer?

Rick Rubin gotta be in the conversation, and of course one that changed the game and went on to do a lot of different genres.... Timberland.

Here's a nice up and comer...... https://soundcloud.com/lacbeatz

 

For a long, varied and productive career, probably Chris Thomas.

But I'd also recommend John Leckie, Bob Crewe for all the wonderful Four Seasons '60s hits, Phil Spector and a few others.

 

I know that many people thinks that he messes too much with recordings but Nigel Godrich have in my opinion made many tasteful albums with Radiohead, Travis as well as Paul McCartney's Chaos.
He seems to be pretty much "hands on" in the process. Of course I love George Martin but I feel he was more of a kind of schoolmaster making sure that there was a certain order in the classroom. I'm familiar with Bob Ezrin as a producer on the last few Pink Floyd albums and I really like the sound of The Wall and The Division Bell but I'm a bit unsure of what was his exact part in the process. I'm a fan of a-ha and early in the carreer Alan Tarney turned their key singles into gold. He was too limiting to follow them past Stay On These Roads but he was very good at what he did it seems.

Basically I think that a good producer should make sure there is an overall sense of quality, keep the album together. He/she should have the ability to say "that's good, don't mess with it" when the magic is there and prevent the band or artist to overthink and be filled with doubt and make too much compromises. On the other hand if the recordings misses something the producer should know what to add to the painting.

 

I like a lot of the rock era producers, who had to use their witts to do their thing because they didn't have technology to do it all for them.
Bill Szymxptlk, George Martin, and Tony Clarke come to mind pretty quick.
Bob Ezrin took the Alice Cooper band from being a sloppy garage band to being a highly polished rock machine as well as being the main brain behind The Wall.

 

George Martin, Mickie Most and Shel Talmy; between the three of them, most of the truly ace Sixties UK pop records!

 

I'll include:

Brad Jones

Jack Joseph Puig

John Fry

 

Probably No.1 would be Tony Visconti (T.Rex, Bowie amongst others).
For their great drum sounds would be Jimmy Miller & Steve Lillywhite

 

Without really looking for a favorite producer I noticed over the years, that a lot of my favorite albums from different artists show the name Tony Visconti. So I guess he knows how to get the best ( in my ears) out of his clients.

 

Bob Johnson, Tom Dowd and Tom Wilson. Without these 3 the 60's in the US would have been a lot poorer and the 70's wouldn't have happened.

 

Mike hedges for lots of reasons, The Associates, Manic Street Preachers and The Cure to name 3.
Thomas Dolby for his Prefab Sprout work.
Martin Hannett for all the Factory stuff.

 

James Guthrie for the Floyd stuff.

 

I'm sure I could come up with other favorites if I thought about it, but the first person who comes to mind is Arif Mardin. Look at this list of artists he's produced (copied from Wikipedia), and I know this isn't even a complete list:

Margie Joseph, Thereza Bazar, The Rascals, Carly Simon, Petula Clark, Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand, the Bee Gees, Diana Ross, Queen, Patti Labelle, Aretha Franklin, Lulu, Anita Baker, Judy Collins, Phil Collins, Scritti Politti, Culture Club, Roberta Flack, Average White Band, Hall & Oates, Donny Hathaway, Norah Jones, Daniel Rodriguez, Chaka Khan, George Benson, Melissa Manchester, Side Show, The Manhattan Transfer, Modern Jazz Quartet, Willie Nelson, John Prine, Leo Sayer, Dusty Springfield, David Bowie, Raul Midon, Mamas Pride, Jewel and Ringo Starr.

 

Brian Wilson

 

Alfred Lion
Teo Macero

 

Some good names alreay mentioned: Chris Thomas (yes, a very consistent career, covering lots of different styles), Tony Visconti, Bob Ezrin and Arif Mardin would probably make my personal top 10 as well.

I would like to throw in some of my favourites - Norman Whitfield, Nile Rodgers, Giorgio Moroder, Quincy Jones and Trevor Horn.

But Rick Rubin? No way!

 

I pick Brian Eno, left his mark on all that he participated. And a mention to Martin Hannett.

 

Some of my favs include Al Kooper, Quincy Jones, Paul Rothchild, Dave Stewart.

However, if I have to pick one it has to be Lenny Kravitz. Especially, love the way he records the drums!

 

Always liked Andy Johns

 

Bob Ezrin, hands down.

 

Todd Rundgren

 

Danial Lanois
Mitchell Froom
Tim Freese - Greene

 

Norman Smith
John Leckie

 

It's hard to answer this question because one wants to say "George Martin" but was he really a fantastic all-around producer or did he just have a magic synergy with one band that a lot of us love to death? Very good producer, yes. Outside the Beatles was he fantastic? Guess I'm not sure. I have some favorites, but not a favorite.

Hugh Padgham worked with a lot of different artists and the results have often been pretty great, so he'd be up there on my list.
Terry Brown for his work with Rush, but what great stuff has he done apart from that?
Arif Marden is another guy who got great results with a wide variety of artists.
Peter Asher, again a great success with different artists. He's still a great producer -- listen to the latest Steve Martin CD.

Quite a few others, but I don't want to make a long post.

 

Phil Ramone.

 

Ken Scott, Gus Dudgeon, Phil Ramone, Chris Biondo, David Weber, Brian Eno, T Bone Burnett