Teach 1 Tuesday

From Quincy to Metro: Why Producers Shape the Sound and the Business

• Toni King • Season 1 • Episode 49

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Great music doesn’t appear fully formed—it’s produced with intention. We pull back the curtain on what a producer actually does, from shaping a song’s identity to guiding performances, choosing when less is more, and making home-studio records feel like they came from a million-dollar room. Along the way, we compare eras and approaches—think Quincy Jones’ classic oversight next to Metro Boomin’s modern blueprint—and show how the core job stayed the same: make the music work.

We talk through the producer as architect and technician: setting the vision, building trust with artists, and translating emotion into arrangement, tone, and mix decisions that serve the lead vocal first. You’ll hear how Rick Rubin-style subtraction reveals truth, while Pharrell-level layers add movement without noise. We get tactical about DAWs, sampling, sound design, and mix priorities, with practical notes on what stays constant throughout the song and what appears in moments to keep listeners engaged. And we face the reality of today’s landscape: you may wear multiple hats—artist, producer, engineer—so fluency across roles is no longer optional.

The business side takes center stage too. We cover splits, credits, publishing, and the power of ownership in the streaming era, highlighting how producers build public brands and protect their catalogs. We explore how social media and streaming turned bedroom creators into cultural shapers, driving genre blending and widening the toolkit for discovery. Mastering services and intelligent plug-ins can speed up the workflow, but taste still wins—know when to tweak, when to trust your ears, and when to go back for a better take.

If this resonated, share it with a musician who needs the nudge, then subscribe for more deep dives into the art, business, and heart of making records. Drop a review with your toughest production challenge—we’ll tackle it in a future episode.



Youtube Channel: https://youtube.com/@thetonikingexperience7645


Rare Keys Production- https://rarekeysproduction.com


Toni King link: http://www.linktr.ee/toni.king


The Sonic Kingship Art: https://www.rhuffmusic.com/post/it-s-a-big-music-industry-so-where-do-i-fit-in


The Toni King Experience

SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome back, everyone. This is Teach One Tuesday. I am your host, Tony King. We're going to get into a great subject today, but before we do that, y'all know what it is, man. I'd like to get into that great theme music. Welcome back, everyone. Welcome back. I'm excited about the subject we're going to get into today. Um, welcome back to the Teach One Tuesday podcast where we break down the art, business, and heart of music. I'm your host, Tony King, and today we're diving into one of the most important but often misunderstood roles in music, the producer. Now, when I say producer, I'm not talking about the person pushing buttons in the studio, but I'm talking about the architect, the visionary, the glue that holds the song, the artists, and the entire vibe together. Now let's unpack the role of modern music producer and why it's more important now than ever before. All right. I want to circle back to this subject. I think it's very, very important. And just in case people don't know, I don't want to take it, I don't want to assume rather that everyone knows what the producer does. I know we're getting into production and we're getting into uh uh other things, a doll, and all that kind of stuff, but I want to circle back to the responsibilities of a producer. Now let's start from the beginning: the evolution of the producer, traditional roles, uh overseeing records, coaching artists, managing studio sessions, modern role, blend, blends engineer, arranger, songwriter, creative partner, sometimes even the label. All right, and some examples of those are Quincy Jones versus Metro Boom, uh Boomin', uh two different eras, same core job making the music work. And now let's dive into the producer versus the visionary, shaping sound and direction of the project, helping the artists discover their sonic identity, deciding when less is more or when to go big. Examples of that is Rick Rubin stripping things down, Pharrell adding layers of vibe and groove. And you know what? This is so important because you know, these are things that I think about and go through as well when I'm writing my music. There's so many decisions to be made, and and you have a vision, you know, for what you're trying to do. Um, and yes, even thinking about, you know, when less is more, when to add things, when to take things away. And it's the same thing as it pertains to the mixing and mastering space. Um, you know, what to what is going to be dominant? Of course, obviously the vocal is going to be dominant, the lead vocal, and then the uh background vocals when they come in, those little sparse vocal moments in there. But what is going to be the main foundation and what's going to be the things that you're going to hear every now and again to create interest uh as you are producing your music? So let's go on here. Producer as the technician, knowing the tools, dolls, mixing, sampling, sound design, create the sound palette of a track. Why a great producer makes a home studio sound like a million-dollar record. All these things uh we have to do today. It's not just one thing. I think, you know, having being able to have a doll, having all these um tools that we have at our home studios, you know, we're doing a lot of things ourselves, and we have to wear many different hats and have many different skills. Um I'll use myself as an example. Of course, I am an artist myself, a vocalist. I am also a pianist. I actually studied, not just um um play by ear, but I actually studied. And um I had to move into this space, the production space, and then eventually I had to move into the uh engineering space. So, you know, it it's it goes on and on and on, and um, this is just how things are today. I'm not saying it wasn't like that some time ago. Maybe the roles were more defined, but today we're doing everything ourselves. So I think it's a good idea to at least have some type of grasp or at least on the foundation or the basics of a particular area. And I think that the engineering space is one of those spaces where, you know, um you should at least know some basic things, you know, so that you can maybe possibly help your engineer create the sound sonically that you're going for. All right, so let's go on. Producer as a collaborator, building trust with the artist, balancing egos, emotions, and expectations, acting as both coach and cheerleader, the psychological, the psychology of pulling the best performance out of an artist. And you know what? This is very important. Um, there are times where you're gonna have to push the artist, you're gonna have to be honest with the artists and help them to get the best product. You want to make them feel comfortable, but you know, I think it's important to feel um comfortable yourself as the engineer and or uh and or producer to let artists know, like, you know, this is something that I think you should think about. Um, maybe we should go in this direction. Maybe you should, you know, suggesting certain things as we are recording, but just maintain the mindset of making them feel comfortable. Um, make sure that they don't make sure they don't feel, you know, um attacked emotionally because you want them to be comfortable, but you want them to get you want to get the best performance out of them. All right. So let's move on. Producer as business, as the business mind, negotiating splits, publishing, and credits, branding themselves as more than behind the scenes. Examples of examples of that is producers becoming artists in their own right, DJ Khaled, uh Calvin Harris, and Metro. The importance of ownership in the streaming era. And I think this is very, very important. Everything that I put out, my music, of course, I own, and um that's very, very important to me, and that my music and my stuff is protected. People can't just go and just take your stuff and just run off with it and do whatever they want to do with it. It's very important to think about that, especially when you're in rooms with people that you're helping, that you're especially if you're writing for someone, you're you're you're adding to their project lyrically or in different ways, make sure you're getting credit. Make sure all that stuff is talked about. You know, the business side is very, very important. I know we want to get in rooms and getting studios and we want to create and we want to go for it because it's fun, but you got to take care uh of those other things and make sure all that stuff is in place so that you're reaping the benefits of your work. You know, that's very, very important. Um, the producers' impact on modern music, how genres are blending because of producer influence, how TikTok, streaming, and social media have shifted the roles of producers, the move from uh industry gatekeeper to bedroom creator, which is fantastic to me, uh, why producers today often shape culture as much as artists. And I think this is very, very important. Um, let me start from the top of that. We're definitely blending a lot of a lot of uh uh genres today. There's, you know, you'll hear some pop things in country today. You'll hear uh you'll hear so much. You hear some country influence um and and uh different types of songs, you'll hear so much going on. I mean, we know that they differentiate between the genres, but you'll hear so much influence, and that's very, very important. I'm so glad today that we have social media because we're able to have more control uh over what we're doing, uh, the creativity, getting ourselves out there. It's not as easy because it's so saturated, the streaming, the the social media, but it is possible. So I'm glad that to be alive in this time to where we can really take things out of the hands of the gatekeepers uh and having to go to a studio and and having to go to someone to now we can create amazing music right at home. You can, you know, uh you can also call friends and people you meet to help you produce things. You don't have to go to a major cat, you know, uh produce uh a major guy and spend uh a lot of money, thousands of dollars, on producing. You can if you want. I think that's great. You found somebody that is amazing and you have the money to pay them, a top-notch guy, great, go for it. But you know, for those that may not have that, it's great that we can create this stuff right in our bedroom, you know, create our videos, create our social media. I mean, it's just it's just fantastic. And yes, not just the main guys are shaping culture today, it's people right at home that's just um putting in the time, creating content, and shaping, you know, the world in their own way, even if it starts out small, they're shaping the world in their own way with their music and their content and their creativity. So it's fantastic. It's a great time to be alive, all the technology that we have. We really have no excuse today. With all the loops, with all the technology that we have, they've even made mixing and mastering easier. I mean, you have mastering services, they have mastering services uh that you have to be careful with. You make sure you're, you know, you're you're getting with you're you're going with one that's really creating the sound that you want. I myself have I master, I mix and master with a lot of a lot of isotope uh plugins. And there's also a lander mastering plugin that I bought um that does a fantastic job, but I do tweak. I don't just throw it in there and hope for the best. I do tweak um uh these parameters and make sure I'm getting I'm getting the product that I want to get, and that's very, very, um, very, very important. And so um, you know, it's it's it's it's a great time to be alive. So uh at the end of the day, the role of the music producer is about transformation, taking raw ideas, raw vocals, raw emotion, and sculpting them into something the world can feel. Without producers, most of the music we love wouldn't exist today. If this episode gave you something to think about, make sure to share it with a fellow musician, artist, or producer who needs a reminder, who needs a reminder. And don't forget to subscribe to the Teach One Tuesday podcast so you never miss, and don't forget to subscribe to the Teach One Tuesday podcast so you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep creating, keep learning, and remember, great music doesn't just happen, it's produced. And before we go, family, do me a favor, uh, go check out what I'm doing on YouTube. I'm creating covers of some of my favorite songs, creating my own arrangements, and I'm creating rough mixes on there. So go check those out. Be sure to check out my blog, teach uh not teach one. That's my that's the that's what you're listening to, teach one. No, Sonic Kingship Art blog is my blog. Um, there'll be a link in the description for you, so you can check that out. Uh check out my blog, and um, I'm very excited to continue to serve you in this way, and um, we're gonna continue to do great things, man, so you guys can really continue to learn and grow. I want to thank you so much for checking this out. I hope you're having a wonderful day. If you're not having a wonderful day, you can change that by your mindset. Thanks so much, Tony King Out.