What's the difference between music production, mixing and engineering?

[Vincent Vega]

For example,

Appetite for Destruction was:

Produced by Mike Clink

Mixed by Michael Barbiero and Steve Thompson

What's the difference between production and mixing? And where does engineering come into it?

What does the producer do, and what do the mixers do exactly?

[James Bond]

Mixing refers to adjustment of the levels of the instruments, vocals, etc. For example, on Appetite Izzy's rhythm guitar is mixed to the left channel and Slash's mixed to the right channel. Slash's guitar comes in center and louder for the solos.

Production refers to the songs themselves. A producer is generally brought in as the final decision maker for the band. For example, Slash wants 10 guitar solos in Jungle but Axl says have none. The producer comes in and says "fine, we'll have 2 guitar solos" and makes the final call. They also might suggest adding/removing parts to the songs thus "producing" the music. Obviously that example didn't happen but it was the first thing that popped into my head.

The engineer is simply the operator of the recording process - the one who records the music. They do anything from simply setting up the microphones to controlling the soundboard where the signal is going (or analog tapes in the old days). The essentially put the recorded music together.

[Vincent Vega]

Mixing refers to adjustment of the levels of the instruments, vocals, etc. For example, on Appetite Izzy's rhythm guitar is mixed to the left channel and Slash's mixed to the right channel. Slash's guitar comes in center and louder for the solos.

Production refers to the songs themselves. A producer is generally brought in as the final decision maker for the band. For example, Slash wants 10 guitar solos in Jungle but Axl says have none. The producer comes in and says "fine, we'll have 2 guitar solos" and makes the final call. They also might suggest adding/removing parts to the songs thus "producing" the music. Obviously that example didn't happen but it was the first thing that popped into my head.

The engineer is simply the operator of the recording process - the one who records the music. They do anything from simply setting up the microphones to controlling the soundboard where the signal is going (or analog tapes in the old days). The essentially put the recorded music together.

Ok but who dictates exactly, for example, how raw a record sounds? How clear or muddy the sound is? That sort of stuff.

[James Bond]

Mixing refers to adjustment of the levels of the instruments, vocals, etc. For example, on Appetite Izzy's rhythm guitar is mixed to the left channel and Slash's mixed to the right channel. Slash's guitar comes in center and louder for the solos.

Production refers to the songs themselves. A producer is generally brought in as the final decision maker for the band. For example, Slash wants 10 guitar solos in Jungle but Axl says have none. The producer comes in and says "fine, we'll have 2 guitar solos" and makes the final call. They also might suggest adding/removing parts to the songs thus "producing" the music. Obviously that example didn't happen but it was the first thing that popped into my head.

The engineer is simply the operator of the recording process - the one who records the music. They do anything from simply setting up the microphones to controlling the soundboard where the signal is going (or analog tapes in the old days). The essentially put the recorded music together.

Ok but who dictates exactly, for example, how raw a record sounds? How clear or muddy the sound is? That sort of stuff.

Generally the producer. His job is pretty well to give the final say, which helps to prevent band disagreements. The engineer who's mixing the tracks will follow their instructions as to how dirty the bass is, how clear the guitars are, and so on. I shouldn't say that's strictly up to the producer though - the band will obviously have their say in how everything should sound. The producer oversees everything - similar to how a movie producer oversees the production of the film and chooses the director, sets the budget, and so forth. Slash might say "the guitars sound muddy - adjust the EQ and brighten them up" which will overall affect how the album sounds. A bunch of little things like that go into it.

The final step is mastering, which is simply setting the final/overall EQ. This stage helps ensure that the product will satisfy the sound quality needs of various systems. For example, they'll make they set an EQ that ensures the music sounds as loud/ballsy in a CD player as it does through headphones on an iPod.

An example would be burning a CD of random songs you downloaded off the internet - you'll notice some playback louder than others depending on the source. Mastering prevents this for an album at hand (so Jungle isn't louder than It's So Easy and so on).

[Zint]

Producers can also get far more involved..song arrangements,choral/orchestral arrangements etc.

Think strings on Beatles records..George Martin.

Bob Ezrin basically reinvented the original Alice Cooper band starting with Love It To Death...successfully at that.

[sweetness]

pretty sure the guy who produces Mark Knopflers solo albums also writes some of the songs with him and plays on the records, guess it depends who the artist is and whether or not egos are really an issue