These days this situation is pretty common…
Artist A writes with writer/prodcuer B. A few days later producer B, instead of sending the artist just an acoustic guitar and vocal demo, sends artist A a fully produced demo. Sending artist A a fully produced demo makes the artist happy and more likely to actually release the song on a record.
Artist A then gets signed to a label and the label wants the artist to work with big huge successful writer/producer C.
The artist is excited and they bring all their demos to show producer C.
Producer C loves the song that artist A wrote with producer B.
Not only does producer C love the song, he also loves the “demo” rhythm guitar track, the main synth line, the kick drum and most of the bgvs.
So producer C calls up producer B and asks if he’ll send over the individual demo tracks to use as a reference as artist A and producer C are re-recording the song.
Now here’s the thing…It turns out producer C doesn’t just use those demo tracks for reference…Producer C actually uses some of those tracks (melodies, hooks and sounds that producer B created) on the NEW recording of the song.
The RIGHT thing would be this: Give producer B assistant production credit AND pay him for what are now master tracks and/or give him back-end percentage points.
But what usually happens is this: Producer B gets no credit whatsoever. Producer B gets little to no compensation up front for the master/recording side, and no back-end percentage points.
When I lay it out like that it’s easy to see that what usually happens isn’t what SHOULD happen.
You know in your gut what the right thing to do is. And it’s probably easy to say to yourself, yeah I would do the right thing if I were involved in a situation like that.
And you probably would…until it got difficult to do the right thing.
At some point doing the right thing in a situation like this is going to be painful.
Painful to your finances, painful to your ego, painful to your convenience.
It’s such a long slog up the mountain that once you’re there it’s common to want to finally “get mine” rather than “keep giving”.
Producer B gets screwed a lot right now, and has a legit reason to be upset.
But one day producer B is going to be big huge successful writer/producer C.
So start doing it the right way now. Get some practice with it. Set a precedent for you and the world in which you participate that you, when given the opportunity, will generously give credit, you will fairly compensate and be honest and heads up about who wrote the song and whose tracks are being used on the song.
The writer/producer world desperately needs this. Be considerate, be fair, be generous…and don’t forget to be, even what it’s hard.
…and I have a strange feeling that that will play a key role in anyone looking to move from producer B to wildly sought-after producer C status.
p.s. If you’re at producer B level right now and you’ve got the short end of the stick too many times to count…keep going. Keep collaborating. Keep showing up and doing great work no matter who you’re working with.
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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com