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Music producer: Not Your Everyday Job series

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Not Your Everyday Job Music Producer

Photo: Colin Sher

Name: Colin Sher

Age: 24

Job title: Freelance Music Producer and Studio Owner

First job: DJ

Education: Sound Engineering Diploma

Chloe: So, ‘producer’ always sounds like a mysterious title. What tasks do you actually complete in your line of work?

Colin: Day to day I do a variety of sound engineering and music production related jobs, which could be anything from creating music for a singer to recording vocals for a song, voice over recordings for adverts, recording bands or choirs, and also DJ mixes and sound design.

Chloe: That’s a pretty active itinerary. How about music videos, do you ever get involved in those?

Colin: Yes, sometimes. In fact, in my first music video that I was invited to be a part of I was given money and taken to the nearest clothes store to sort my style out as I had arrived in clothes that were not cool enough. On another video shoot one of the locations pulled out with short notice, so I ended up offering to have the scene shot at my parents’ house, where my mother ended up making all these rappers tea and biscuits.

Chloe: I can just imagine it. That’s great! Have you got any other music world anecdotes that are particularly memorable?

Colin: Another story is one of my clients asked me to drive him to a show one evening and I had said yes. Hours before, he asked what car I have, he googled it, then explained that he will be taking a cab as my car wasn’t cool enough!

Chloe: Ouch. Pretty harsh! It seems like you seem to be get caught off guard with this apparent cool vibe. How did you end up finding your way into the music scene?

Colin: After being a DJ for a few years I wanted to turn it into a career so studied sound engineering with the aim of furthering my DJ-ing. However, I

Not Your Everyday Job Music Producer

Photo: Chet Yeary II

picked up a passion for studio work and the DJ stuff took a back seat from there. A few years later I graduated and slowly started building my studio career.

Chloe: So, this wasn’t a longstanding ambition?

Colin: No, up until I was 18 I actually wanted to be a lawyer and was accepted into law school after high school but deferred my acceptance that year and the next year is when I decided to pursue music.

Chloe: Well, it’s certainly paying off for you. To finish, what’s your best piece of advice for students?

Colin: I know it sounds cheesy but people are always the best at things they enjoy. If you don’t have a real passion for what you are doing it is very hard to accomplish anything. If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life.

Featured photo: photologue_np / Flickr

Chloe WynneMusic producer: Not Your Everyday Job series

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  • john mikey - January 3, 2015 reply

    Music producer was make a different type of creative sounds. Which could be anything from creating music a single to recording sound for a song.

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