Producers, Recording Engineers and Studio Wizards: POLL RESULTS

why did you do the ties like that

good range of genres represented, major exception probably reggae/ dub. I would expect both King Tubby and Lee Perry to place, though.

xp yeah, looking at it, there are 28 people in that 26!

not that it matters really...

I don't understand, how would you guys prefer the ties to be listed

Xenomania and Gary Katz should jointly occupy the 41st position.

and Jimmy Miller and Norman Whitfield the 39th, ensuring you stick to 50 people in the top 50.

Like I say, it doesn't actually matter.

normally ties take up two spots; on would be #41 and the other would be #43

also the #41 tie isn't really a tie since there are different numbers of votes and one has a #1 vote; either of those could be used as a tiebreaker (and have in previous polls)

this is not criticism really, more curiosity

JB probably has been sampled more often, but still seems to me that Clinton has a wider breadth of recordings that have been sampled, even if the total number isn't as high. But I have no official stats on this, I'm just basing it on what I've heard, which obviously can't be everything that's out there.

this is maybe a bit of semantics, but JB's statistical superiority here is due, I'm sure, in large part to the preponderance of Funky Drummer drumbreak samples. Clinton's influence goes a bit wider than that tho - it's not just that everyone sampled Atomic Dog, it's that his basic sonic template has been copied over and over again throughout hip hop. I'm talking about synth-bass lines, stacked synthesized handclaps, Bernie Worrell and Junie Morrison's squiggly analog synth lines, the basic 96bpm funk rhythms, etc. this stuff is still being used. and then there's all the imagery/conceptual stuff - pimps from outer space etc.

xxp

Will there be even a single female producer?

I dunno I just allotted slots on the list to number of points. If an entry has the same number of points as another entry, then it seemed natural to list them both together rather than place one ahead of the other.

anyway

24. Holland/Dozier/Holland (165 points, 7 votes)
http://www.songwriteruniverse.com/images/hdh2.jpg
Credits: Mary Wells, Martha and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, the Four Tops, the Supremes basically everyone on Motown in the 60s

above is apparently the only photo of all three of them, for some reason

I think we'll be boys-only unless Kate shows up. No female voters either, if I read the list right.

Didn't you vote?

Are you asking me out?

I dunno everybody's genders I can't say if any women voted or not

23. Rick Rubin (168 points, 9 votes)
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DEwpYSD3wN4/SiiwcG_Hg2I/AAAAAAAACi4/D8UConVrTv8/s400/RickRubinLoisAyres1986%C2%A9GEF.jpg
Credits: LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Slayer, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Johnny Cash, others

Awesome photo.

I like a lot of Rubin's stuff and can appreciate his whole "invention" rap-metal as influential even when most of what resulted was utter shit... his latter-day productions do him no favors tho, placing him this high seems like a gross injustice in my opinion. I mean sure those Slayer albums are great but come on now, this guy is a one-trick pony.

"invention" OF rap metal that should say

He's amazingly prolific though, and has produced a lot of great records (as well as a lot of crap): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rubin_production_discography

He got my vote for being such a ubiquitous shaper of large amounts of interesting pop music over the last 30yrs...

wtf at clinton being so low

Rick Rubin was amongst those I was sure I would vote for until the time came to whittle down my list of contenders down to 20, and he didn't quite make the cut.

Are you asking me out?

That wasn't my intent, but hey, now that you've piqued my interest......

He's amazingly prolific though

shit doesn't improve with the addition of more shit

pretty much everything he's done post-1990 has been egregiously bad, with a couple exceptions

22. The Neptunes (172 points, 7 votes)
http://live.drjays.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Neptunes-producer-of-the-year-drjays-com.jpg
Credits: Clipse

You think the production on Blood Sugar Sex Magik is egregiously bad?

I think the whole album is egregiously bad!

and don't get me started on all those Andrew Dice Clay, God Lives Underwater, and Tom Petty Greatest Hits albums...

Indedependent of whether the music is to one's taste or not, the production blew me away on that album, esp. on "Breaking the Girl" and "Give It Away"

OTOH i can't begin to imagine why Andrew Dice Clay even needs a producer

pretty much everything he's done post-1990 has been egregiously bad, with a couple exceptions

Always loved what he did on Ballbreaker (1995). Really wish AC/DC had stuck with him for another record or two.

shit doesn't improve with the addition of more shit

pretty much everything he's done post-1990 has been egregiously bad, with a couple exceptions

― unorthodox economic revenge (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, October 20, 2011 6:30 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

I quite like the way those first two System Of A Down albums sound!

I kinda felt like I had to vote for Rick Rubin. Even if I don't love a lot of what he does, his influence is colossal, for better and for worse.

i umm'd and ahhh'd re rubins inclusion as well, but in the end, dropped his name in my list for the same reasons.
however, now i'm beginning to wish i had remembered george clinton as a producer.

a definite f*ck up on my side.

GC was my #1. Had to be.

rub it in whydontcha.

I listened to two of the greatest debut albums of the '80s this past week, R.E.M.'s Murmur and the Smithereens' Especially For You. And then realized I didn't vote for Don Dixon. And then noticed he wasn't even mentioned in the nomination thread. WTF?

21. Rudy Van Gelder (176 points, 6 votes, 1 #1 vote)
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/iviews/rvg.jpg
Credits: Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Grant Green, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, many others

I really shortchanged jazz producers on my ballot, simply because I don't have a good feel for how jazz (or classical) production affects the sound. In rock, r&b, and hip-hop it's much more obvious for me since I've produced recordings in those genres. I can listen to a Miles Davis album and love the music, but for whatever reason can't imagine what the same music would sound like had it been produced by somebody else.

I was hoping for top-5 for RVG.

B-b-b-b-b-b-but 69-73 Miles simply wouldn't exist without Teo?!

That's some bullshit right there, Nick.

xp That's true, but Van Gelder (as an engineer -- dunno if he was ever credited as a producer) established the practices and techniques that all future such recordings were based on, for all intents and purposes.

Van Gelder's the style of production was relatively unobtrusive - the idea was just to capture the live performance as well as possible, so it becomes all about clarity: mic placement, room dynamics, etc. which is obviously a totally different skill from, say, programming a drum machine...

the

rvg! just amazing to think how many ridiculously amazing sessions he recorded.
was watching an interview with him recently and he said he could never really appreciate the music being made, just because he was caught up in the technical aspects of everything. wasn't until decades later that he really could enjoy the records.

re teo : OTM nick .
the sleevenotes for BB reissue alone makes you realise just how insanely involved/progressive Teo was with the whole process...
will be interesting to see where (if!!) he is placed in this rundown.

[xpost ! blimey .. thought it was a forgone conclusion re teo ..]

I think Nick's OTM about Teo, fwiw. you listen to those Miles sessions box sets, they make Teo's contributions readily apparent.

and now for something completely different