Music Production: For Producers, Composers, Arrangers, and Students 2nd Edition

“Michael Zager’s book is perfect for anyone who wants to become a record producer. He breaks the creative process down and thoroughly examines every step required to make a great record, including understanding your artist, songwriting, arranging, producing vocals, mixing, and mastering. But he also does a great job throughout covering the indisputable reality that making records is a business, and to be a successful producer you must learn to balance the art of music with the ever present bottom line. Very educational. I highly recommend it.” ―Charles Dye, Grammy-winning engineer, mixer, and producer

“This updated, second edition of Music Production focuses on the topics of the role of music supervisors, new production techniques, and the updated terms being used in modern-day music contracts. It still includes many of the same valuable tips and tricks of the trade that the author focused on in the first edition (Scarecrow Press, 2006), but includes new information that will keep music producers up-to-date in today’s fast-changing industry. After an introduction and a chronology of the music recording industry, the work is broken down into three sections: Music Production; Recording Technology; and The Music Business. Music Production, the lengthiest of the sections, focuses on creative concepts, songwriting, arrangement and orchestration, mixing and mastering, music videos, and the production process. It concludes with two chapters on the history of popular music. Recording Technology provides two chapters on working in the studio and audio engineering. The final section, The Music Business, discusses marketing and promotion, creating a business plan and album production budget, and music contracts. The work concludes with a bibliography and an index. This well-researched volume touches on all aspect of the music production business and would be useful as a reference work in music libraries or a textbook in the classroom. It should be in all university music reference collections.” ―American Reference Books Annual