No offense Scruffy, but audio engineering was part of my major I got a degree in college for. I knew my meaning.

A record producer helps bring to life the ideas of the artist. There may be many classifications of the word nowadays because anyone that makes music in their home is a producer. For these purposes, they are (as I said) an expensive set of ears that determines or otherwise makes decisions to make an album sound better. Choices like, more reverb here, put a cut there, bring up the strings for this many measures, drop out that instrument over there.... They run the boards. Because no matter how good a musician you are, you will always need a better set of ears to guide you to the sound you want.

Producers are still subject (for the most part unless it's some contracted garbage) to the overall whims of their artists and (as you said) the executive producer. Otherwise, all a hip-hop/rap artist would need to do was go into a studio, record all their vocals in a day and piss off until a "producer" (as defined by some around here) pooped out the album the artist only had a base involvement with. THEN I could see people rambling on about how the input of one producer or another had such a drastic impact on how a track would have sounded if someone else did it.

Now Twizted gets to decide who they bring in and make those decisions WITH them and not FOR them.

I've just never heard so many people talking about producers as though they were the performer rather than the artist *more than in these forums.

The producer is the guy who puts it together, in hop hop instrumentals typically are not made with a live band so they are created by the producer.

Loop a drum sample here and add a jazz sample there, there and there. Boom producer made the instrumental.

That is what a Hip Hop producer is. He is essentially the creator of the instrumental. The one in charge of what the instrumental will sound like.

scruffy said
 

besides, what constitutes an ear?

  

In mixing and mastering it takes  a good ear that can hear the subtle details. I think that for the most part a producer should have some sort of skill when it comes to this.

THIS is an example of a producer. Yes, they are also engineers but a *producer is the one helping to choose elements and levels and telling the performer/artist what they (the producer) needs them (the artist) to do in order to get the sound. Someone who is "simply" an engineer is just the guy twiddling the knobs for them. Sometimes the producer is also the engineer and others he/she is telling the engineer to do it but a good producer knows the gear as well.

And yes Scruffy, even though this is an example of rock production, artists that aren't just getting everything uploaded from FL and use studio musicians and the like (such as all of Twizted's guitars n'such), ALL need get produced this kind of way. But even then, the boards are condensed and digitally represented in the programs used to make them.

Just like I can tell the difference between a song on vinyl, cd or mp3; you all know when something sounds like shit because of "PRODUCTION". A producer isn't making the songs. They make the "better".

http://youtu.be/RfBVJ0JJCZc

Well this topic just took an interesting turn.  lol

I'll produce these nuts on your face!  SLAM DUNK NIGGA!

Boats and Hoes!

Such a stupid fucking argument...

I agree. Stupid argument. But there's been worse arguments hahaha