when i first produced anyone i wanted to provide for them what i didn’t feel i got for myself. in first recording experiences my perspective wasn’t respected. it was especially hurtful when other people decided what was the best version of something i did that they couldn’t do, or that they didn’t know much about. like people who do not speak french deciding which french thing is the best sounding french thing, and you are the only one who actually speaks it. a french person has a differently informed idea about the best french statement, no? so the first productions were also about wanting to make sure nobody was hurt. unfortunately it doesn’t make for good producing. just good feeding neediness.
and then sometimes i was hired to engineer under the guise of producing but that wasn’t producing, that was placing microphones and making a recording clean which is valuable but not what producing meant to me. then I started to tell people if they want to work with me it means we’re in a boat and i’m steering. if that upsets you then don’t work with me. fair warning. i want to arrange your music, add to it, etc etc.
time passes, i think about those first experiences and the feelings of being ripped off. like after you have kids and get older you think very differently about who your parents were in their 20s, 30s etc. you might even develop unexpected compassion but then again you could also say mon dieu! what type of assholes don’t realize how insulting and cruel it is for a whack of non french speakers to judge your fluent speaking french?